alainburon

I know some guys that have Mustangs and they have good motors but like you say, they are heavy. I don't think you will have the same performance out of a LS powered S30 than your 5.0.

Well sir, You are going to get a lot of different suggestions to this as there are a lot of different answers to that question. Bottom line it all depends on your personal preference as well as budget. If money is no object then what you are wanting to do should be fairly easy due to the low weight of the car. The other thing is what do you want to do with the car? You can go naturally aspirated, turbo, supercharger or Nitrous. Again it boils down to how much you are willing to spend as some of these parts can add up in a hurry especially if you want it to handle great too. You can easily do suspension and brakes put a stock LS1 with some Nitrous and get into the 10’s but if you want the engine not to mention other drivetrain components to last you may need to build it for the purpose you are intended to use it. My build is similar to what you are looking for. I wanted a car that would handle great and be faster than my previous car (C6 Z06). Running 10’s will do that for sure. Handling well and running 10’s is a little tricky since you can’t run wrinkle walls and handle at the same time therefore you need just enough traction and horsepower to avoid lighting the tires up every time you hit the gas. Like they say spinning is not winning. A lot of options and a lot of good builds on this site, just depends on how far you are willing to go. Good luck and look forward to see what route you decide to go.

Thanks, I don't blame you about the wheels. If you are paying for it then you should get what you want. If it's free then settling is ok. I know what you mean about the bill, I keep a running spreadheet on how much I have invested in my restoration so far for insurance purposes and I hate looking at the total. especially since I have roughly another 15 grand or so to go. Let me know when you get it on the road, I would ove to see it.

Yes sir, the chrome is not forgotten. Just ordered a CBM tensioner and they are having it chromed for me. It never ends.... I got some pictures of my car in the paint booth Friday. I hope they get some color on it soon. I have a lot of parts waiting for it. How is yours coming along?

That makes sense about the belt dancing around, possibly at higher rpm's. I will invest on a billet tensioner, hell what's another $100 or so at this stage. I sure don't want to see the aftermath of a belt coming off in this engine bay.

Good point, I think I will take Keith's advice and have a new bung welded in the proper spot. Sucks because I will have to send if off to be ceramic coated again.

I guess my thinking was that the motor is bolted to the transmission and the headers are bolted to the motor therefore they should not move independently from each other even under a load. Is that not the case?

I thought about that but I asked some of my LS buddies that go to the track regularly and they never had one give out on them. They told me to make sure I bought I new GM tensioner. What happened to yours? Did the spring break?

I thought about that but I did not want to mess up the ceramic coating. The sensor barely hits the bell houssing now so it's not too bad.

I heard back from Blake via email. Got the transmission fitment issue sorted. The O2 sensor still hits the bell housing but I can live with that.

Thanks, Not sure about the cleaning but I can imagine it is not going to be easy. This car will never see rain if I can help it and only comes out on sunny days so I hope it may just be some minor dust I have to clean. LOL, hey no sex with my baby.

Finally finished up with the wiring on the motor as well as getting the accessories installed.

I will try him on facebook as he is not returning my calls or answering my emails. Hopefully he knows why mine is different. That's odd, I have the same car as you with the JCI mounts as well. Maybe something got screwed up on the jig when he welded mine together.

I just tried to install my headers and I'm having problems with the driver's side. It is angled towards the transmission too much and I can't fit the transmission to the bell housing. Also the O2 sensor on the driver's side will hit the transmission as well, it should have been placed closer to 12:00. Has anyone had an issue like this?

Thanks, That last link helped, I should be getting the engine wiring wrapped up by the end of the week. Not my favorite thing to work on that's for sure. The good thing is that The Mast ECM allows me to use my factory gauges with the LS sending units so no need to have the extra sending units on the engine. Less wires and less things to break.

I think my alternator plug has 2 wires as well as the large wire that goes to the battery as you mentioned. I have seen some wire it to the starter instead of the battery as well. Any drawings would help, I'm not using LED bulbs, all factory bulbs is what I'm running.

Does anyone know how to wire the factory voltmeter and low charge warning light gauge to an LS1 alternator? I would like for the factory warning light to work as well as the voltmeter. My car is a 1978 280Z. Any help would be appreciated.

T56 transmissions are hard to come by but there are times where they do come up for sale on Craigslist or ebay. The motor package I ordered from Mast comes with their engine harness and ECM as well as all sensors needed.

That's right I recall him telling me that he is getting the transmission from Mast as well. I will PM you my contact info, I think you were going to meet up with Mike as well maybe we can all meet up since I live near Mike. Just received my tail lights this week as well. I had bought them on ebay a while back and sent them off to be restored. The pictures do not do them justice, they look brand new. Well worth the wait.

Thank you Dan, An LS2 260Z build should be nice, not too many of those around. LOL... I know what you mean about the wife complaining, my project has headed a direction it was not intended to go money wise but it is one of those things that I'm too far into it to change gears. As for the transmission I personally think the first thing to consider is the purpose or intended use of the car and secondly it is all about personal preference. If you are building a drag racer then I would go with an auto but if you are building a street car to have fun in on the weekends then I would go manual. The shim goes behind the slave cylinder. There needs to be a gap of .125" to .200" between the bearing and clutch. If you have less clearance you need to call the clutch manufacturer and discuss it with them as that could cause premature clutch wear but if you have more than .200” than a shim must be added to reduce the spacing. In my case I had .365" gap therefore I fitted a .0180" shim. I have attached a diagram showing where the measurements are taken. Hope that helps. Clutch.pdf

Got my motor from Mast. Very happy with the Dyno results. I could have gotten a few more hp but I asked Mast to build it for a 200hp shot of Nitrous, still 620hp NA is not bad. I was able to install the flywheel and clutch but could not fit the transmission because I need to add shims. I should be able to have it all together this weekend though depending on how hard I party on the 4th...... Dyno Results.pdf

That's a good looking car man. Awesome stance.

Can't wait to see your car all put together. It looks like you have a solid car to start with which is a big plus as rust means a lot of $$$$$$ to fix.

Thank you, The fiberglass flares I had on the car were installed a very long time ago (maybe 20 years ago) and came from Jim Cook Racing. I'm not sure if they are still around. Those are the ones on the painted car. The ones that are on there now are made out of steel, and they are the ones primered. The body shop basically heated the quarter panels and shaped them into flares then added the necessary metal to make them wide enough. We decided to go this route because when they took the rear quarter panels down to bare metal the fiberglass flares were starting to come loose from the metal as well as rust was developing under them. We figured making them out of steel would be more durable (even though 20 years is not bad) and don’t have to worry about disbonding issues. I just asked them to get as close to the fiberglass flares as possible when they started making the steel ones because I liked the shape they were. Hope that helps.

That's really good, who did the dyno for him?