mobythevan

writeup link moved to first post

Went to the junkyard yesterday and picked up a two speed taurus fan for $15. That was one of the last pieces I need for the car. I am down to what I am calling the final three: 1. Exhaust system 2. Wire Megasquirt 3. Wire battery/starter/alternator That is about all that is left before starting and test driving. I still have to finish the gauges, but I will have megasquirt to read out everything critical except oil pressure. I will hook up an oil pressure gauge for the first few drives, then it looks like I will be going with a whole new set of autometer gauges. Oh, and the snafu this week, I was sent the wrong TV cable kit for LS1 and 700r4 combo. So another one is on its way. Pretty much have the Megasquirt wired and modded for 8 cylinder wasted spark. I need to buy some terminals today to finish connecting the battery and alternator wires. Also got my fuel filter and FPR mounted, but didn't get a pic of that yet. I am all but done with wiring megasquirt and starter/battery/alternator. BTW, I went ahead and installed one of those self excited regulators in my alternator. Down to exhaust now and then start trying to fire up:D Clearanced the hood for TB, intake pipe, radiator cap. Everything clears now. Intake pipe with air temp sensor for megasquirt. Fan is not mounted yet. Ever see an LS1 harness hacked off like this? :ohnoes:

I had to cut about 4 inches out of the support on the hood to clear the LS1 throttle body. I didn't get pictures of that yet. Also looks like I will need to cut a little to clear the radiator cap. That way the radiator sets high enough to hopefully make the belly pan install easier. Bending proportioning valve out of the way Had to hammer firewall for vacuum port clearance on LS1 intake Lip on firewall to close IMO, bent it a little Radiator first pass, got to add isolators now Vette slip yoke versus firebird slip yoke. Firebird is 1/2 inch longer(even though I messed the picture up, it is 1/2 inch), which looked worth swapping since I needed to put in a new u-joint anyway. So I used the firebird one and the driveshaft looks good to me, before it was marginal on whether it engaged into the tranny far enough. The extra half inch makes me feel better. And then the shifter saga, cut the tunnel and built a box like everyone else.

Just came in for lunch and encountered a few things this morning. The vacuum port on the rear of the LS1 intake does not clear the firewall without some hammer work. The drivers stock LS1 exhaust manifold clears everything with plenty of room, but the passenger one hits the firewall at the flange. This is in the rear mounting holes on the cradle. I plan to cut off both factory flanges and weld on new smaller ones. Also, the lip on the firewall virtually touches the LS1 intake, so I bent it up with a crescent wrench. I got pictures of all this, I will post them later. Other than that I just continue marching down the list. Hope to start wiring up the megasquirt tomorrow, but I may burn out and have to go do something else for the day. I will be using megasquirt for fuel and spark. Now they have new code to support the crank and cam sensors for wasted spark. I will be firing two coils at a time. The megasquirt will still run in batch mode firing alternating so half the injectors then the other half that way you can split the pressure drop on the rails. I'll probably set it up to fire injectors like 1,3,6,8 then 5,7,2,4 or something like that. My rx7 was a 5 spd so I didn't have the factory auto shifter or I would have tried to use it. But the Hammer looks like fun.

Got the engine and tranny installed tonight. Thought I would post this while I can remember the details. People said I would have to slot the holes on the LS1 flexplate to work with the 700r4 converter pattern of 298mm vs the 4L60E pattern of 300mm, but I didn't have to because the other set of bolt holes lined up perfect. I was just getting ready to slot it and put the flexplate on the converter again, whats this, the other hole pattern works. Engine went in smooth, having the right tools makes all the difference. I installed it by myself, nice and easy. Didn't bang the firewall or anything. Both bolts started easy in the cradle(just had to pull on the engine a little with one hand and start them with the other. Measured the tranny output shaft for center between the framerails, looked good. Drilled the holes and that was it, its all bolted in. There is pretty much only room for a knats a$$ between the pssgr head and the firewall. But it doesn't touch. I am very pleased with Granny's kit at this point. Not sure how my tranny dipstick is going to fit?? That was the biggest thing I saw tonight that could spell trouble. Also test fit the vette driveshaft. With the slip yoke slid all the way in, it looks like I have an inch of space on the rear flange. So that seems to confirm that a longer slip yoke would work. I will look at it more closely tomorrow and see what I think. I have a longer slip yoke, but it is 2 inches longer, so I'm pretty sure that won't work. The vette shaft as is may engage enough to be fine. Spacer for the 700r4

The flexplate did not make it in yet. Well it gave me time to go over everything twice this weekend. I attached the motor mount plates to the LS1. I had to drill a hole out bigger on one of the LS1 adapter plates because the GM motor mount would not line up with all three holes, hmmmm. I test fit the engine cradle to the engine out of the car. It fits, so I put the engine cradle in the car loosely. It took me two hours to get those two PS hard lines to connect with the cradle installed, what a pain those fittings are to get the threads started. Here is the quick list for the last weeks worth of work: Cleaned my engine, installed the walbro in tank pump, removed the mazda ECU and harness, put together my vette drivehsaft with conversion u-joint and granny's flange, blocked off the EGR and AIR holes on stock LS1 exhaust manifolds, removed intake manifold/starter/alternator, test fit my shortened serpetine belt, made an IAC blockoff plate, blocked off LS1 oil sender hole, test fit engine cradle, installed engine cradle in car, replaced the filter in the 700r4 and added a drain plug to the pan. Where is my FLEXPLATE???? Damn shippers. I am ready to see the engine setting in the car! It should be here tonight. (wife called while I was typing this and said the flexplate came in, ) Jack Stand Racing Cleaned and prepped LS1 Drain Plug Installed (yawn) Cradle installed with bolt loose Hammer Shifter

Hello purple power degreaser, goodbuy skin. Better wear gloves next time, but it works great for the engine bay. I got the exhaust, driveshaft and heat shields all removed. Removed the seats. Removed the clutch master. Cut the tunnel bumps out and cut the radiator steel out. I think I'm ready to install, but I'm still waiting on a flexplate. Hope it shows up this week so I can try installing the engine and tranny. I went ahead and purchased the C4 driveshaft to make life easier and save some money over shortening my firebird aluminum shaft. Oh, I also plugged the 3 holes in the power steering for now. Here are a couple more pics, this car was in really good condition. And yeah, I live way out in the country.

Ok, I have some updates. I got my kit in from Grant. Everything looks good. I am going to powerwash the engine bay and transmission tomorrow. Also got my adapter spacer for the 700r4 behind the LS1. The two biggest things I will be doing different on my swap from most people is using the 700r4 and Megasquirt ECU on the LS1. I know that will draw some flak, I read the old posts :ugh: . The problem is that to make the stock LS1 ecu work I need hptuners/MAF sensor/MAP sensor/IAC sensor (all missing on my engine). I am not familiar with it and that is a lot of money. I would not be happy with just a reprogram, I have become use to having a tuneable ECU and wideband on all my cars. The last part of my defense is that I have installed megasquirt on 7 cars now and I know it inside and out. That is worth a lot to me at this point, so megasquirt it is and I'll just have to take the flaming. That desicion right there knocks $700 off my build price. The total build of the car looks like it will $4000. This will be no AC, no PS, no Heater for now. I am targeting July 31st to hit the track. I've been through a few swaps so I think I have a pretty clean plan this time and I am willing to add PS,AC, heater and other misc stuff in a second phase over this winter. Parts I have on order: radiator radiator mounts TV cable kit for LS1 (from bowtie overdrives for the 700r4) walbro 255 in tank pump Battery relocation kit LS1 Lokar throttle cable LS1 flexplate (went ahead and bought one off ebay, hope its right) Bolts to cap power steering B&M hammer shifter Parts I have: 86 RX7 sport (I think) Megasquirt ECU and relay board adjustable FPR LS1 LS1 700r4 flexplate adapter spacer thing 700r4 swap kit and diff flange (just stick with NA diff to get going) The biggest time consuming things from my past experience will be the exhaust which I will just fab myself from aluminized mandrel pieces and shortening the aluminum driveshaft(waiting on the shop because there welder is down). The Megasquirt on the LS1 is a pretty big unknown because only a few people are running it and the code was just updated on June 12th to support the cam sensor input correctly. I always have the stock ECU to fall back on, just a more expensive and unknown option for me. Anyway, that is the first update, see where I get this week. I can't wait to drive this car after riding in Silicone_Boy's LS7 car.

I am copying my project thread that I started on another site over here because this is really my home. It may seem kind of weird that it shows up all the sudden with twenty some posts. I started this car build on June 7th, 2007. At first I swapped an LS1, but it ended up having a cracked block. All of that is documented here: NOTE: if pictures are missing or have watermark, then go look at the build thread on norotors please at this link: https://www.norotors.com/index.php?topic=5271.0 Photobucket screwed me and many other people by allowing free pic hosting and then changing over to subscription after several years. I put all my pics on norotors and fixed the build thread over there. The LS1 megasquirt write up is at this link, I had too many copies floating around. http://http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/56981-ls1-megasquirt-install/ _______________________________________________ I have been on hybridz for a while and seeing Scottie leave to build his RX7 got me thinking this direction. I picked up the car about a month ago and have been researching on this site. Thanks to Silicone_Boy I picked up the LS1 last weekend. I went ahead and ordered the kit from Grannys. Grant said all the parts are in stock so I am expecting the kit by the end of the week. I am going to put a 700r4 behind it to get started because I have one already and the aluminum driveshaft to go with it(from 89 firebird). Unless its extra pricey to get the aluminum driveshaft shortened. I checked with the local shop and they will shorten but I didn't talk about price yet. Here are a couple pics from the weekend:

I like that. I have mine in the lower camaro position, but that is not going to work with my turbo hot side piping. I'll have to try that position and see if it will clear in the RX7.

Mattsun, could you also add that to the map sharing sticky? Thanks

You refunded my money, it was just another bad luck event this summer. I hate to see the run of bad luck you had with both of your cars. The 5.3 engines are a great option when you end up with a cracked up LS1. And a 76mm turbo will make up for anything it is lacking.

The sticky titled "settings in jpeg format"

I remembered one more thing. When you put the alternator in the lower position on the 5.3 iron block you have to drill and tap for one of the bolt holes there. It might work without that bolt, but it was easy enough to tap the block for it.

Nice solution, everyone seems to be turning out some cool EDIS setups.

I run the 5.3 in my rx7. As mentioned I swapped the following parts from my broken LS1: oil pan, windage tray, pickup tube, harmonic dampner, intake, steam pipe, water pump, valve cover with shorter oil fill tube and placed the alternator in the lower mounting position. I think that was all, its been a few months since I did it. I think it works out to be a better replacement when your LS1 gets destroyed and your budget is low. In the RX7 hood clearance and oil pan clearance was incedibly tight, so maybe you can get away without swapping all those parts. That link didn't seem to work

You might have to make a new post so the title will grab someones attention. They probably won't notice the request in this thread.

OK, I made a first pass at cleaning up the thread. I deleted all the threads that do not contain MAPs or info (except MACK's, I sent him a PM to see if he has a MAP to share or not before I delete it). I copied info out of segmented answers and put it in the posts with the MAP. Also put a couple messages in Bold at the top. I did not break the thread into two for turbo and NA. We can see how this works and let me know if you think it is easier to read through. At this point I think someone looking for a MAP will have to look through all the available maps to find what they want. No matter how we break it up they will still have to look through all the posts (with the exception of making a turbo and NA thread). This was just a first pass. Hopefully no one gets upset that I deleted the fluff.

I'll try to clean that up this week.

If the meqasquirt got hot or possibly shorted like you describe then it might be best to find someone with a stimulator board and test out the MS box by itself. You could buy one and it might help with learning some more about megasquirt if you have time. The other choice would be to find someone near you and see if they are willing to swap their MS box into your car, but the stim board is what I would try.

just stumbled across this pic from the summer and remembered this thread had been going...

Good one. Save your money and buy a wideband

Yes, it will control fuel and ignition

Yeah, it sounds like a few simple problems which become complex if you try to solve them all at once. Like stated above: 1. Fix blowing fuses (If you can make a test run and not blow any fuses then that can be removed from the equation, no worry about injectors not being fired) 2. Fix the AFR gauge, recheck installation, conatact manufacturer, do whatever it takes to get that working. 3. Take a data log in megatune during your whole run, or at least climbing the hill where you have the problem (preferrably after the AFR is working so it will be in the log). If it was me I would forget about vacuum, just look at the MAP reading in KPA. See what it is when the key is on, but the engine is not running, that is ambient pressure. Then anytime in the log that you go above the ambient KPA you are getting boost from the turbo. Ideally at sea level it would be 100kpa for ambient. And yes, your turbo or tuned port manifold if you have one can build a couple pounds of boost early on, especially loaded when climbing a hill of any sort. In my talon when I am way out of the spooling range, but climbing a hill, it will build like 2 pounds of boost and just set there for a while until I get up in rpms then it continues climbing to the wastegate setting.

For anyone else that finds this post later on..... after looking at the pic of the stanza TPS it looks exactly the same as a 240sx TPS to me.