Newb 944S LS1 Conversion

Gutterboy wrote:Was watching a rear 944 suspension video on YouTube by van svenson I think from 9 years ago. He mentioned that coilovers use a spherical bushing vs a rubber bushing and that if you remove the torsion bar with those now all the load is through the coilover with no wear point. He did say some people have no problems but use caution.

Is there something super unique about the lower mount on the rear coilovers to the control arm with the ceikas?

My concern is wearing out that lower mount and destroying the lower control arms as they potentially ream out from all the stress being centered there with all the load weight taken up there in an abandoned torsion bar.

Irrelevant? If so how?
Ceika no doesn't elaborate on the how

Would love to know

I've been told over and over that you can't remove the torsion bars and use coilovers only. I have proven that wrong for years. Somebodies made up myth. I've personally had coilovers only for over 100,000 miles on my own car. And have built several track cars that had zero issues.

So after getting new fuel pump in and getting all lines hooked back up and testing it while having my quick connect undone and pouring into a bucket just in case there was leftover green premium in the lines..... Surprise there was after enough air pressure built in the line since tank has been dry for months. Also alot of particulate so when I get new fuel I will do a flush again before letting it be connected to fuel rails.

BTW Raymond did you know there is a rear 2 screw peak panel to be able to access the 120 degree formed hose and tighten those clamps as opposed to getting a much longer bolt to suspend the hanger strap lower to finalize connections? Came in handy for me and never noticed before.

Anyways, so started Raymondp's procedure on cv install and mine was a little different since transaxle with crossmember with trailing arms aren't all sitting on the ground as ir was in his post from quite some months ago.

Guide pins for first doing wheel side worked tremendous but one small detail he might want to edit that old post. If your installing cv's with transaxle in car guide pins for wheel side have to be 5 inches long not 7. Geometry is such that it won't ever work with guide pins that long. I had no issue at 5 inches long.

My problem is trying to get my transaxle side of the axle with the cv on it installed with the wheel side cv installed. It seems geometrically impossible to get the shaft of the axles which is the longest part with the circlip since for the cv to even think of getting in I have to pull the whole face of the cv back for it to slide past the cup plate on TA side. But with cv pulled back grease is exposed and it starts getting everywhere thus mucking up my clean mating surface. But then slide up a bit further and the end of the shaft of the axle hits the cup so I can't slide it in and that's not even counting the fact that the mating surface is muddied with grease at this point.

After staring at it for sometime I'm a little lost in this one other than the following idea.

Do I have to crack off all the transaxle to torque tube bolts so that it can potentially swing a bit just to get this cv installed and once shaft is inside the cup then all can be well again?

Seems like something has to give for the two to finally be able to mate together. And even then still gonna take a bit of a miracle to keep mating surface clean in whole endeavor once more room is magically made.

Kinda stuck here and I fear of it having to go even further than just undoing torque tube with possibly decoupling from torque tube shaft to get me more jiggle?

Would certainly be in line with the trend of 2 steps forward and 3 steps back on this project if I had to do that.....

Thanks in advance.

Gutterboy wrote:My problem is trying to get my transaxle side of the axle with the cv on it installed with the wheel side cv installed. It seems geometrically impossible to get the shaft of the axles which is the longest part with the circlip since for the cv to even think of getting in I have to pull the whole face of the cv back for it to slide past the cup plate on TA side. But with cv pulled back grease is exposed and it starts getting everywhere thus mucking up my clean mating surface. But then slide up a bit further and the end of the shaft of the axle hits the cup so I can't slide it in and that's not even counting the fact that the mating surface is muddied with grease at this point.

Gutterboy,

Check that the wheel axle stub/flange has been pushed into the housing as far as it will go. There should be enough lateral play so that the transmission side CV joint will clear the mounting flange of the transmission axle. I hope that's it. This is applicable on both sides. BTW...On the driver's side, remember to add your VSS ring.

Just thought of something else...

If your car is supported by the wheels (on blocks for example) the suspension will be somewhat compressed and the wheel axle stub flange and the transmission axle flange will be almost directly inline resulting in the shortest possible length between the two.

My car is on a lift supported at the jacking points so the entire rear crossmember is hanging as low as it can go.  This angle increases the distance between axle shaft flanges and the transmission so you have the clearance you need.

Got some time today as I am on a night shift later.

Was thinking about the problem more and I think your second point is the reason for my issue. I have done all my work with the car flat on the lift and wheels on.

So I think I have been partly fighting the suspension.

I noted your busted lug nut top warning so will definitely line wrench spacer then on torquing but I also added nord lock washers on top of the spacer washers for extra clamping force at no cost of thread cause for some reason my 12.9 Allen's are exactly the thickness of the nordlock longer than the triple squares. Odd.

Will jack from torsion bar and see if I get enough clearance to slide it in and keep mating surface clean.

Really don't see any other option/solution. Seems insane to be mucking around with undoing transaxle at bell housing for cv's.

So the answer wasn't solely in jacking it up but that was definitely a great starting point.

Noticed that jacking it up didn't change the geometry issue for the shaft to have more room on transaxle side. But then after staring at the suspension, it dawned on me thar the trailing arm couldn't relax to give me a bigger hypotenuse to play with and not muddy up my mating surface unless that strut mount was dropped. Did that and bingo. Nice to have the most difficult shaft in now and just need to torque up to spec with line wrench to not bust open lug nuts.

Then on goes oil cooler and then happily truck away at drivers side axle which has a tiny bit more room and I know the routine now so should be quite trivial!

Then put my raspy exhaust back together (now that I know before I've heard it for the first time lol), cut in a battery disconnect, mount ecu to floor, and compare existing map to base factory just to see what was changed with this surprise performance cam I got with the block.

Gonna do another fuel flush with new premium and maybe see if I can't slip my bottom of my bell housing off without removing frojt collector assembly of exhaust so I can verify throwout bearing operation with brake fluid in reservoir and bled. Also get final fittings for my fuel pressure gauge on the rail just cause why not.

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Great news!!

did the other driveshaft with its cv's.

raymond those guide pins were a lifesaver and saved many frustrations and probably swear words of trying to line that up perfect without mucking the mating surface. such a great experienced idea.

only thing i would as that if you don't tap the ends 100% perfect you can have a bit of wobble in them that is noticeable while threading in so probably good idea to give em a light convincing to eliminate the wobble and then check for center to center distance between the pins compared to the cv holes. i measured 73.5mm and after the first two unsuccessful lining up on to guid pins and then checking center to centers with some slight convincing to the one pin that was off it slipped on nice and easy.

also finished up my vss install but man the m8 x 1.25's would NOT thread in those holes. so i did quick tap to get it to that thread and boy did it ever cut some new thread in there. all good now. i also noticed that with your .03" measurement that is incredibly small. i ended up using a quarter that sits on the face of the sensor which also helped to make sure the face of the sensor was equally centered/levelled with the tangential plane of the top dead center of the reluctor wheel with the center of the sensor. after tightening i just pulled out the quarter and later i will do a rotation check with it jacked up to make sure it does not hit like you did.

just saw your latest post on fuel pump delivery rate for the 69458. well i already gambled on that one as well but i'm making less power than you with probably 385hp at best and i haven't seen any "thou shalt upgrade the fuel pump at all times for any LS or LT swap even if your just staying with all motor and no power adds with forced induction". i think everyone just uses factory which the 69458 is just that so unless Bob or someone else chimes in with a "thou shalt" i honestly think both of us will probably be just fine?
soon as you get into a turbo or a supercharger i can see that becoming an issue and would need the bigger holy grail one that i have seen references on but have now forgotten the number (looked it up a page back in my own thread, bosch 044).

installed a keyed killswitch for my negative on the battery for convenience of working and just looks nice. couple slips with the file so had to use the original touch up paint that came with the car that is still wet so figured might as well put it to use lol. i'll post some pics of it later.

i think i just have to mount the ECU, torque the cv's all around with the line wrench trick so i don't pop lug nuts, add fluids and do some final checks with fluids in and bleeding done and i should be good till i have people over for the first fire and roll on June 17th! Been a long time coming since the car originally grenaded in 2009. And still quite some time since i dropped the original block in january of 2020.

Xschop's axles he sold me finally have put in their home. So good to have that milestone done.

noticed in ray's recent thread he had the severe gear stuff which has additional friction modifiers for LSD. i do indeed have an LSD with oil cooler just like him so did i get the wrong 75W90? i'm only targeting for under 400hp so potentially not needed or should i try to bother to swap it with my amsoil supplier?

both GL-4 so any issues or big reason why i need to go severe gear?

Gutterboy,

You will be fine with regular AMSOIL Gear Oil (GL4). I decided at the last minute to use Severe Gear GL5 because of the extreme pressure formulation. Probably overkill....

AMSOIL says Severe Gear can also be used in applications that specify GL4. I also read that the 100% synthetic composition eliminates the concern over brass syncro degradation.

thanks for the note on the gear oil. Also big thanks for your oil cooler right up as found the mounting claw hooks and the coil brace mount but it didn't have the bushing so i made one out of fuel line and cut to fit and now i got it built just as it should be. much more solid now for sure. filled with gear oil and got all cv joints torqued to spec. One quick trick i found in lieu of Ray's line wrench trick to not bust open the end of lug nuts; my boxster wheels are too deep in the barrel to get a line wrench under the lug nut, so instead i just found some big lock washers and removed to lug nuts across from each other. Put the lock washer in and put the lug nut back on just so its snug to hold the wheel. Back the other 3 completely off and now with wheel still on the ground you can go on to torquing and not damage any lug nuts. when done put the 3 lug nuts you took off back on and then undo the two to remove the lock washer that should never stay in place. worked great for me. After that put the exhaust back on and dropped bottom half of bellhousing so i can verify it responds after i get brake fluid in the system and bleed the clutch. Back to the front for final cleanup!

did some vacuuming and put some things back after i put in a killswitch to preserve battery for when car is active and then stored for winter, and then put my fuel pressure gauge together. used a fuel rail to 1/8NPT adapter which worked marvelous to then just use basic fittings to the cheap glycol filled gauge. should work good as a sanity check on first fire in a week.

went to fill the reservoir and found my first leak. seems my 3rd port on the master cylinder that has a plug/bleeder screw wasn't seated right and cross threaded. took it all apart (alas, never fails to have to undo all the buttoning up i did thinking i had most of this cased) and rethreaded and vacuumed the tiny bit of shavings, put the bleeder back in all good. But then i discovered another goof. Looks for some reason after connecting my AN3 braided line from the end of the new clutch slave cylinder i didn't plug the other AN3 port on the top of the cylinder (or side facing the fender since the tilton sits that way when mounted). Well that would have made a terrible mess and would never have worked, not sure what planet i was on when i completely missed that. anyways will have to pick up a -3 plug to ensure i didn't push all my brake fluid into the corner of the fender lol. let's hope that's the only leak i find?

also put the nose panel back in, man those rubber inserts are real pesky to get situated into place.

once this distraction is settled, i'll move on to power steering fill and hunt for any leak there before getting to coolant and then it'll be on to some trivial cleanup to be ready for next saturday's first fire and hopefully roll!

Sounds like good progress to me!!

I'll be checking my hydraulic system for the same conditions! I just have one more brake assembly to install before testing the system.

One thing to check before adding coolant is the grounding of your temperature sensor(s). They are grounded through the head so if you happened to have used an abundance of thread sealant (or Teflon tape), the chances are you may not have a good ground.

A simple continuity test does the trick. Zero resistance is the target.

Gutterboy wrote:

also put the nose panel back in, man those rubber inserts are real pesky to get situated into place.

Soapy water does the trick. Or straight dishwashing liquid.

After putting a 3AN plug into the top port of the new clutch slave cylinder i put everything back together and filled the reservoir and no leaks. Borrowed the wife for using the remote bleeder for the first time and after several operations finally got fluid to start coming into catch bucket. I was thrilled, my wife thought i was crazy.
did a few more bleeds just to make sure no air bubbles and all fluid while re-topping up reservoir and then lifted the car up with wife in it and with bottom of my 2 piece bellhousing off got to verify the TOB operate.

what a splendid site to see that push in the fingers of the pressure plate and the pedal returns after operation! brought the car down and kicked the wife out and tried it myself and the feel is awesome. Getting that 7/8" modified tilton (not sure what is modified about it other than maybe using a porsche clutch slave pushrod for proper length to pedal?) from kent was such a good idea. To tell you the truth every single add on part i've been talked into buying on top of the basic conversion kit all made sense and glad i got it all. Would recommend to get all the extras like the fuel kit, ac kit, and radiator to anyone buying basic kit. For non 951's the radiator kit solves alot for a conversion.

bleed brakes, add power steering fluid, add coolant and time to finally clean up my workbench lol.

Went to begin adding power steering fluid and read the bottle before pouring and found this description on the label cutting vehicles that are 50's to 80's leading me to believe this is the old type F which doesn't have dexron 3 or something like that. Guessing I have the wrong stuff and need to get newer atf type F fluid?

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Gutterboy wrote: Guessing I have the wrong stuff and need to get newer atf type F fluid?

I have it on good authority (yes it was Bob   ) that Dextron III is the fluid to use.  Below is what I'm using:

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Got it at my local AutoZone for ~$10/Qt.

so my reading on the product that is easiest available to me says its full synthetic but dexron VI and Ford Mercon LV approved....

read up on history of dexron and apparently dexron VI was introduced in 2006 and its thinner than dexron III but more thermally stable friction durability. Sooooo not sure if that's ok or if i should just truly hunt a dexron III fluid?

pennzoil site for the product i'm looking at confirms the same thing with the following statement.

"European vehicles using Aisin Warner JWS 3324 grade ATF, General Motors DEXRON-VI/DEXRON-III/DEXRON-II/DEXRON ATF and as covered above."

just curious if there's knowledge from Bob or someone with a "DON"T DO THAT cause dexron VI is too thin and could cause issues" even though the backwards compatible nature of dexron VI is supposed to be ok in theory?

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unfortunately lucas products are a rather painful hunt if not impossible here in canada.

couldn't find any synthetic that was truly a dexron III, only dexron VI.

Just went with typical dexron III to stick with the generation of fluids the hydroboost would have used.

Gutterboy wrote:couldn't find any synthetic that was truly a dexron III, only dexron VI.

Just went with typical dexron III to stick with the generation of fluids the hydroboost would have used.

Honestly, I've run many different fluid types, trying to see what worked best. I never found any one that seemed better or worse than another. Ford uses Mercon V in their hydroboost. I use mostly dexron 3

Mobil 1 ATF is Dex III and not Dex VI. Dex VI is supposed to be backwards compatible, but that has proven to not be the case in some instances where the ATF is used in something other then an automatic transmission. The T56 being one example.

Well after sorting out all my brake leaks, finally got fluid bled to all 4 calipers again. Still a little soft and more bleeding to do but good enough to stop at residential speeds for first roll if all goes well.

I did keep track of first filll for dual pass rad taking 12L with more to add I bet as air gets out of coolant system.

Got my first gerry can of fuel for it so just a few odds and ends and checks and here we go. First time back to life since 2009 when the original 16V block went to pieces exciting.

This is truly exciting... and it's the moment that drives all the hard work over the years!

I am close behind you with one more wiring session to go.  I have yet to bleed the brakes or the clutch but I'm ready to give it run.

My last wiring harness session this past Thursday resulted in getting my custom relay/fuse block wired into the MS3 harness and connected to the necessary Porsche leads. It mounts with the relays horizontal in the same location as the factory Porsch PCM.  Just a couple more to go including the air/fuel ratio sensor, tach, and the VSS.

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< Custom 3D printed Relay/Fuse Block >

Oh...one more big thing...exhaust pipes would be nice.  Perhaps I can get just the extensions on past the header collectors so I can install the air/fuel ratio sensor.  I can just warn the neighbors on start day!!!

Be sure to capture your start-up on video if you can.   Personally, I would love to see and hear it!!  I suspect a lot of folks on the forum would enjoy it too.

I'm rooting for your success!

had a small hiccup after getting final checks done in the morning with no spark. checked 12V pin 1 on coil plug and nothing there. this is a pink wire on the ecu connector (i have extensions since my coils have been relocated which changes colors for some reason on extension only). after looking up my ls1 wiring guide i realized that the 12V switched power is probably one of the flying leads to these same pink wires (one for each bank). temporarily ran those to 12V battery (will find my switched wire to tap into that later) and bingo fired up right away!!! mainly cause i had so much priming on it not starting and in the process of figuring out the problem (2 hours).

one thing that was awesome was that during the cranking before success i was seeing 2.5/5 units on the dash for my oil pressure.

raymond send me a pm with your phone number and let me know if your on whatsapp or telegram; otherwise i can just text you the instagram link which doesn't require the instagram app to see the actual start up video. will also send the video of the borla exhaust. definitely some rasp but I LOVE IT! and boy is this comptetion cam ever gurgley! so many giggles and smiles yesterday. great pre-father's day event for me!

if anyone else wants to see the videos just hit me with a pm

now to use advanced search to see how i jumper out the low engine oil dummy light....

so didn't find on here in the forum so maybe this helps someone else in the future.

so thanks to a thread on rennlist with a quick google search, the same black 8 pin connector in the passenger footwell that you get your ecu white wire for the tach to go to has a yellow with white strip wire on the 8th pin that you need to ground to get this to go away. should be easy fix as this light goes off when resistance go to open circuit and with no sensor in the TPC oil pan anymore that's definitely the case.

by the way my tach works with no 10k or various types of resistance people us on that white wire so happy days here with everything working on the dash.... except the absence of this low engine oil light but not for long!!!! these last little things are gonna be fun to address.

need to get clutch pedal adjusted to liking, set brake pedal microswitch for it to actually make with pedal released. little things like that.

my fuel pressure seems stupid high at over 50psi and stoker don on youtube has seen all his rough idle and backfire issues disappear after adding a regulator. may need to go there....

Fuel pressure should be around 58 psi for these LS motors. The corvette filter/regulator most use is preset to 58 psi.

I had to install a proper aeromotive regulator because my walbro 255 pump was blowing past the corvette deal, reading close to 70psi.