fogged306 Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 So we've begun a 300zx 2+2 LS1 swap and I'm just looking for any input, suggestions that will make my life easier if I can get them. We will be going the route of cutting the firewall and have already removed the interior and are in the process of removing the engine and trans now. We're shooting for having the car done as soon as possible so we should have the drivetrain out and the hole cut in the firewall by this weekend at the latest. I do have a steel fabrication shop at my disposal and will fab up mounts if needed but would like to know if there are any pre-mades that will make our job easier. A little info on the car: It's a 90 2+2 N/A auto currently. It does have t-tops and do I want to tie the frame together to support the extra power we'll be making. As of right now, we will be leaving the stock rear-end in the car because it will be running street tires only anyway, so hopefully we should be good there. Basically the questions I have now would be to people who have done this swap firsthand and have some experience to share with me. I would like to know of any snags (if any) we'll will run into along the way. What you did for headers, how long the driveshaft has to be, how big to make the opening in the trans tunnel, measurements of motor mounts, ect.. Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. And we'll be sure to take pics and update the project along the way. P.S. .. I did search on here for quite a while for some hard data on this swap but haven't found anything that goes into good detail on the areas I'm fuzzy about. So far I've seen a few threads about mock-ups and making the swap work without cutting the firewall, but I'm looking for info on the firewall cut swap only. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris51881 Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 (edited) so far we stripped out the interior Edited May 27, 2009 by chris51881 adding more photos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cockerstar Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 Use the hoist and stands to place the motor where you want it and make mock up mounts from cardboard/card stalk that you will be able to transfer to steel. Once the engine is where you want it you'll be able to mock up a new fire wall as close as you can make it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators BRAAP Posted May 28, 2009 Administrators Share Posted May 28, 2009 Use the hoist and stands to place the motor where you want it and make mock up mounts from cardboard/card stalk that you will be able to transfer to steel.Once the engine is where you want it you'll be able to mock up a new fire wall as close as you can make it. Good advice. I know there are a few LSx Z-32's having seen pics and videos. Would be nice to have one documented here, so keep up the good work and keep us posted on your progress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris51881 Posted May 29, 2009 Share Posted May 29, 2009 today we got under the hood and removed a variety of parts. The front bumper and piece between the headlights came off too. here's a list of most of the parts that were removed: radiator and hoses, air box and intakes, electric fan, condenser, ac pump, all ac lines, power steering reservoir, power steering lines, fuel rail, injector plugs, and most of the harness plugs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dts300z Posted May 29, 2009 Share Posted May 29, 2009 Looking good! Keep it up! Just a suggestion on the engine mounts... I actually took a piece of angle iron and cut it to the width between the frame rails and marked the center, using that as a center line. I then found 2 common bolt holes in the block and drill the angle iron at these locations to find the exact center of the engine bay. Then I proceded to find the perfect engine height with the angle iron attached to the engine and tacked it in place after I leveled everything out and squared it up. This provided a rock solid position for the engine so I could then proceed to fab the mounts up. I actually got a little creative and used c-clamps to raise and lower each side to get it perfectly level side to side. Also this method allows you to build the mounts with loaded suspension to get a perfectly level placement front to back. Good luck with the swap guys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators BRAAP Posted May 29, 2009 Administrators Share Posted May 29, 2009 Looking good! Keep it up! Just a suggestion on the engine mounts... Good luck with the swap guys! I was hoping you'd chime in and help these guys out. Thank you Dan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fogged306 Posted May 29, 2009 Author Share Posted May 29, 2009 Looking good! Keep it up! Just a suggestion on the engine mounts... I actually took a piece of angle iron and cut it to the width between the frame rails and marked the center, using that as a center line. I then found 2 common bolt holes in the block and drill the angle iron at these locations to find the exact center of the engine bay. Then I proceded to find the perfect engine height with the angle iron attached to the engine and tacked it in place after I leveled everything out and squared it up. This provided a rock solid position for the engine so I could then proceed to fab the mounts up. I actually got a little creative and used c-clamps to raise and lower each side to get it perfectly level side to side. Also this method allows you to build the mounts with loaded suspension to get a perfectly level placement front to back. Good luck with the swap guys! Thanks. Thats what I'm looking for, keep an eye on this thread as often as you can, if you could. I know there are gonna be differences between the LS and the LT but the general idea will be the same and I'd love to have someone who's been there to give advice. I just saw your build thread and that will come in handy. I can definitely use that as a build reference. Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dts300z Posted May 31, 2009 Share Posted May 31, 2009 No problem thats what were here for!!! Keep up the good work... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zangiefisgod Posted May 31, 2009 Share Posted May 31, 2009 Fogged306, Glad to see more people doing this swap! I'm going for an LS1/t56 swap in my coupe and will be starting the teardown process here soon. Any hurdles to watch out for during the engine and under dash removal? Good luck! KC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris51881 Posted May 31, 2009 Share Posted May 31, 2009 (edited) Fogged306, Glad to see more people doing this swap! I'm going for an LS1/t56 swap in my coupe and will be starting the teardown process here soon. Any hurdles to watch out for during the engine and under dash removal? Good luck! KC pulling everything out of the dash isn't too bad. there's a lot of bolts. the evaporator lines have to be disconnected on the engine side of the firewall before you can get that box out and the heater lines have to be disconnected out there to get the heater box out. take the battery out to get at those lines. the heater lines are a little tougher to get at. there are 5 computers on the passenger side floor and one on the drivers side of the heater box. be careful when you take out the gauge cluster there are open contacts on the back. as far as what we've done with engine parts, there's trans fluid lines into the bottom of the radiator. the front bumper has to come off, remove the turn signals to access the 3 bolts holding the bumper to the fenders. fogged, feel free to add to any of this. Edited May 31, 2009 by chris51881 adding info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zangiefisgod Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 pulling everything out of the dash isn't too bad. there's a lot of bolts. the evaporator lines have to be disconnected on the engine side of the firewall before you can get that box out and the heater lines have to be disconnected out there to get the heater box out. take the battery out to get at those lines. the heater lines are a little tougher to get at. there are 5 computers on the passenger side floor and one on the drivers side of the heater box. be careful when you take out the gauge cluster there are open contacts on the back. as far as what we've done with engine parts, there's trans fluid lines into the bottom of the radiator. the front bumper has to come off, remove the turn signals to access the 3 bolts holding the bumper to the fenders. fogged, feel free to add to any of this. Thanks for the feedback! Couple other questions: 1. Do you plan on retaining the HVAC? I assumed both would need to be removed to clear the trans, but let me know if you guys find an alternative. 2. What are you guys planning on doing for the ECU / wiring harness? I've read that retaining the OEM guages is a challenge. Thanks for the help and keep it going!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr3 Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 I just started tearing the interior out. I didnt realize there were so many nuts and bolts everywhere. I got the dash out now I have to go a little deeper and get more out. I cant wait to get this thing going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fogged306 Posted June 2, 2009 Author Share Posted June 2, 2009 Thanks for the feedback! Couple other questions:1. Do you plan on retaining the HVAC? I assumed both would need to be removed to clear the trans, but let me know if you guys find an alternative. 2. What are you guys planning on doing for the ECU / wiring harness? I've read that retaining the OEM guages is a challenge. Thanks for the help and keep it going!! The stock HVAC unit won't fit if you do the swap the way we're doing it. The unit itself is pretty large and would be in the way of the bellhousing. I'm sure it is possible to retain full functions with the HVAC unit with some ingenuity and some fabrication. So far we haven't looked into the gauge issue. I have an electronics background (somewhat) so I'm going to try to integrate it on my own if we can't find any sort of harness. Short of that we'll probably just get new gauges. Other than that, I was thinking of removing as much of the stock ECU wiring as I can to make things cleaner and simplier down the road if/when there are issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dts300z Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 So far we haven't looked into the gauge issue. I have an electronics background (somewhat) so I'm going to try to integrate it on my own if we can't find any sort of harness. Short of that we'll probably just get new gauges. Other than that, I was thinking of removing as much of the stock ECU wiring as I can to make things cleaner and simplier down the road if/when there are issues. I posted the information below to help the other guys out with wiring in the factory gauges. I have retained the factory gauge cluster and all the factory functions minus a/c and power steering. I also built my car with the understanding that it will not be a daily driver. If you read my post above it tells you what harness you need to tie into to get the majority of the gauge's to work. You will need to run a wire in the new engine harness for the temp sensor for the factory gauge and tie into the accessory connector coming off the engine harness (located under the dash). The trim pots can be adjusted to dial in the tach but I would recomend a ERA (Electronic Ratio Adapter) for the speedo. Here is a link for the one I'm using http://www.abbott-tach.com/era.htm . The guy who posted the way he adjusted the trim pots to calibrate the speedo was TwinTurbo in this thread http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=110873 . Here is a great place to get all your wiring information on the Z http://www.300zx-twinturbo.com/cgi-bin/manual.cgi . Here is Firion 13's thread that also has alot of good information http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=125578 . If you look in my build thread here http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=141130 you will see how I constructed my mounts. Also there are lots of other good pictures that will be of great value to you guys in all of the above threads including this one. Hope that helps! Dan Also you can view the rest of that thread here http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=141356 and it has tons of useful information. I actually ended up using the ABS sensor to get my speedo working (it works great) since the TH350 transmission came with a mechanical speedo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris51881 Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 i appreciate all the help here. the links are great. thank you. we hit a few snags so we didn't get a whole lot done. (thanks new york winter salt). needless to say i broke a few bolts and a couple sockets. i tried to get all the exhaust off so we could get to the drive shaft. we left off tonight trying to get the steering column separated so we could pull the manifold out. the 3 bolts that hold the manifold to the downpipe are just not going to budge. i got the passenger side manifold out with them still connected but the steering is in the way on the drivers side. ill have some more pictures as soon as we get through all that. hopefully the next round will include the actual motor pull, we borrowed a cherry picker so we're good to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris51881 Posted June 5, 2009 Share Posted June 5, 2009 so we decided to just move the engine out instead of fooling around with the steering column. we got it half way out and the manifold slid out the bottom. what a mess of tranny fluid we had. good thing we had cardboard down. it soaked most of it up. on to the kitty litter!! we couldn't get the engine to tilt up to get the back of the transmission out so we took 2 of the 4 bolts out of the lift and it started to go until 1 of the bolts stripped out and let go. its a miracle that the other bolt held. the engine was dangling over the rack by 1 bolt. we got a longer piece of chain and connected to another bolt hole. almost lost the whole front end of the car. anyone trying to take out an engine on the 300 should take off the aluminum bumper that holds the running lights. we kept bumping the lift and the handle for the lift on there. it was just in the way. also, there's 3 plugs right behind the passenger side headlight that run to the alternator. better to disconnect those before you lift the engine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zangiefisgod Posted June 6, 2009 Share Posted June 6, 2009 Cool article... possibly one of the first?? http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=123551 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dts300z Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 lol... I know its not the ls1 swap but when you posted the above it reminded me of my first swap into my 300zx in 2003 and I found the old thread my friends started for me before I became a frequent user of the online forums. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=81696&highlight=lt1+300zx I actually remember seeing a sbc swap with turbo setup on it that inspired me to do mine... man I didn't realize how long ago that was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jonman Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Dang! Im glad i finally found something like this. I've been thinking of a swap like this my self, so i guess ill wait for yall to be done. Thanks for keeping us posted! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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