Franky's new LS1 heart transplant

[Hooter]

Well finally work has begun on converting our old girl over to an LS1 with 4L60e auto trans.
The previous owner had already installed a 9 inch diff in it, so that was a bonus.
We applied to the Department of Transport here in Perth for conversion approval which came back positive....
They have a list of Engineers to consult with, which I have done, and you need to fill in a build sheet, with what mods you are doing. I think the big bonus was, no chassis mods or suspension mods required.
Our CA250 was the Aussie 202 / trimatic variant, which meant it uses the same mounts as HQ to WB Holden, and as LS1's are a common swap into these, this hopefully meant I could use just the HQ Tuff mounts for the engine, and a HQ / early Chev type rear pan sump.
Because of this, when I mounted the mounts to the LS1, it gave me a datum point to get all my measurements from before starting work.
So in a nutshell, I could see 3 or 4 concerns.
Would the new sump clear the steering rack???
Would there be enough room to run twin thermo fans on a HQ V8 308 type radiator ( rather than existing 6 cyl type)
How much floor to cut out, ( so that I would not have to cut of my left foot.....)
And finally how much to remove from tailshaft...

I could see the only way to do this (which I learnt from here) was to lift the body/chassis off of the front crossmember, and it was surprising how easy this was, which took me about 2 hours to roll the old 202 out.

Next, I lifted off the 202, and replaced it with the new.... only to find the first and only real problem.... yes the front of the sump sitting on the rack.
After some serious thinking of all possibilities, I decided to cut the sump.... ouch... luckily for me, we had another LS1 with the same sump about to be bolted on for a Landcruiser conversion, so I was able to get some measurements to see if it was possible without interfering with the windage tray, and I could see it was possible, so i then removed my sump and cut the front bottom off at 40ml down from the rail including gasket, and then refitted it and was happy with the results

I will finish this post here to see if my photos upload....

[Hooter]

Cool, here are the next coupla flicks showing the rack problem...
and the solution, which I will weld in a new flat piece of plate section....

[Hooter]

Now its time to have a quick look to see if its gunna fit....

Yes and it looks like my pre  floor cutting measurements are good ... so lets get cutting

And yes it fits.... just.... I will have to swap rocker covers side to side, to add oil etc

[Hooter]

here's how close the rocker covers are
I am hoping to resection the original cowling and reuse, hence doing the floor the way Ive done it

Next, another shot of the sump, and you can see how close the windage tray is...

The next photo shows how close the top bellhousing bolt is, and also how that web there is touching the floor.
I will cut that web out, and hopefully thats enough to clear the floor without modding that...

[Hooter]

Here's my floor sections sitting back in rough position, and it looks like I may have to take a little bit more out than planned... about 15ml each side, but the left foot room is still looking okay between steering column and cowl.

Shot 17 shows the original crossmember and original transmission mount, which perfect fit, but you can see I had to massage the 2 bottom extension housing bolts for the mount to fit. I cut a fair portion of the heads off with angle grinder, and hopefully left enough to be able to remove them if ever need be.

After trial fitting the tail shaft, it works out I need to shorten it by 110ml.
The Trimatic yoke is the same as the 4L60e.... gotta love GM hey???
Same yoke, mounts, crossmember, sump design, the Pommie engineers that designed these, and the Aussie guys that engineered the 202 to fit, must have known the future....

[Hooter]

Ok, the last installment for this Sunday morning is... also I forgot to mention, I started this conversion on Tuesday morning and have done it all after hours..... and hope to drive it out next weekend.

There's plenty of room under there for exhaust and even maybe electric power steer from a Holden Barina or Astra.

The sump clearance is spot on, except for front.

This is an LS1 engine, but I have fitted it with an LS2 waterpump, harmonic balancer, belt tensioner, and alternator bracket, which still fits the LS1 alternator, along with the top jockey wheel from a VF 6L Commodore which has electric power steering, and therefore no power steer pump, which requires a replacement jockey wheel.
This gives me an extra 40ml, to fit radiator and thermo fans, and the gap shown here is 6 inches or 150ml, which is plenty, not forgetting you have to get radiator hoses in there as well.

The final shot here is, showing that the Beddy is the perfect natural habitat for the LS1.

Now I have to go and pull it all out again, weld up the sump, tidy up all underneath, and the front suspension crossmember etc, etc..... 

[johnb44]

nice

[john]

nice transplant job there hooter, do transport dept require you to have a collapsible steering column and disc brakes on front wheels ? and thanks for describing the mods in such detail and with pictures.  john.   ps i have vz disc brakes on my 73 swb if you want a look

[Neofitou]

beautiful.

I've been dreaming of doing this quite a bit lately.

[baz]

Many thanks Hooter for your detailed description of the LS1 fit & the  great pics.  Your 'how to fix ' problems such as sump on rack, also much appreciated, similarly tips on elect steering. I'm sure all this will save me some costly knock backs by the engineer when it gets looked at next month.

Cheers,

baz