1994 firebird v6 to ltx swap build.

Hi everyone one Im new to this site and I just want to post up my build, Its my first 4th gen f-body, I had many 3rd gen f-bodys. I picked this Car up in the middle of july from a guy who was pulling to put in a Lt1 from a roadmaster but it was sitting for a year. I picked the car up for $1000 bucks very soild car in need of a paint job cause the clear coat has peeled off. Car came with everything needed for the swap even the lt1 k-member and whole frt suspension. The plan was to Put in my lsx motor I had left over from my iroc build but I had everything got the Lt1 so Im goin that way. Here are some pics of the car and I will update more as I go on with the build, Plan is to Have the car up and running by next summer and maybe painted also.

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Welcome. Sounds like a good project

Welcome to the site....


Ready to see update pics....


lol


Larry (Popo8) Co-owner
LTXtech.com

Welcome

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome, welcome, welcome! Can't wait to see some more project pics!

Welcome!!! You made the right choice sticking with the lt1.

Thanks guys yea i looked into doing the lsx swap but it would of costed to much and trying to k memeber up here in canada was hard to find or find one cheap enough, ill up load some pics of the wiring harness i had started to clean up for the motor. Im goin to do my best of hinding all the wires and keeping over lil in the engine bay. I had already removed the abs and next is removin the ac box but im still goin to keep the heater as well.

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Originally Posted by 94lt1bird

Thanks guys yea i looked into doing the lsx swap but it would of costed to much and trying to k memeber up here in canada was hard to find or find one cheap enough, ill up load some pics of the wiring harness i had started to clean up for the motor. Im goin to do my best of hinding all the wires and keeping over lil in the engine bay. I had already removed the abs and next is removin the ac box but im still goin to keep the heater as well.

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Sounds like a plan! You will be glad your keeping the heat up there in Canada! lol. Lets see them pics of the harness!

yea the days up here are hotter than hell on some days working all day in the heat in constrution isnt a whole lot of fun, but im glad I only run a loader with A/C, this is my third engine harness I have built I have done 2 lsx harness for a pair of 3rd camaros and turned out ok they run with no issues, with this harness Im goin to try and have very little showing as well as the main harness for the under hood fuse block and headlights, Also today the guy I had bought car from called me up say he had found a bunch of parts that belong to the firebird and it comes with a brand new set of long tube headers which Im picking up next week so that helps me big time on getting headers, Here are some pics of the engine harness.
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Im helping my buddy do the same swap but with a 96 A4 V6 to a heads,cam, bolt on M6 LT1

Here is what I have planned for the car, I been pretty big into the car show sence for a number of years my firsts car build was a 2005 cavalier, yes I said cavailer it has won number of awards, so I wanted to do the same thing with the firebird but still wanting to do the odd track event on the weekends so Here is the break down,

Drivetrain:
Mild cam maybe LT4 hot cam swap
alumin head swap or keep the Cast Iron Heads still Looking into it.
Long tube headers
Roller Tip rockers
alternator and P.s relocation
Aftermarket Valve covers
Shift Kit
Higher Stall Convertor
Alumin Drive shaft
torque arm Relocation.
3.73 posi diff

Brakes/ Suspension
cts-v or c6 frt brake swap
replace upper and lower frt control arms
rear tublur control arms and panhard rod
subframe connectors
Ls1 rear brake swap.

Body.
repaint factory dark green with more flake or add pearl
carbon fiber hard top over lay(doing my self)
shaving engine bay wire tucking everything
HID projector Head lights with Halo Ring (building my own set)
Keep the factory bumpers or replace with trans am style
Replacing rear tails with T/A style
wheels I have not decided yet.

Thats my goal for this build, im sure things will change along the way but should come out nice when done with the help of my son who is 5 and my daugther who will be 2 this year.

sounds like a good plan

Keep us updated with the project as you go - I love V6 to LT1 projects. :)

Are you leaving the stock hood? I vote firehawk hood and keep the firebird bumpers. Buts that my 0.02

Sounds like you know what you want to do.

Btw I have a set of aluminum heads, 3600 stall converter and a set of 410s for sale.:D;)

Lol thanks smok3 ill keep that in mind, im planning on swaping hoods to the firehawk i have seen a few stock style firebird and look really good with a nice set of wide tires out back but i also like the trans am look to lol i just gotta keep lookin at pics to make my mind up

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the engine harness is almost done, I have already started on the main wiring harness and removed the abs stuff and other un wanted wires, Next I gotta pull the dash out to remove my a/c box and the air bag modules and wiring and try and fit all the under hood wiring and fuse block under the dash with the engine wiring and pcm.

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figure I post pics of my lil helper, here is my daughter who will be 2 in dec helpping me out with my alt and p.s relocation.

Update, picked up a set of headers yestruday, no they werent long tube headers the guy ended up saling them on me which I wasnt to happy about, but I had found a set of bnib pace setter headers with y-pipe they are shorty headers, right now I had them set over to a friend to cut off the piping for the smog stuff and weld them up. Also I placed an order for a p.s brakcet from flaming rivers to mount my pump on the driver side it was the cheapest one I can find just In case it dont work out the way I want it to. Im still looking into the pulley to run for the p.s pump and crank. For the alternator Im looking Into making my own bracket or I may go with the one I found on alan groves web sit for low mount alternator brakets, hopfully in the weeks to come ill have my ls1 spindles and cts-v brakes for the car and I had picked the wheels im goin to run they will be 17" zr1 wheels with a 17x11 in the rear with a dish on the wheel, they should look nice on the car with the big brakes. plan on ordering those in 2 months. well off to working on the car.

Well i got the dash and hvac unit out of the car last night my plans for keep the factory heater box maybe out the window since have of it broke i guess the guy before me had it out at one point, so im looking into a summit racing unit with defrost it small enough to fit behind the dash and will give me room to hide all my wirkng under the dash for the under hood fuse block, today when i get home im goin to make a template for the heat hole in the firewall and do some more wire clean up behind the dash. Pics to follow tonite

Awaiting pics

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well there are the pics, of coures they took for ever to up load and the last one didnt wanna load, I started to make my template for gaint hole in the firewall, I just cant see my self paying 80 bucks for a delete panel when I can do it for next to nothing. Im looking into a aftermarket heater system to mount under the dash and so far summit racing has a nice size unit, I just need to reintall the dash and take some measurements first. Also for the engine bay, Im goin to go with a blk engine bay cause this way if I do plan a color change I dont need to pull the motor out and repaint the engine bay. Im looking into flat blk, I even was looking at the boxliner in a can for the engine bay which I think would look good, I plan to have some bling Under the hood, I also picked up a polishing kit for my die grinder so Im goin to start polishing up the fuel rails and clean up my intake manifold and if I dont like it Ill paint it. Its startin to get cold up here in the evenings and with no garage to work in at the monemt kinda sucks lol, But it will be moved to its new resting place at my dads place that is 5 mins down the road. hopefully this weekend thats it'll happen. more pics to come soon. oh last note, Need some ideas on what I should do with the motor first.

Been busy and I see you lmao. Glad to see your youngen out there with you. On the engine personally with it already out I would go throught it and freshen it up. Are you going to bore it or basically stay cam only?

Yea thats my oldest son talon he is 5 years old, he trys to help out but all he kept saying was he wants to drive it when its done lol, well for the motor im planning on replacing all the gasket kits, i have a gasket kit on order for it. I dont plan boring it out just yet i wanna do some bolt ons first, I was looking at swap out mu heads for some alumin ones but i heard the cast flow a lil better so im stillin with those and plan to do a cam swap and some roller rockers and i may build my own cold air intake and im thinking for swap my iac and maf for a ls style5. Wire maf sensor

Sounds like you have it figured out already lol. I didn't know that about the heads

Edit - for talon I say empty parking lot and teach him to do doughnuts lol. Needs a gocart for training purposes

lol hes been asking for one since he seen his freinds go cart lol, well today is pay day for me and for a first time in along time i have cash left over so looks like im goin to shopping for a cam for the motor, just need to figure out what cam i wanna get.

*Cough* 230/236 .598/.608 110 lsa from Lloyd Elliot *cough cough*

I think that cam will be a little to big for a mostly stock motor, if i cN find a spare block for cheap i may build a stroker motor. I was doin some reading on convertor stall for my. Car and i was think of goin with a 3200 stall, i plan on putting 373 gears in the rear when it comes time to

That's actually the one le himself reccomended for my ws6 that had full exhaust and I was going to do le1 heads on a stock bottom end with a le ported intake. You should email him he is a super nice guy and can reccomend a cam etc for your build.

Edit - oh and I'm going with a similar sized stall and 3.73s in my z as well

well today not a whole lot got done that I wanted to, I started to play around with the polishing kit I got the other day and I started to polish my fuel rails which I gotta say turned out pretty well, I didnt sand the rails down cause my brother lock out sand paper cabinet so I started off with the blk compound bar and worked my way to the brown than the white, which turned out great looked like chrome I was goin to do the red bar next for a more mirror finish but the wife needed to get goin, Which by the way my motor and trans is over at my parnets place so it not like I get a whole lot of time to go work on it. But once my gasket kit comes in im goin to remove my intake manifold and start to sand it down smooth which I can see taking a while to do but itll be worth it once done. I didnt take any pics of the rail that i had started to polish but Im hoping tomorrow will be a better day.

got my ls1 spindles in the other day from work, just need to have them blasted and my brother will take them into work and have them powder coated silver for me, also this weekend I have a guy picking up all my lsx parts for a good sum so I had found a set of 2003 z06 wheels 17 frt and 18 rears with tires for 600 bucks so I called the guy and said he ll hold them for me so Im pumped about that, also I may grab a set of cts-v calipers this weekend too just waiting to hear from my bro on his discounts my cost was 130 a side so his discount is like half that plus the core charge, as for the motor Im goin to keep this one stock maybe a nice lil cam if I can find a deal on one before the motor gose in, So Ill be dressing the engine up and pull it apart and replace the gaskets, head will be painted alumin silver block probley blk or red, Intake im thinking of sandblasting and painting it or i was goin to sand down the casting and try polishing it, I have a sent of tall alum fab valve covers on there wall which I will have polished as soon as I get them, engine bay is goin gloss blk, Im waiting on the new fuel lines for the fuel line reloctions and still waiting on my ps barcket, Im goin to build my own alt bracket I have enough steel and cardboard kicking around to mock something up, Ill have pics once my parts start to show, but i know the next 3 weekends my wife has the family booked up, which dont leave much time on the weekends to do much. stay tune hopefully Ill have more good news.

Ok....all caught up....

Keep it comin man!

picked up my z06 factory wheels on saturday and man I got say they are super light I picked up one of the rear wheels which have 295 and they are 18x10.5 and I thought they would be heavy but wow Im very happy I got these wheels instead I had compared them to my cuzin zr1 wheels and his are heavyer for being a 17" wheel, for 600 buck I couldnt go wrong the rear tires have one season left of life but wont be long after they will need to be replaced, Ill take some pic of them after work, as for the brake I went on down to napa to check out the cts-v calipers and sold the 2 they had in stock in which I had put money down to hold them so I could do a trail fit on my wheels with my cailpers, I wasnt happy, they said they have another set coming In but they dont know when, so In the mean time I got my money back and I just may run the ls1 brakes I have for now till I do the perfomance mods on the car later on than Ill upgrade the brakes. motor update, brother was moving my engine across the shop this weekend and it fell move the enigne dolly I had it siting on putting a hole in the oil pan, broke the spark plus on the left side and cracked the dist cap, guess the plug wire got caught on the cart and the pulled when the motor fell, wasnt happy about that too, So im goin to order a msd cap and rotor kit for it today also. Ill get some pics up tonight when I get home I know this build is starting to get boring with no pics lol.

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here are the wheels, some have curb rush but that no big deal, Im goin to order a set of 315 for the rear wheels so when these tires are burnt off Ill have the new ones on stand by.

nice!

updat no pics tho, Well Today there is alittle bit of snow on the ground so I plan to be moving my car over to my dads shop where I can work on it in a warm place, Picked up some gaskets I need for the motor, I got the motor up on the engine stand ready to have its bath and get cleaned up, I picked Up a posi unit and gears for my diff from a blazer at work for free just a budget rear end build, I looked into 8.8 builds but Ill look into more when I start to end bigger power into the car, My brother picked me up some gloss black paint for my engine bay also so Ill start the engine bay maybe this weekend Not a whole lot to do just weld up the fuel line whole and removed the under hood fuse block bracket, than wash prime and paint, figure I would change the color of the car this summer. I found a wreck 94 camaro z28 goin very cheap I may pick up for the spare motor trans and diff to have for a build project just waiting on the guy so I can go look at it. My p.s relocation idea is not happening now cause the bracket I wanted is on back order and I wasnt spend big bucks on a fancy part that will get swapped out after cause I do plan to procharge the car in a year or 2. Im also looking for a stall convertor I can put in the car now with the 3:73 gears so I have that out of my way.

! Snow on the ground! Holy heck - where are you from dude?

I live in winnipeg manitoba canada some parts of the prov have 20cm my firebird has about 2" of snow but it wont stay long the weekend will be nice out so all the snow will be gone ill take a pic tonight, i wasnt expectinv snow this soon

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well here is proof it snowed lol, its not here to stay this weekend is suppost to be warmer so itll be gone soon, Dont mind my shed in the back ground lol Its getting torn down next summer when I build my garage well thats the plan.

so I got a change in plans for the motor I been doing some reading on the 24x conversion and I thinking Im goin to jump in it I already have the pcm and slim coil packs from work, my lt1 harness is pretty much de pinned and labled waiting to be put in to a pcm connector just trying to figure which one to go with lol. I just need to hunt down a lt1 timing cover to do my swap and find a newer transmission which my work has found one but I need to sell my trans first. Im goin to try and get a lsx truck harness from work which wont cost my anything to get the connectors and wires I need I think Ill have to find a connector for the crank senor but I can find that on a vortec harness which we have a few kicking around at work. Which Now is the time to start getting my upper end parts and maybe have this thing together by spring which is my goal.
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sorry for the bad pic my iphone case is dusty