Red Headed Stepchild-75 Swinger LSX Swap

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Going to pickup the 8 1/4 3.55 suregrip rear end tonight so the rear end crisis has been averted. with the weather warming up it has also got me thinking of just getting it up and running with a new cam and stuff for now, driving it over the summer and get all the bugs worked out, and the next fall going turbo......decisions decisions. I hate having the car down during the summer. It's painful for me.
 
Got the rear end picked up today and put in place. Previous owner had a rather hilarious phrase on the rear cover. However it will not stay on there on my car.
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YoungDart75 said:
I'll be just over $12000 including purchasing the car, the entire Hotchkis tvs suspension and shocks, qa1 control arms, wheel and tire change and the entire LSX turbo swap. Budget fun is #1 for me, just hoping it all comes together and works out in the end.
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Well it looks like you're on your way. This is hot roding at it's best. Using what you have and what's affordable to you. I like the innovation.
 
this is one of those....NOW WTF is he up to....threads.

Gotta love the ingenuity.
 
Well luckily i had a fellow mopar friend around who had a spare set of rear shock plates that for the 8 1/4 and 3" axle housings and u bolts, and he dug em out and brought them over so I could finish the rear end swap. This is purely for a laugh, it looks fugly with the Lincoln Town car wheels on it don't it?
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My rear wheels are currently being used to test fit on Daves car right now, and could possibly be purchased by him tomorrow. Which would pave the way for me to pickup a set of 15 inch Jags SSR Spike wheels.
 
Well I agreed to sell my setup to Dave and I did, but by the time he got me the money for the wheels, someone else had already put a deposit down on the SSR wheels I was trying to purchase so now I'm stuck on some steelie rollers for now until taxes come back and I order the Jegs SS Spike wheels for myself. But the Navy also may be shipping me south soon to so I have to be ready to packup and move on short notice. So working on getting small things right now and prestaged so I can make another push once big navy makes up their minds.
 
JDMopar said:
Charleston? Or even further south!?
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Possibly from DC to Norfolk. Not too far but still far enough where u have to be ready to move all my stuff. I ended up selling that 8.8 and the spring perches last night too. Going to toss this 7 1/4 if someone doesn't come get it soon.
 
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Yep. Moving across the street, or 3K miles away.....you still gotta pack the same stuff! Good luck to you on the move, and your car is coming along nicely.
 
Being that I have this down time while my back is trying to heal and I'm waiting for this orders situation to play out, I've been rolling around the idea of twin GT35R's and twin 38mm wastegates on this thing too.... two of them at 8 psi should make plenty of power together. What do you guys think? not to mention bad ***. And with the smaller frame turbos they would make power sooner and allow me to run a little faster for auto-x road course type events.
 
Well i finally had a stroke of luck and found a GEN IV LS factory harness, ECU, and drive by wire gas pedal for a deal. I'm going to modify it all and make it a standalone harness exactly how I want it for my car.
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Didn't take too long to strip away all the loom and tape. Going to try in and get this knocked out prior to moving down to Norfolk in a few weeks.
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Had a good haul today at the pick n pull. Picked up a drive by wire throttle body, mass airflow sensor, fuse and relay box(with the cover), and a good 145 amp alternator. All the small things I was needing but didn't have. Fuse box should help simplify my wiring up of this thing.
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After spending the last two days going through wiring harness and reading schematics, i had to take a break from that and do something else so my fingertips could regain feeling.

So for my change of i decided to go ahead and so the cam swap. I picked uo this ls7 cam for $50 to swap out with my poor little old truck cam. It loses some torque down low but really comes alive after 3500. Dyno tested to add 69hp and 42ft lbs over the stock truck cam (on a 5.3 which shares the same cam as my stock one). So it was an easy choice to go with the ls7 cam for $50. Can't argue with less than a $1 per hp gain.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/ls-cam-test-comparison/amp/

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Old one out
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New one in.
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Well I pretty much have her buttoned up now. New MLS headgaskets are on and everything is torqued back down.
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So I told myself in the beginning I was just going to run the truck Intake to keep it cheap since all the aftermarket ones were out of my price ranger and usually $600-$1000 for just the intake. Butttt.......I came across this LSXR 102mm setup complete with hardware, fuel rails, injectors, and even the upgraded ls2 90mm throttle body(much bigger than the stock 78mm) for $600 as a complete setup. Then I sold my stock intake for $200 and purchased this, so it ended up costing me $400 in the end. Which is a hell of a deal for a $1000 Intake, a $250 fuel rail, and a $200 throttle body. I couldn't pass it up. So now here she is, and has much more hood clearance. Also the cam I chose gave me and extra 69hp and 42ft lbs over what I had, and this intake gave me an extra 40hp and 8 ft lbs. So over the stock motor I've jumped 109hp and 50ft lbs for a grand total of $450. I'll take that any day.
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YoungDart75 said:
So I told myself in the beginning I was just going to run the truck Intake to keep it cheap since all the aftermarket ones were out of my price ranger and usually $600-$1000 for just the intake. Butttt.......I came across this LSXR 102mm setup complete with hardware, fuel rails, injectors, and even the upgraded ls2 90mm throttle body(much bigger than the stock 78mm) for $600 as a complete setup. Then I sold my stock intake for $200 and purchased this, so it ended up costing me $400 in the end. Which is a hell of a deal for a $1000 Intake, a $250 fuel rail, and a $200 throttle body. I couldn't pass it up. So now here she is, and has much more hood clearance. Also the cam I chose gave me and extra 69hp and 42ft lbs over what I had, and this intake gave me an extra 40hp and 8 ft lbs. So over the stock motor I've jumped 109hp and 50ft lbs for a grand total of $450. I'll take that any day.
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When I quiz my wife about her shoe collection she always reminds me.....it does not matter how much you spend....what matters is how much you save.

Learn it....
Live it...
(works for hot rod parts too)
 
YoungDart75 said:
After spending the last two days going through wiring harness and reading schematics, i had to take a break from that and do something else so my fingertips could regain feeling.

So for my change of i decided to go ahead and so the cam swap. I picked uo this ls7 cam for $50 to swap out with my poor little old truck cam. It loses some torque down low but really comes alive after 3500. Dyno tested to add 69hp and 42ft lbs over the stock truck cam (on a 5.3 which shares the same cam as my stock one). So it was an easy choice to go with the ls7 cam for $50. Can't argue with less than a $1 per hp gain.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/ls-cam-test-comparison/amp/

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Old one out
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New one in.
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Sooooooooo you were able to swap out to the LS7 Cam and "NOT" touch the heads at all?? No Spring upgrade, etc???

69hp/42ftlbs - is a very nice jump from the oem Cam.
 
prican_2000 said:
Sooooooooo you were able to swap out to the LS7 Cam and "NOT" touch the heads at all?? No Spring upgrade, etc???

69hp/42ftlbs - is a very nice jump from the oem Cam.
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I swapped to the LS7, had to switch from a single bolt cam sprocket to the 3 bolt cam sprocket( about $25 for the sprocket and the 3 bolts new). Prior to putting the cam in I switched over to the PAC 1219 springs(allows up to a .625 lift cam), titanium retainers, new valve-stem seals on intake and exhaust sides, and I also added the Texas speed hardened pushrods in the process. Then I put some new GM MLS head gaskets and torqued everything back down.
 
HemiDenny said:
When I quiz my wife about her shoe collection she always reminds me.....it does not matter how much you spend....what matters is how much you save.

Learn it....
Live it...
(works for hot rod parts too)
Click to expand...

This is also my approach to buying hotrod parts too. If I got everything brand new that ive acquired for this project iw ould easily be thousands more than my list below.

Longblock GEN IV 4.8 = $250
Turbo manifolds = $80
Turbo 400 Trans = Free.99(received as payment for helping do an engine swap on someone elses truck)
8 1/4 3.55 Suregrip rear(rebuilt)= $200
valve springs/retainers/keepers/valve-stem seals/head gaskets = $188
Motor mounts = about $100 in materials
trans mount - $12
oil pan/-10 fittings/gasket-$228
TQ Converter(stock one for now to get it up an running) - $40
Intake manifold and ls2 tb - $400(after selling my stock intake)
Wiring harness/pedal/ecm(with $20 in fuses and relays) - $300
80lb fuel injectors - Free.99(gift from a buddy who I helped out in a pinch)

So far a grand total of about $1790, only big remaining parts I need to get here roadworthy are the cell/pump/lines, remote mount oil filter and a driveshaft. Not too bad for putting a motor that was never meant to be there, in there and get her running.
 
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Catch 22 on running this intake, gotta run the low profile valley cover hardware. Got that in yesterday.
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Also received my 80lb Injectors in the mail.
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And got just about all the harness done and rewrapped now too. Had to swap the camshaft position sensor pigtail out for the one that is actually on my motor. Still have to do one last test fit now that the new intake is on. Then extend the gas pedal wires into the cab, and the obd2 plug wires. Went from a giant stock fuse box full of fuses and relays, to only 4-20 amp fuses and 2 relays.
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Badass man. You are really flyin. Findin some smokin deals too. Way to go!
 
Thanks alot guys. Im gon a be moving on the 20th so I'm gon a try and not slow down too much. I've found some deals and my brother has found me a lot of deals too, and the injectors a buddy of mine gave me as a gift for helping him out in his time of need, so that was just a happy coincedence seeing as he upgraded and went bigger. I'm definitely ready to get this thing fired up and running. Going to be a whole lot different than the slant 6 for sure.
 
Here are a few back together pics. Rerouting some of the harness now since i had to go and switch Intakes. Still have to change the pigtail for the oil pressure sensor and the fuel Injectors since I have the ev6 style car Injectors and no longer have the ev1 style.
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