JP's LS1 Conversion

Awesome work on body panels! Any chance you can pm me some more pics of crossmember to header clearance on the passenger side once you get the motor in? Would be greatly appreciated as ur further along than I am.

Thanks! Although most of the credit has to go to my buddy Dan Jauch. He did all the filler and paint, but I did do quite a bit of sanding!

Happy to take some photos of passenger side header clearance. I should be working on it again this weekend.

Today after prepping many odds and ends, measuring, measuring and measuring, the engine is in! We would have gotten farther today, but we spent quite a few hours chasing a few missing parts and aligning the clutch slave cylinder. Both the bellhousing to pressure plate fingers AND the slave bearing face to torque tube adapter were measuring 2 6/16". So obviously something was off, as the slave/torque tube measurement should be .175 to .225" LESS than the bellhousing measurement. Anyway, after some grinding, and frankensteining of two different slave cylinders, we got the proper 1/8" clearance between the slave and clutch fingers.


Here was today's stack of parts for install, and the first attempt at the slave cylinder install. I don't have a photo of where we ended up, but I'm sure glad we took the time to measure, even though this particular setup was used on my last engine!

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Here's a shot of the pilot bearing adapter and 944 pilot bearing properly seated into the crank, as well as the SPEC flywheel and ARP hardware. As you can see, my buddies and I had some fun signing the pressure plate. The joke is clearly around how often I have to take my engine out

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Engine in...finally!

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Also, here are the images of the header to crossmember clearance on the passenger side. Hope these help!
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Also, one image of the drivers side.
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Looks like it all fits in there pretty nice! Looked to be pretty straight forwards at least.

JP,

Your project is coming along nicely!  Love the color you selected.

After about a year delay, I've finally begun to move my own project forward again and seeing your work has been motivating.  I definitely have some catching up to do!!

My rebuilt LS1 is ready to go and I'm looking forward to a garage floor test fit of the whole drivetrain before I put it all back in the car.

This week I'll be dropping my 944S AGP transaxle and torque tube.  I have all the parts to rebuild the TT and I have a Turbo 5P transaxle (Non-LSD) that I plan to use for this 1st time around.  I'm not sure how much HP/Torque my engine will put out but I see a C5 transaxle in my future.

Keep up the good work!

Hello everyone I am sadly an intermittent poster these days, but I'm committed to this forum over all because of how much it helped me in the beginning. I'm hoping to contribute more as well, just need to find the time and maybe set up some better notifications.

Anyway, i recently went to 944 Fest and was inspired seeing friends old and new. Coicidentally, I made some real forward progress last week thanks to my friend Damien Kirk who is helping me with wiring. For this third iteration of the car, i ditched all the old Porsche wiring and went with an aftermarket solution. Same for engine managment on the LS side. Here are some brief updates!

These two images are of a 3D printed part I made to hold my dash screen. This will mount to the cross bar welded into the chassis, and remain behind when/if I have to pull the dash. Everything will be like that, so the dash comes out with four bolts and nothing else attached.
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Here's my dash currently, as well as the remainder of parts that need to go on the car before I install the interior. I'm going to keep the Porsche iginition attached to the steering column for now, and trim it out around the dash, even though it wont' be connected to anything and I'll be using push button ignition. I wanted to preserve the choice to use a key down the road if I decide to.
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These are just some photos of the underside and some plumbing for the oil cooler I was proud of. I learned a lot about different AN fittings and heat sleeving that I had not used before.
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Just how the current wheels look with the brake calipers I had redone. I also put in new pistons and seals into the calipers. The fronts are LS430 calipers, and the rear are Turbo rear calipers.
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Here is a shot of the engine bay with the top side plumbing and all the wiring done for the engine and front clip. Much left to do behind the fire wall still in terms of wiring, but I was happy with how the engine bay turned out. I'm using BMW hydroboost (with the "bomb" capped to clean it up), and the Turn One fbody power steering pump, with the upgraded pressure to match the BMW system.
The t-fitting you see on the oil lines is where the Accusump will plumb into; the check valve keeps oil from flowing back into the cooler should the Accusump need to pressurize the system.
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Last but not least, here is some of the wiring my buddy Damien did for the car. We relocated the battery with the relocation kit from Boost Bros Garage, and added the necessary fuses and cut off switch. I realize the cut off switch is pretty useless for killing the system on the track, but I needed a way to keep theives from breaking into the car and just starting it. This should at least slow them down hidden under the carpet.
Last but not least I went ahead and pulled the trigger on a larger radiator. While I did have oil cooling issues in my last build (smaller cooler on that one), I did not have any coolant temp issues, which surprised me. I had used a new OEM turbo radiator which seemed to work just fine. I decided to upgrade from the fbody water pump to an LS3 Camaro water pump using 3/4" spacers to line up with the fbody accessories. I haven't swapped the pumps yet, but I figured while I'm in there I might as well make use of the extra 3/4" I gain (which is counter intuative since I'm adding 3/4" spacers, but the f-body pump sticks out that much with the silly looking "bell").
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Working on getting fan relays to run with the Holley ECU system (forgot photos of that). but in addition to getting the Wizard radiator and fans installed properly, I moved on to the fuel system.

My first setup went from the stock lines to a Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator, then out and into a y-block and down each aftermarket rail, crossing over in the back and out to the regulator for return. It worked but was messy and more complex than what I needed. This time around I chose to go with the stock fuel rail and the C5 fuel pressure regulator with adapter for AN fitting. Everything plumbed up rather nicely considering how much I have going through the fender.

Also, instead of using the aftermarket Porsche stainless steel braided lines, I went with a kit from Goodwrench that is specfiic to the LS430 caliper. While the cool think about the LS430 caliper was the porsche lines would screw right into them, it wasn't ideal as these calipers were designed for a banjo fitting; much easier to service.

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JP, looking good!

Your GM fuel pressure regulator install looks nice and clean. Good use of existing feed and return lines. I couldn’t put mine there because that’s where my cruise control unit lives.

Conventional wisdom for high output engines is to place the regulator as close to the point of fuel delivery as possible and you certainly did that.

About your wheel well plumbing, I suspect you might have clearance problem's reinstalling your inner fender on the passenger side. I’m having that issue now because of my atypical fuel line routing.

I used aftermarket braided SS lines too, but stuck with stock ISO “bubble” flares as I’m using my factory 944S calipers. Since I completely rebuilt them, I’m not planning to service them any time soon!

Looking forward to your next post!!

Thanks, Raymond!

Yeah, I'm worried about fender liner as well. I didn't even run one before since I was mostly on track, but even then it's not a good idea. Too much risk especially on the road for something to fly up and sever a brake line, etc. Worse case I may end up building a plastic cover over the important bits and rivet the cover to the body. We'll see what happens!

As for brakes, after all the time and money spent to make these the way I like, it probably would have been just as economical (and easier) to run big reds or blacks. If for some reason these give me problems, there's a good likelihood I'll go that direction. I'll admit to being kinda attracted to the lightness and piston size of the Lexus monoblock caliper, but again; confident enough to try, but wise enough to know I'm not sure