My 87 GN - Turbo LQ4 swap

[Black Power]

I started my swap from the 109 to LS power last year, and I've been slowly amassing parts for the swap and working on it as time allows.

Here are the specs:

Engine:
200k mile iron headed eBay LQ4 - $750 shipped
Aluminum 317 heads - $100
Truck wiring harness and front accessory drive - came with engine - $0
Dirty Dingo fuel pump spacer and idler relocation bracket - ~$130
LS1 fbody intake - $100
LS1 fbody water pump - $65
LS1 fbody steam tubes - ~$20

Hot stuff:
Garrett GT4202 75mm turbocharger - $550 shipped
5" mild downpipe (reduces to 3" after cutout) - ~$130
Downpipe vbands - ~$~50
Stock truck manifolds flipped backwards and down, flanges cut and welded - $0
2.5" mild steel crossover pipe (got way too much) - ~$140
Vbands for crossover - $50
T6 divided flange and gasket - $40
Wastegate is included on my exhaust housing

Cold stuff (yet to be bought):
Reusing Precision IC and most of the piping from the v6 - cost about $500 way back when
Aluminum piping, vbands, clamps, silicone hose - ~$100
No blowoff valve, it's a GN it'll be ok
Stock truck cable TB

Fuel system:
VMS fuel rails - $95
Mototron (either 60 or 80#) injectors - should be about $400
Walbro 400lph pump - $150
Pushlock feed (-8) and return (-6) - ~$40
Adjustable regulator - ~$100

Transmission:
Free TH350 that my dad had in his shop. It came from an old Chevelle. - $0
Free 2000 converter that was also in his shop. - $0
Stock driveshaft - $0

Mounts:
Moroso SBC solid mounts - $45
1" setback adapter plates - $35

Tuning:
Stock truck PCM that came with motor - $0
EFILive bought used - $650

I also bought the AC delete plate and cowl plate from buickgn.com, that stuff was like $180 shipped and got here almost before I clicked submit on the order. Wow. Looks amazing also, Mark you are awesome.

That's the majority of what I've got going so far. I'm going to reuse my fbody radiator and GN fan until it gives me reason to change it, I will still need stuff like throttle cable, gauges, etc. I have built all my bracing and hot side of the exhaust so far by myself (amateur welder) and I'm going to try to do the aluminum pipe if my MIG and some 100% argon will do the trick.

The worst things so far:
Cleaning this thing, it was filthy and greasy, so I've been taking my time trying to get it cleaned up well before I get the motor in for the final time.
Motor mounts would not line up for the life of me. I finally cut them down about 1/4" shorter and welded them back so they now fit.
Buying something from a website, then realizing 3 days later I needed more stuff, or other stuff from them.

This is pretty much a budget garage build, quite a bit of the cost of this stuff was taken care of by selling v6 stuff (turbo, dp, injectors, alky, scanmaster, etc) although I still have all of the factory stock stuff in case I ever get high on a bad batch of meth and decide to put it back to v6 factory stock.

I'll get pics soon.

 

[Black Power]

Sorry, I should have done thumbnails...lol. They will be in the next post, since they wouldn't show on this one.

Taken from a crappy camera on my phone. Intake is just sitting there for the heck of it, not bolted on because of the truck steam tubes.

 

[Black Power]

 

[m6speed]

are you rewiring the harness to be a stand alone?

 

[Black Power]

That's the plan. I haven't done much messing with the harness yet.

 

[pmoore4321]

I used to be very "anti-LS-in-a-GN", but I swear if my LC2 lets go......I'm doing the swap.

 

[Black Power]

I used to be very "anti-LS-in-a-GN", but I swear if my LC2 lets go......I'm doing the swap.

I was the same way until I went through 3 oil leaking, explosive 6 cylinders. My only regret is that it will not have the annoying buzzing sound. Other than that, I'm 100% pro-LS swap for these.

 

[KevinB]

Looks good!

 

[Black Power]

Thanks man. I spent a little bit of time in the shop tonight building the brace for the flange/passenger header since the turbo will sit on top of that pipe. Also killed one huge spider, which was nice.

Bonus points to anyone who can tell me what type of car is sitting in the garage on the other side of the GN.

 

[KevinB]

I used to be very "anti-LS-in-a-GN", but I swear if my LC2 lets go......I'm doing the swap.

I was one of the biggest haters of the swap a year ago. Now I'm the middle of doing it myself.

 

[Boostdeznuts]

The other car look like a 67 Chevelle

 

[Black Power]

The other car look like a 67 Chevelle

Very close. It is a 67, but it's a Buick GS400. I bought it the other day, it didn't run until I fixed the incorrect plug wiring on the distributor . Gotta put the interior together, patch a couple holes in the floor, and find a star wars air cleaner and it'll be in business.

 

[incharge]

man I like your budget plan I have consider the swap myself just nervous about all the custom fabricating , are you going to keep a/c in the car ??and how do you hook up all the gn,s interior power like the windws ,locks, gauges, ignition very nice build ..

 

[Black Power]

Thanks man. It's going slowly and it's not nearly as pretty as a lot of them out there, but it's going to work and run like crazy I hope. Plus it's kinda fun and not expensive! The fab work just takes a little bit of thinking, measuring, cutting, and cursing. Also I steal ideas from people who have done this stuff already.
No AC, there is absolutely no room for it due to how the engine mounts. Plus the turbo and piping is now where the AC was. The AC never worked in this car anyway, so no big loss to me. I have it stashed up in my attic. I was going to run a heater but now changed my mind, if it's cold outside I shouldn't be driving a high hp car on a MT tire anyway.

Interior power stuff is going to be just like factory, I'll use that part of the harness. Gauges will be fabricated at a later point, they aren't going to cut it with this setup.

 

[BoostedTtype]

Updates

 

[Black Power]

Sorry, I've been busy doing stuff at the house instead of working on the car. Here's what I've got:

80# injectors are here, fuel rails, fuel lines, regulator, th350 is in (going to a boneyard next week to pick up the correct cross member).

Downpipe and cutout are complete, just need paint or whatever coating. It goes from 5" to 4" to cutout, then down to 3" and goes into my pypes exhaust. I got under the car and cleaned off a thick layer of sludge, fixed the holes (from the driveshaft coming out and trying to pole vault me) in the floor pan, and painted. The motor is ready to go, I am going to run the iron heads for now until I get the 317's worked up. Then I'll do the cam swap as well, looking at about a 220/220 .550 lift 114 or so cam, very mild. Wiring harness has been modified (pushed the unused pins out of the red and blue clips, all I need to do is add the relays and fuse boxes (going to use the same way as the guy from lt1swap.com).

This thing can nickel and dime you to death. I need another couple hundred bucks worth of small stuff and some time to do it, I hope to have it running in September.

 

[BandAid]

This thing can nickel and dime you to death. I hope to have it running in September.

.................same here but 2013

 

[Black Power]

I got the GN fired off and idling today. I still need to clean her up and wrap the crossover pipes, but it sounds strong. I'll post pics and a vid soon.

 

[Black Power]

Here's how it sits as of right now. Still need to finish wrapping the wiring, hooking up some sort of VSS, and cleaning up the wiring inside the car (the pcm lays behind the radio), bending the throttle pedal bracket, etc. I drove it around the block and everything seemed to work ok. Glad it can finally pull itself!

 

[Black Power]

http://s42.photobucket.com/user/spr...-E5952D25B02B-12251-00001225FA4C8169.mp4.html