The Camaro Club (UK)

I paid £300 for what I've got there. Should be able to pick up the rest of the parts later in the year when I am in the USA again. Hoping that it'll cost under £2k to do the swap.

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My '80 progress thread - hugger orange! Now with LQ9 power - forged pistons, LS2 rods, 236/242, .621/.612, flowed and milled 317 heads. MS3X

4L80e, 12 bolt, 4.11, Moroso brute strength posi, steel shafts.

Subframe connectors, g-braces, solid body bushes, carbon hood and front bumper, custom door cards, Autometer gauges.

This 180lb monster is now fitted, sorta. I need to make a crossmember for it, but before that I need the slip yoke to make sure it's not going to hit the floor pan brace. I am also probably going to regret fitting the stock converter, but funds are currently rather tight.

It's a bit snug in the trans tunnel, only near the cooler lines. But I think it will work out to have about 1/4" clearance.

I also need to get the controller ordered and built - a job for next month.

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My '80 progress thread - hugger orange! Now with LQ9 power - forged pistons, LS2 rods, 236/242, .621/.612, flowed and milled 317 heads. MS3X

4L80e, 12 bolt, 4.11, Moroso brute strength posi, steel shafts.

Subframe connectors, g-braces, solid body bushes, carbon hood and front bumper, custom door cards, Autometer gauges.

Blimey that's a big bugger.....

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“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

The 4L80 is a big beast of a thing and it's pretty tight in the transmission tunnel. I might yet need to relieve the floor around the cooler lines, but it will only be by about 1/4" if needed.

Planning on getting a few other bits done this weekend with a view to getting it back on the road around the end of April...

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My '80 progress thread - hugger orange! Now with LQ9 power - forged pistons, LS2 rods, 236/242, .621/.612, flowed and milled 317 heads. MS3X

4L80e, 12 bolt, 4.11, Moroso brute strength posi, steel shafts.

Subframe connectors, g-braces, solid body bushes, carbon hood and front bumper, custom door cards, Autometer gauges.

I'm still waiting for the slip yoke to arrive from the USA, and the weather has been really crap this weekend anyway so I decided to make a start on looking at this LQ engine block and figuring out how the hell I am going to fix it.

Pulled all of the pistons out of the bores - all new but missing pins and locks. Not a major problem as I might need to get another set that has valve reliefs cut as I am pretty sure I am going to run into valve to piston clearance with the sort of cam I am planning to run.

Set about checking the rest of the block over for cracks and it all seems to be OK. Checked the bores and water jacket all over and found nothing - messy job with the dye pen fluids. So that just leaves the 2 on the bottom left corner of the block where some muppet has dropped it.

Drilled the ends of the cracks as deep as I dared and ground them out. Haven't gone too mad with them as they aren't really in critical load areas of the block. But one of them is right on the back of the oil passage down the side of the block so it needs sealing up otherwise it'll leak oil. The areas of the block aren't too thick, so it should be possible to get enough heat into it (I hope!). The plan is to use HTS-528 rods for the repairs

This one is pretty simple.



The other is the one on the oil passage. The corner of the block was broken away where the sump bolt hole is. So I drilled it all the way through and then cut off the damaged part - not that it was held on by much anyway. The intention being to make a new threaded boss and dowel it to the hole I drilled through. I'll probably braze it up without the boss fitted and then just fit the boss later as it's not structural, it just needs to hold the back of the sump to the block. This gives the best chance of sealing up the crack... I think...







I've also measured the oil pan and started thinking about modifying that. It's a stock pan from a truck/Escalade and is 8" deep. Too deep for the Camaro. I haven't worked out how much I need to cut off it yet though... I've got the pick up pipe as well, but that's just steel pipe that can be cut to suit. You can buy an LS swap sump kit, but I'm not paying $200 for the privilege of that...

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My '80 progress thread - hugger orange! Now with LQ9 power - forged pistons, LS2 rods, 236/242, .621/.612, flowed and milled 317 heads. MS3X

4L80e, 12 bolt, 4.11, Moroso brute strength posi, steel shafts.

Subframe connectors, g-braces, solid body bushes, carbon hood and front bumper, custom door cards, Autometer gauges.

Looks like a good start on an interesting project
I don't know much about the newer era GM engines as we tend to be a bit behind the times this side of the Pond, but swaps into older cars must be popular for a reason ...
I'm thinking injection plus overdrive trans must make them good all round for reliability and economy as regular drivers.
Will be watching your progress with a plan to try a conversion for my rag-top at a later date ...
Saw one I liked that used the motor and trans from an Escalade in a 1st gen.

The LQ9 that I have is mechanically identical to the LS1 and LS2 engines. The difference being that it has an iron block rather than aluminium and it is 6 litre rather than 5.7 as standard. It weighs about 80lbs more than the aluminium block apparently.

Good thing is all of the parts - except the pistons - are interchangeable between this and the LS1/2. The aluminium block of the LS engine is at it's limit around 700hp without additional strengthening. Whereas the iron block of the LQ is reportedly OK to 1200hp with a few minor modifications

Stock stuff is all very strong - crank and rods are OK up to 7000rpm and 800hp so I plan on using those.

The heads I have are the larger port versions, but also have larger combustion chambers as it's a truck engine. The LQ9 with the flat top pistons has 10:1 CR. I plan on skimming the heads to get about a 65cc chamber which will increase that a bit. But I also need to cut some valve reliefs in the pistons so will lose a bit there.

I'll be doing a lot of porting work on the heads as well. The good thing is I have one scrap head that I can experiment on before making a start on the real thing. I'll be opening the ports out considerably from where they are currently.

I'll be running a fairly silly cam in this as I want to be seeing 700hp.

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My '80 progress thread - hugger orange! Now with LQ9 power - forged pistons, LS2 rods, 236/242, .621/.612, flowed and milled 317 heads. MS3X

4L80e, 12 bolt, 4.11, Moroso brute strength posi, steel shafts.

Subframe connectors, g-braces, solid body bushes, carbon hood and front bumper, custom door cards, Autometer gauges.

An excellent plan.... (the twin turbo would've been super cool tho.. )

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“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

I'm not ruling out turbos in the long term....

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My '80 progress thread - hugger orange! Now with LQ9 power - forged pistons, LS2 rods, 236/242, .621/.612, flowed and milled 317 heads. MS3X

4L80e, 12 bolt, 4.11, Moroso brute strength posi, steel shafts.

Subframe connectors, g-braces, solid body bushes, carbon hood and front bumper, custom door cards, Autometer gauges.

Made a start on modifying the oil pan for the LQ motor. The original truck pan is 8" deep, way too much for the Camaro. So I've cut nearly 2" out of it. Trouble is it's lost a bit of capacity as a result. Just need some thicker alloy plate to arrive so I can get on with modifying it some more to add a bit of that capacity back. Should be able to get it done this weekend.

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My '80 progress thread - hugger orange! Now with LQ9 power - forged pistons, LS2 rods, 236/242, .621/.612, flowed and milled 317 heads. MS3X

4L80e, 12 bolt, 4.11, Moroso brute strength posi, steel shafts.

Subframe connectors, g-braces, solid body bushes, carbon hood and front bumper, custom door cards, Autometer gauges.