The Camaro Club (UK)

You could go sideways with the pan like......

There's plenty of room to extend the lower section of the sump forward before it gets anywhere near the crossmember. So I'll be doing that which will give me quite a bit more capacity back. There's also the easy option of fitting an oil cooler if the temps are getting too high.

A package from DIY Autotune arrived earlier in the week, all the parts for the Megashift controller for the 4L80.



Finished the controller off, got comms with the laptop sorted, just need to build the harness for it and connect it up to the ECU to see if I have CAN communication between the ECU and TCU. If so, I just need to finish putting everything back together so I can start using the car again.

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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.

That looks intimidating to an old skool guy like me ...
I will be paying close attention to how this all comes together .
If I decide to go down the LS conversion route I was thinking of getting a motor/trans complete with all the associated electrics from a wrecking yard and get it shipped over ready to plug and play .
Hats off to ya for doing it the hard way ,electrical challenges are not for most of us ...

It's not too bad really. Depends on what your soldering skills are like, and basic electronics knowledge.

Made a proper mount for the ECU and TCU today - I was never really happy with the ECU stuffed under the centre console, and it was always a pain to get to.

Need to finish it off properly, and actually move the ECU, but for now the Megashift should be happy up there. Yes it's where the glovebox should be, but I don't have any need for one, and this is a much better use of the space.

I'll be building another ECU for the LQ install, so I'll leave the old ECU under the centre console for the time being.



Spent the rest of the day making the wiring harness for the transmission and also making a new bracket for the crank sensor. I've got the harness partially installed, got to finish connecting power and also sort the CAN out between the ECU and TCU. And then tidy it all up properly.



Still got to sort the transmission cross member, and shift cable as well. Hope it all works after this....

Other than that;
Transmission filler/dipstick needs mounting properly
Alternator cables need extending
Electric water pump wiring
Refit the exhaust
Plumb the trans cooler
Make a removable panel for the hole I cut in the floor to clear the cooler lines
Swap injectors
Fill with new fluids

Then it'll be ready for the road again.... Other than needing another MOT

When I do the LQ engine install I'll be refreshing a lot of the wiring again - I've changed so much since I put the car on the road it's getting a bit messy again.

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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.

Got the crossmember made. Modified the original one by moving the mounts forward and relocating the transmission mount. Only took about 3 hours in the end...

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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.

Done a bit more to the oil pan. Got some 4mm sheet and made an extension for the bottom section, this will regain the capacity lost by cutting down the depth. It gives the pan more or less the same dimensions as the Cadillac CTS-V pan.

Currently just tacked together, I want to bolt the pan to the block before fully welding it to minimise distortion.

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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.

Bet you wouldn't say that if the components were 0805 SMD

Been ages since I did anything on this! Been too busy getting our Bonneville race bike ready!

Anyway...

I'm a bit stuck for options in the UK, and splashing out on some very expensive CNC heads would just about bankrupt me I think! So as I had these stock heads here I thought I would make use of them. Not my first porting job by a long stretch, but it is the first set of LS heads I've done.


5 hours in and I've got one head roughed out with the carbide cutter. Just need to finish it off with cartridge rolls and give the exhaust ports a polish.

After they have been skimmed I'll polish the chambers and unshroud the valves as well.

I had a scrap head here as well, so decided to drill the ports in a few places to find out how thick the walls were as I wanted to remove quite a bit of material, especially around the exhaust ports.

Started off by marking out the inlet ports on the face so they were all the same size.



And here's a stock inlet port/valve throat, there's a big step where the cast runner meets the seat insert which you might not be able to see in the photos.





First thing I did was dive in with a big carbide cutter and blend the seat into the throat



Then in with a smaller ball cutter and worked on the area around the guide. I did think about cutting the guide back, but I can't see any huge benefits from doing so?



I didn't really touch the rest of the port apart from cleaning up a few casting marks. I just need to run a cartridge roll all the way through the port to finish it off



Inlet ports all squared up and equally sized




Next the exhaust ports - these were even worse where the seat meets the cast runner - but the port was a long way behind the seat insert, so all I could really do was clean it up a bit and blend it as best possible.



The main work on the exhaust side was at the port exit. They seem very small at the manifold, so I marked them out and then cut quite a lot of material out of the ports including on the top and bottom of the runners so as to make the port the same size all the way through.

Here's a side by side comparison


And all done






Not sure if what I've done will actually result in any gains... but it passes the time!

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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.

Been away from things for quite a while. For a number of personal reasons that I don't really need to go into here. But anyway, I'm back and need to get on with finishing the engine swap.

Fitted the trunion upgrade to the rockers, takes ages but worth it.



I took drastic measures today and turned my long truck crank into a short one... but left the center boss long so I can use a normal (old style) 4L80 converter with a dished flex plate to save me having to then fit an extension.

As I've already got a dished SFI flex plate, and I'll need to drill that for the 11.5" converter bolts as well. Why did chevy decide to change all of this after the best part of 60 years?

_________________
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.

Good to see you are not MIA .
Always enjoy your project updates and the excellent pix that you always post