how hard is it to swap the 13b for the ls1 and how much would it all cost and what all would you have to replace?

 

we have a other engine conversion section of the forum look to spend 8k-12k

 

Go to the "othger engines" section of the forum, that is where they cover engine swaps. And it costs several thousand in addition to the actual drivetrain: www.grannysspeedshop.com

 

This has been beaten to death.

It varies greatly by your skill, friends, and willingness to work. Optimally, you could do it for 6K or so, maybe a little less with luck. Could cost anywhere from 8-25K, depending on how much work you farm out.

 

I just finished my conversion and would say to steer clear of it unless you just really want to do an LS1 conversion. It's a lot of work, did I say it was a lot of work?

OK, I just got my engine running, to get there was madness due to the surgery required on the car, wiring modifications, and the extensive internet and vendor research to figure out what everyone's tricks and experiences were to date on the LS1 conversions. Shopping for an LS1/T56 sucked, then shipping it around to get the motor refreshed and a nice set of heads/cam installed took a bit of time. Once installed there was the ill fitting everything that came from conversion vendors, lots of modification to everything sourced from these guys. Once the engine was fired up (everything worked the first time, cool), had to trailer it to a shop to have custom exhaust made because I could not drive it with open headers, that was a pain. Then car would still not run so the shop owner offerred to trailer it to another shop to have the ECU flashed to get the VATS taken care of. Car runs fine now. Driving it like miss daisy to break in the chatterring SPEC clutch, suspension and steering is tweeked as the entire front end comes apart during the conversion. Then back to the dyno to tune it, and off to a race shop to corner wieght it and align it. Next year I'll fab up the A/C lines and sensors and get that going.

I could have literally rebuilt my rotary about four, maybe five times in the equivalent amount of time for the LS1 conversion (I've had a little rotary R&R and rebuild experience ...). Am I second guessing myself, always. But I am very happy now that I'm driving it. Do I miss the turbo rotary, yep, but not really because I get to work on enough third gens to get my rotary turbo fix. I may still do another turbo third gen if I fall prey to another personal project car.

 

1.go to the torquecentral.com or swapcartech forums.com
2.read about everyone else's swaps
3.decide if you want to do it yourself or have a shop do it
4.research how much an ls1 will cost, which tranny you want, and what kit
5.if your answer to #3 was have a shop do it, there is Brian Hinson in Alabama (http://hinsonsupercars.com/faqFD.htm and look at the parts too), a guy in southern CA named Pyro who is now doing them in his shop (http://shop.dynotested.com/displayPr...7&categoryId=2),
or you can just find a random shop to do it
6. It will cost whatever you want it to, but you're looking a roughly $4k for a decent ls1/t56 combo, you already have the car ($0 there), and then the swap parts (which you can find from Hinson, Grannys, or Pyro. Also, Pyro can make the car CA smog legal, but you're in Texas so I doubt that matters

 

yeah when it comes down to it don't only look for $$ of the swap but also look up how much $$ it'll cost to mod a LS1 it ain't as cheap as everyone says and aren't as rock solid as most think(still is but many think its invincible). Its still a good engine but the only thing with them is overheating. Buddy has a 7.2 sec Z28 on a 1/8 mile. about 4-5 grand invested and that the only problem he had cept 4 the transmission which don't usually hold up anyway.