Newb 944S LS1 Conversion

Lots of paints work well, I like the VHT satin black epoxy, tough and looks good. The rust stopping paints by dupli-color and others work well, just knock of any heavy rust, and spray right over the surface rust. Or just go natural like it is when you take it out.  

i don't know what your guys go to hardware store is for bolts and things like engine stands in the states but wow does our national store up here in Canada ever suck.

bought an engine stand which was supposed to be better than the other store princess auto and none of the damn arms reach any of the mounts on the block. Had to redrill three of the arms with new holes for it reach; and as for bolts the biggest they had was 75mm long and only grade 8.8 or whatever it is not 10.9.

And as another add to the PITA factor, my local specialty bolt supply store here only had 100mm and 120mm since i bought that bracket on ebay that 87-944s graciously gave me the link for. Special ordering 110mm was $8 a peice plus taxes, so i just bought the 120mm and a bunch of washers, kind of ghetto for mounting the a/c compressor on two of the bolts but whatever.  

Tried to look for that bracket at a few wreckers and it sounds like it's just as hard to find that as it was to find my engine block where i live. People just either don't have camaro's and firebirds of the right years or they just never get crashed up.

By the way, i found a gem in a random google search for more engine info on ls2.com; it's a download link for ls1 engines. Super handy, it's how i was able to find the exact bolts i need for the a/c compressor and bracket; this will probably save me from hounding you guys for a lot of ls1 engine questions and it's likely already posted on another thread in this forum, but might as well keep adding to the info build on this thread.

ls1 engine manuals

still waiting for some limit order sells on the stock market to go through so i can buy xschop goodies and my conversion kit next. Damn you endless economy recovery, when will you finally get there!

Gonna take a pic of the engine on the stand for my new desktop background to keep motivation high!

 

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Gutterboy wrote:so you just pour soapy water down the tube before you start the threading?
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Yup.  Here's a pic of the set up I used.  Get ready to work up a sweat.  Also before you start yanking make sure you measure the locations of the bearings first.

EDIT: Don't forget to measure the length the driveshaft sticks out of the torque tube. That's really important.

The insert fits tight inside the tube and pulls on the bearings.[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]And finally all the bearings out

You had mentioned working up a sweat but wouldn't that all be avoided with an impact and a wrench? I hear you on the initial shaft measurement. That would be a bad thing to not record.

Speaking of which my biggest fear at reassembly is the really fine tolerance on torque tube alignment within bellhousing. Sloan's book shows 49mm +-. 5mm that is an extremely tight tolerance to get within and I can't sleep at night doing that myself and being off spec and possibly destroying my new used 951 transaxle. Or is sloan's spec wrong? Thoughts?

On another note I think won't truly get the nature of the rod stays in my place while the insert threads through to the end with the bearings till I get the materials and get ready to overhaul it. What was your insert made of from Clarks garage it looked like a big socket would work?

Additionally although recording the original bearing spacing is ideal assuming a tape measure fits in the tube through each bearing hole; wouldn't equil spacings between the four in the tube achieve the same required balance and support?

Hoping the tape fits in the holes of the bearings for final super bearing placement.

When I did mine, I used an electric impact. No manual labor req'd haha. Take the shaft measurements as mentioned and record.

When you re-install; you install the engine without the flywheel / pressure plate / clutch to check to see if the torque tube tip is fully inserted in the pilot bearing. If it is not, you can move the shaft from the back of the transaxle forward with a bar till it's fully inserted. I think that 49mm is the actual porshce spec. which may or may not apply anymore depending on your setup. If you have to move the shaft forward to insert it further in the pilot bearing, you may have to re-drill the shaft for the coupler pinch bolt.

I used 6 bearings in mine and I spaced them equally. I had two torque tubes and I figured what the heck; I'm using 6.

I don't know if equalling the spacing of the bearings would be ok. Probably, but thats guessing.  The easy way to measure is to slide in a thin rod from either end using it as a reference and measuring that.  As far as the other measurement there are two issues. First is the correct insertion into the pilot bearing, which is why you need to measure the location of the shaft inside the torque tube and bear in mind even then it may have shifted when it was removed from the car. So verify that for sure, and I don't have that measurement handy but i'll dig through my paperwork and see if I can find it.  Getting the shaft centred in the pilot bearing is real important but it should self centre if at first you snug up all the nuts and bolts and once in place loosen them all once the shaft is inserted into the back of the crankshaft and turn the shaft a few rotations and then torque the fasteners down to spec.  I measured run out of the shaft with a dial indicator before I rebuilt it and it really seemed to have a wobble in it so when it was apart took it to a balancing shop where they spun it and said it was perfectly fine and that wobble was acceptable and I guess that because it's such a long piece of steel that it does have flex. But what do I know since I haven't run the car yet and it might vibrate like hell and I'll have to take it all part again.  As far as pulling the bearings, the reason I went to that insert was the first try didn't work and the bearings went on their sides and bound up inside the tube., so I cut a slice of a pipe and welded a back on it.  I used a 1/3 hp DewaLt with gear reduction and it pulled the first two bearings but once it hit the third the drill stalled and I had to manually wrench it, and when it got to the forth bearing I had to put a length of pipe on the wrench to get leverage. It was a work out.

While I was staring at the block to see how my new ebay a/c bracket would mount up and how many various o rings came with the rock auto compressor kit which I have no idea where any these go (more reading required obviously) ; i noticed a bit of oil seepage on the harmonic balancer that has now dripped onto the floor. Any idea what this small oil sweat could be indicative of in terms of a major problem in the future? Or is it just a seal that ain't the greatest that will give me an oil drip forever?

Something tells it's recommended to pull the balancer off and replace a seal or something and then do that 140 degrees past n ft lbs on the balancer bolt to put it back together? Thoughts?

so after getting rid of all the garage sale junk and cleaning my garage and putting tools away, getting a little 240V heater and tarps, starting the car and blowing up the engine to turn it around the right way in the garage, and getting all of the first round of parts;

i finally started work on the block. dropped the oil and oil pan and examined the old gasket and found a tear. ordered my new one and got this one that some warehouse guy decided to fold it in half.

any ideas if this will be a problem? the metal frame of the gasket is quite maleable, thinking of just living with it and squeezing it back to straight with a vice with soft jaws and then using "the right stuff" rtv sealant on both sides and bolt it up and call it a day. thoughts?

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I'd get it replaced, no reason to accept that, and it's a pain to replace if it leaks!

Hello, new member here looking for info for my 924s na ls1 swap. This is some really valuable info that has helped me get started in the right direction. Looking forward to the rest of the project!

so after the delay of christmas holidays and such i finally get my rma'ed part for the fubar'ed oil pan gasket only to receive this!

it's not kinked but it sure is morphed into an obscene shape that seems to be a bit of a gamble on whether it would leak in the future or not. i have my reservations on the bolts tightening this gasket back into shape not to mention the PITA factor of putting RTV gasket sealant on this stupid shaped gasket and making a mess with squishing it down into shape. Sounds like a job that was going to be easy that could go terribly wrong.

Wouldn't mind some second opinions on whether i should even bother applying some careful elbow grease to this gasket or just start the 2nd RMA. Even though it's stupid cold to be working in my barely heated sectionalized garage (dividing tarps and 240v 5000W heater) i'd rather bear the elements and make progress than deal with this RMA BS.

Frustrating beyond belief should have paid the extra $25 dollars and donated to the local economy instead of dealing with this garbage. For the life of me i can't understand how part gets this messed up when packed in a proper box this time. UUUUGGHHH! (Irish temper)

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Get another one.

go to the chevy dealer and get it from them. they will either have it in stock or order one for u. and pick it up from them and it wont be distorted in any way.

ROCKAUTO!
Never gotten anything messed up from them, Only orders that have been messed up were from me ordering the wrong part!    

yeah, eric i took your advice on rock auto when i got my a/c compressor kit with drier and a half dozen seals that i have no idea where they go. good price and everything came as expected.

this time round i tried to dodge the local gougers as well as the duty from buying rock auto parts by snagging a black friday deal from a local online canadian parts dealer and now i am stuck in RMA land for the second time. buyer beware of autopartsway.ca for anything that can be easily bent or crushed for any other canadians; but at least the RMA process works smooth always get an email response within a couple hours.

Sorry , totally forgot about you being in Canada and Rockauto not being there!  

Gonna move on to pulling the motor while i wait for the legacy of this 2nd RMA for my new oil pan gasket to be resolved.

As I am about to put the car almost two feet in the air, i thought i'd ask those who have been through the fifty some step procedure as outlined in clark's garage page for engine removal about whether it's easiest to do most of the steps while the car is still on the ground or if it saves one back more to put the car at the proper height and perform all the steps of the removal like that (or perhaps a third answer of jack the car after step xx out of yy in clark's garage procedure)?

Obviously the car has to be at that height for the final steps of engine removal out the bottom but figured a quick post could either save my back or save me grief from doing it the hard way when i have an invalid assumption on what looks easiest.

Thanks in advance to those who have already done this and reply with the answer.

any thoughts on what's the right way to remove the motor?

on the wheels till just before you pull it out the bottom

or

jack it up two feet and do all work from that height which is what you need in the end for dropping it out the bottom

Although it will come out from the top Porsche designed it to come out from the bottom and I personally think that is the easiest way.  Once you get everything disconnected you can just block the motor from underneath, remove the 4 crossmember bolts, and then jack/lift the car off of the motor.

weather was half decent awhile ago so i decided to take the opportunity with the wife and kid gone for the weekend to retarp the working area part of my garage and pay my utility some extra money to heat my workspace with my 240V space heater.

started rolling through the steps on removing the old block while i STILL don't have my oil pan gasket (ridiculous how long it's taking to resolve this RMA crisis). mucked with the dme under the glovebox once before when i changed the chip with the old motor so that wasn't new to me but pulling out the dme wires through the firewall into the engine bay was new to me. I thought i had followed the steps on making sure everything was disconnected before i went to pull it through but low and behold i couldn't see this one from the angle of acrobatics i was doing in the passenger seat to disconnect the plug on the DME. Had i tried to break my back to find this black plug next to the firewall in the picture it would have most likely been significantly easier to pull this through the firewall.

I only hope this helps someone else as per the picture below.

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i saved a little time on the airbox since i had changed it to an aftermarket setup with a k&n on the old block so now it's time to lose the front wheels and jack it up to the first height for coolant system drain and removal. hope to have the block out by the end of the month for a friend's coffee table project. i'll post pics of that as well when the time comes.

Remember to save the rubber engine harness boot for your LS harness.

thanks for the hint technoduck and congrats on your build even though you didn't get to break it in as much you wanted this weekend.
it's a good thread you have there, i have gleaned a great deal from it and will probably always keep a mental bookmark on it for the course of my build.

also as a rule of thumb, other than the block itself which is destined to be a coffee table, i'll be hoarding 944 demo parts till the end after seeing multiple threads of people accidentally throwing parts away that are supposed to be re-used in a 948 build.

Obviously life got in the way and have not been diligent in keeping up the thread. 

But I need some serious help as after a discussion with Kent, my 4130 chromoly shafts and billet mount with polyurethane bushings as well as competition cam would most likely put my 944 turbo transaxle LSD as the first potential fail point once this thing lives again. Out of fear of destroying my transaxle I decided to drop it out again and take it apart to put the plate in. 
Well a solid 5 hours of fighting and I got the damn thing out again thanks to a sheared off shift carrier bolt that I had to drill out which now have to fix that but thankfully I kept spare linkage from my old 944s transmission just have to make a new oversized tapered bolt to match a spare I have to measure from. 

Anyways got the transaxle upside down as Kent's guide has shown and took of the rubber seal only to reveal a metal cap with no bolt. After staring at it for quite awhile realized I had to pry that cap off and not just scrape of the rubber (needless to say the seal is toast now, not the first thing I have wrecked while I learn by doing). 
So cap is off and it says to remove 17mm bolt. I don't have that, I have a 12mm triple square. Tried to snipe it off with screwdrivers wedged in cv takeoffs to pin them while in gear and nada. Check the spec and it says 50nm on the 17mm bolt, so about 30ft lbs. My snipe should have definitely cracked this off. Guide says to use impact, used my cordless with the triple square and nothing.

Transmissions/transaxles are the one thing I know nothing about and hence extremely timid about screwing something up on a special transaxle no one up here in Canada knows how to fix. 

My question is this, is my cordless makita 18v impact just simply not enough jam to break this 12mm triple square and it needs a heavier duty one to shock it loose? Super nervous on wrecking something as I already trashed a seal. Gotta find one of those now. I'll try my Quebec parts guy before the usual st 944online or pelican or rock auto.

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TIA for any help or guidance.