The Engine needs to come back out so the transmission tunnel can be hammered out more and the new transmission cross member can be fitted…
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So Saturday Afternoon Jamie and I went down to CT to pickup a new car.
Cosmetically it leaves so to be desired but mechanically and structurally it’s strong and sound. Not a single problem on the highway the whole way home, the engine pulls strong the 5-speed shifts smooth, it drives straight and smooth even at 80MPH, the brakes work great. No rust ont the undercarriage to speak of. It’s a fantastic platform for a build.
We’re registering the car in Jamie’s name and this will be a joint project between the two of us.
I’m sure most of you have seen this video:
if you haven’t… well watch it now
I’m looking for someone who can make up some stickers for me on the cheap…
I had an idea and I was inspired…
This was the result after spending 15 minutes capturing the perfect still frame and playing around with photoshop for a while:
I would love to have a dozen or two of these as stickers.
So Monday I finally got everything ready to drop the engine in: engine prepped, engine bay stripped, transmission tunnel hammered out, oil pan swapped, notched engine cross member installed, transmission installed on the engine,etc. The friends I had come over own a well respected local shop called [url=http://fujiispl.com/]Fujii SPL[/url], one of the guys we had here is from Japan and has at dozens of s-chassis engine swaps under his belt, at least 2 of them own swapped S13s.
engine bay cleared out
clutch lines installed and all unnecessary hardware removed
The torque wrench wasn’t working right so we had to use an old-school torque wrench to install the clutch hardware. Also the bolts for the the flywheel that I bought were the wrong size (and I somehow got 2 bags of those) we were also short 2 bell housing bolts… Aggravating. Thankfully the flywheel bolts from the original automatic flywheel worked on the new flywheel and we found some bolts that worked with the bell housing for the time being… placed those on the bottom so they can be swapped out later.
once the transmission was mounted up we set the clutch master in a vice and tested the lines for leaks… I didn’t want to have to pull the whole thing back out of the car to fix the lines if there was a problem. It was kind of ridiculous but it worked well and the lines held up beautifully
dropping in the engine:
Once the engine was in and we attempted to bold it up we ran into some major fitment issues. It’s sitting in the car right now but we’re going to have to pull it back out to figure out how to get everything to fit. We didn’t have time to test-fit the headers but a quick attempt showed that it wouldn’t be easy and I’m concerned about their fitment as well.
First thing we noticed was that the transmission cross member didn’t fit, we had major alignment issue with it but after we took out the mount and tried to bolt in the cross member alone (without it even touching the transmission) the bolt holes didn’t even line up… with the passenger side bolts lightly threaded in, this is what the driver’s side looked like:
The engine was IN and the mounts were bolted up and sitting flush the trans x-member was only bolted in on one side but sitting flush against the bottom of the car.
…but even still the engine sits slightly towards the passenger’s side, and it’s tilted slightly with the passenger’s side HIGHER than the driver’s side.
Checking the bottom we noticed that there seemed to be plenty of clearance of the driver’s side but the oil pan was actually rubbing on the x-member in 2 spots on the passenger’s side:
Also the hood clearance isn’t happening either: as you can see the hood wont even be close to clearing the throttle body, not to mention the engine is tilted with the front way higher than the rear, which I’m worried will cause issues with the drive shaft.
The alternator isn’t bolted on at the moment but it sits parallel with the throttle body and where it’s off to the side I would imagine there will be clearance issues with that also.
the S14 heater valve was removed before we put the engine in, but attempted to test fit showed that the engine is tilted far enough back that it passenger’s side rear coil pack will collide with the heater valve making it impossible to re-install. I’d considered trying to modify the system to use an in-cabin valve like the S13 but I’d rather not do that if I don’t have to, and there are plenty of people with S14s using the external valve (sikky’s kit even has you leave it on the firewall when doing the swap)
The Fujii SPL guys had some suggestions for modifying the kit for better fitment but if it came down to that I would rather have them fabricate completely custom mounts and not use the kit I bought at all.
It’s daft innovations “new” kit with CNC mounts, and a notched S14 cross member. the header I have are daft innovations as well (cnc bent) and I’m worried how they’ll fit.
I’ve sent an email to rich and hopefully he’ll get back to me soon so I can figure out what to do next.
We’ll likely be dropping the motor out the bottom next time which I’m hoping will allow us to install the headers off of the car and make everything go much more smoothly.
If anyone has any suggestions or advice, please let me know.
the only thing that went off without a hitch were the clutch and bleeder lines.. and I spec-ed out built those myself 
I saw this parked right next to the employee entrance at my work Friday afternoon.
I see this car daily, it’s owned by someone who works a my company, friday it apparently showed up with some extra power.
It’s a 2.5RS and I never paid it much mind since it got ding and dents all over it and it looks like it’s been through a few fender benders (which says to me it was owned by someone who just commuted it and didn’t care) kind of surprising to see this turn of events.
I’ve been watching eBay for a while looking for a Large format scanner for a project I’ve been getting ready for and finally picked up this used Mustek A3 USB. It can scan up to 11×17. New these go for $175 shipped on eBay but I managed to grab this one for less than half of that.
I’m fairly pleased so far…
More work got done over the weekend, Oil oil pan was pulled off.
GM apparently decided it was a good idea to rivet the gasket to the oil pan so those had to be drilled off.
Windage tray and the new oil pickup tube bolted right up
however now I’m stuck on this… this is the old dip-stick hole which needs to be plugged. On newer GM vehicles they tap it and use a 1/8 NPT pipe plug. Joe and I drove around to every store in Tilton and Lowes was the only place that sold the tap, no one sold the plug. so I ordered the plug off of ebay … after shipping I’m paying essentially $5 for a screw… waiting on that
old cross member was pulled out too, here it is next to the new one. you can see the cut out center cross section and the engine mount humps are at a different angle (the new one is a modified RB cross member).
the new cross member is back in the car but the steering rack isn’t bolted back in yet, I decided to order some steering rack bushings while it’s off so I’m waiting for those.
I also got into today a bracket for the Clutch Master. This thing is f-ing slick… I don’t know why I’m so excited about this little part but I am. I guess I just think it’s cool that a custom part designed by some random guy looks so pro, and it was dirt cheap too, $25 shipped. I got it from Rigid over on silviav8.
I got my long-tube headers in too, I didn’t get a chance to snap any picture of them though…
Nubs cut off the transmission.
KA Harness Rubber
New Gas Pedal and TAC Module
Pedal on the left is for a 05+ corvette and connects to the ECM directly, pedal on the right is for a 97-04 corvette and requires a throttle actuator control module (TAC) that connectos to the ECM and electronic throttle. I bought the 05 pedal first before realizing it wouldn’t work with my 99 vette ECM so I had to get a new pedal and a TAC module.
Installed a new Video unit in my Vehicross. I wanted a cheap video unit that fit well and allowed me to setup a backup camera as well as upgrade to navigation down the road and the Jensen VM9412 fit perfectly.
A minor update on the LS1 swap. I finished removing the LS1 engine harness as well as some other unnecessary stuff. I also got some new tools as well as a proper engine stand (though the motor isn’t up on it yet). The Fujii boys also stopped by briefly last weekend and pulled the starter motor, the Auto flywheel and the headders off… looks like a totally different motor now.
Next time I have a 2nd set of hands to help me I’ll throw it up on the stand (I don’t trust my ghetto-ass cherry picker to do it myself) then I can swap out the oil pan then drop it back down and throw on the new LS6 clutch… yummy
I also spent some time pulling off a bunch of unneeded brackets and other crap from the transmission and cleaned it up a bit while I was at it and mocked up the new transmission cross member.
My main attention now will be on the harness, I dumped all of the harnesses that I need to tie together into a big box and brought it into my office… looks kind of overwhelming.
Though spreading the KA harness out on the floor so you can see the whole thing all at once it doesn’t look so bad. Trimming off the KA bits will be the easy part… the hard part will be weeding through what is and isn’t needed on the LS1 harness.
