Engine Swap + Gen V

so my radiator has been leaking for a few weeks now. I finally decided last night when I got home from work 6:30 ish to remove it and go have it fixed. Started by draining the coolant and removing the front header. Innocent enough...

The car was already jacked up off the ground.



The coolant was drained.



The front header was off.


stopped at 10:30 last night, radiator is still in the car, but well... ummm.

So, you decided to go ahead with the engine swap a little earlier than scheduled.
Good Luck with it and can't wait to take a ride in it when it's all tuned.
Speaking of tuning after your done wrestling with your car I've got to get mine over there for some tuning.

Start with the intention of removing the radiator and pull the whole damn engine. I like that concept lol

Is it tricky at all to get to the bolts mating the tranny/engine? I've always pulled the two as one assembly.

You did damn good time on pulling the motor, 4 hours or so.
You'll have the new one in today and running.
Sorry i can't get over to help. I'm going to start my Rocker , valve spring and pulley swap today, probably finish tomorrow.
Taking it slow. Oh the pain of it all, but I can't wait any more and the weather here is great this weekend.

Ooo i have never seen anyone removing the whole engine to get the radiator out...

oka okay joking...

what are you going to do whit the engine?
change leaking gaskets sealings? clean/paint the engine?
port/polish anything?

I have a built engine w/ ZZP VS cam, head work, Gen V blower all assembled on my engine stand... should be in this afternoon but I won't have a radiator until wednesday. Cracked tank, $85 to get a new tank put on.

deekster_caddy wrote:

I have a built engine w/ ZZP VS cam, head work, Gen V blower all assembled on my engine stand... should be in this afternoon but I won't have a radiator until wednesday. Cracked tank, $85 to get a new tank put on.

WOW!

That is so cool, and should be a blast.

Bert

awsome deek! how difficult was it to remove the engine from the top? its been recomended that the engine be removed from the bottom. but since i dont have a lift...wheew thats not how im going to remove mine!

Derek,
How about some installed pic's.
How far along did you get today?

the 'backwards bolt' or 'bastard bolt' as it's known is really not that bad. Remove the bracket holding the pass. side transmission to engine, then you have a clear path from the pass. side wheel well, with a whole bunch of extensions just take it out like a normal bellhousing bolt. Don't make a big deal about it, except that you do need to remove the pass side wheel and inner wheel well plastic liner.

As far as top vs bottom - for just the transmission, it's easier to drop the cradle away from the trans, and drop the trans after supporting the engine. For just the engine it's easier to separate the two and remove the engine from the top. If you are replacing both do it from underneath.

On the donor car for my engine, I dropped the cradle, struts and engine and transmission to the floor, then lifted the car with my engine crane by the front bumper, and slid the whole shebang out through a wheel well. It was easy, but it was also a wrecked car and I didn't have to worry about it. I wouldn't recommend this for your 'good' car.

Today I got the necessary accessories swapped over - A/C brackets were a little different, ground the back of my alternator down a little to clear the GenV blower, exchanged the oil filter adapters (different angle than the donor GP), water outlets and alternator bracket, and got the belts routed through that front bracket, swapped my good idler pullies over, etc etc. Dropped the engine into the bay, most bellhousing bolts and the front motor mount in place, and that was all the time I had. I used the morning to run errands (drop off broken radiator, etc), and didn't really get started until 12:30 or so, and had to stop at 4:30, so I was happy to get the block dropped into place. Tomorrow is busy, so Monday night I'll do the bastard bolt and bracketry etc, headers, valve covers (new ones are painted blue, no thanks!), starter etc. I won't have the radiator back until Wednesday, but I'll have it ready to start as soon as I have the radiator.

Well I got the radiator back today. Had a little trouble after startup, wrong MAF table at first, then discovered a broken coolant elbow, then a bad hose clamp... but other than those minor things, it runs pretty good and just needs some tuning time!

Gen V and cam woohoo!!

Congrats, can't wait to hear it, see it and ride in it.

Good deal, I am sure you were glad to get her going.

I bet its a Hoss!

Bert

Glad to hear it's up and runnin. Great job, and good turn around time.

Thanks! The whole job was about 18 hours of labor, would have been less except for the little annoyances on reassembly. Good news also is I cured my header tick exhaust leak while it was apart.

I took a whole bunch of pictures, not a writeup, really more reference shots as it went on. Pasting a link to the photo gallery instead of individual pictures:

Photo Gallery

Signature picture!

deekster_caddy wrote:

Thanks! The whole job was about 18 hours of labor, would have been less except for the little annoyances on reassembly. Good news also is I cured my header tick exhaust leak while it was apart.

I took a whole bunch of pictures, not a writeup, really more reference shots as it went on. Pasting a link to the photo gallery instead of individual pictures:

Photo Gallery

Hey, can anybody tell me if the link to photos worked? Somebody told me it was asking for a password, and it shouldn't be...

thanks!

It works fine for me.

thanks

Sweet!


How does the car feel?

oldsman105 wrote:

Sweet!


How does the car feel?

It's totally different - just going to the N* throttle body makes a big difference, the throttle response is changed just from the throttle cable bracket/progressive throttle thingy being different. I haven't punched it yet, watching my tune first, want to be safe!!

SWEEEEEET! I can't wait to see a timeslip for that thing once its dialed in!


Were there headers that came one the wrecked GP? If they're not pacesetters and you're interested in selling them , shoot me a pm.

They are TOGs. I'm not sure if they are for sale yet. I am still cataloging all the leftover parts...

Gotcha. Just LMK if you wanna get rid of them.

thats a mans job for sure deek! im happy for you. my engine is going to be ordered a little later than i had planned...so..wow! big job! i bet that engine feels smooth...did you go overbore on the pistons? and if so is there extra tourque?