LS1 swap 318IS

[dmanb2b]

great little build!

[tyeler18]

We are finally daily ready! Spent part of last night after work and earlier this morning finishing up the A/C system. This was much easier than the swap I did in my montero which required building a nearly entirely new A/C system to adapt to the LS. A couple of A/C fittings and some #8 and #10 barrier hose and I was set. Used the A/C crimping tool I have at work to crimp the lines after routing them where I wanted. Flushed everything, evac'd it down to make sure it held vacuum.

I went with F-body oil capacity so 9oz of pag 150 and then charged it with 1.6lbs of 134a. I tried to bump it up to 1.75lbs as it seems it could use a small amount more and still get colder but the high side pressures jumped almost 50psi with just .15lbs more so I sucked it back out to 1.6lbs. I only have a single 12" spal fan and the seemingly weak OE condenser fan. I've been planning to add a second spal to the back of the radiator and I'll probably stick a 14" spal on the front to ditch the stock one, that should be plenty to keep the pressures down. All in all I'm very satisfied, i think my temp probe is off because it feels significantly colder, but I didn't bother to check. With 1.6lbs I have 58F duct temps at idle in 104F+ heat, 54F duct temps at 2000rpm. It feels like its blowing high 40's, but either way a 50F+ split at the duct is perfectly fine with me, its plenty cold enough to want to turn it down from high while driving.

I also added the 3 wire GM pressure transducer which worked out perfectly with the stock corvette OS that I have flashed on. Wasn't sure if I was going to have to make adjustments in the tune since the vette are serial enabled and this is wired for analog. I now have full fan control based on temp and A/C pressure which was the main goal of the pressure sensor. My montero is run on high/low switches like the e30 is stock, but you can't control the fans with high/low switches so I have a diode and trigger tied into the fan off the A/C clutch. This was much simpler and arguably cleaner.

Added a few pics to show some hose routing if anyone wants to go this route. This was very cheap to do. Im excited to finally be able to start looming the harness. Just need to wire in my flex fuel pigtail and I can button the harness all the way up. Then itll be time for actual track mods, paint, and just driving the hell out of it like I planned.

E30 by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

[tyeler18]

Now that I think my posts are editing properly- slowly adding back into this. Its 115F in Arizona right now, A/C was the last major project on this swap to make it dailyable. I've accumulated the rest of the parts needed to get the A/C done.

This car was already converted to 134a, but the PO left the stock condenser. ADL condenser to convert to serpentine as well as a new drier.
E30 by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

E30 by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

F-body adapter fitting for the suction and discharge line as well as the biggest pain of a fitting to find. I'm using the LS trinary pressure switch to run the fans which meant I needed a fitting to install the sensor. Plenty of aluminum fittings, and plenty of adapter fittings, but I wanted to braze a fitting in. AP-Air was the only online company that listed a steel braze on fitting. $5 for the fitting, $21 shipping but it works great.

E30 by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Factory suction and discharge hoses have new A/C barbs brazed on. Just need to crimp the hoses going to and from the compressor.

E30 by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr


Hopefully have nice cold air before the end of the weekend!

[tyeler18]

I'll try and keep this short to start. Hoping to use this thread to document the progress of this car. To start, I'm a die hard mitsubishi guy. I currently own 8 mitsubishi vehicles ranging from a built evo 8, to an LS swapped boosted montero. I've always had 4g63 cars, but also wanted an e30 as a fun track toy. I currently race a C5 corvette and would like to let my girlfriend race that since the e30 is less...containable? I've owned my e30 since October of 2016. I had a dodge colt at the time we planned to 4g63 AWD swap (ive had a few), a local buddy had one of my AWD shells and wanted a nice donor car to get interior and body panels off of to fix it up. One of his customers had blown up her e30 on the highway that she'd owned since 1993 and decided to leave the car with them. I jokingly offered to trade my colt for the e30 and my buddy, not knowing much about them was more than willing to make the trade. This is how I received it, dirty, sun beat, with a locked solid M42, but clean and untouched otherwise.

E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr


After a few months of deciding what to do with the car, realizing that every M42 I looked at was either junk like mine or questionable condition, I decided why not stick an LS in it? I owned an LS trans am that I sold to buy my house and loved the car. My girlfriend figured the e30 would make a great trans am replacement, with a better chassis, lighter and much more built around an HPDE setup than my trans am would've been. Browsing the marketplace for a few weeks I came across a 98 camaro that had an engine fire. Seller was asking $2000 for the car. The harness was melted along with the plastic LS1 intake manifold, but aside from that the whole car was there in relatively good shape. The real kicker- its a t56 car with 117k. The seller was cashed out by insurance and just wanted to get rid of the car at that point. He had hooker headers on it that were nearly brand new and wouldn't come down from his price because of that, so I offered him $1200 and told him I'd pull the headers off and bring them back to him. Crazily he agreed, so I load a buddies truck and trailer and brought it home, dropped it off at my shop and had the entire drivetrain out the next morning.

E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Midway through the build the waterpump in my 400k montero decided to call it quits. Realizing the anemic 3.0 wasnt cutting it for what I use the truck for I decided to pick up a 6.0, 4l80 and tcase to LS swap the truck. The e30 sat on the back burner for about a year and a half while my montero build snowballed into a boosted 6.0 setup. I finished the truck last year and began focusing on the e30 again. I had been slowly accumulating parts for the build over the past few years, trying to compile a reliable track setup, that didnt sacrifice any daily amenities. I wanted power steeing, power brakes, cruise control, A/C and anything else that would allow me to daily the car and race it when I wanted. The corvette has been a great all around car, i drive it to the track, run 20 minute sessions and drive it home- that's what I wanted with the e30.

In an attempt to keep this semi short I'll post a few photos from the build with plans to break down some of the mods and add pictures to future posts documenting the process.

E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

I was never a fan of the factory reds, after a lot of deliberation we decided to go to delphin grey. A couple of pics from the process. I knew if i didn't do the engine bay before sticking the engine back in, I wouldn't want to do it anytime soon. Cleaned:
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Base+Clear:
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

The whole car will be done eventually, for now I started buffing some of the red just so the body doesn't look too horrible. Single stage does buff out pretty nice.

E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Becool 35202 radiator to handle cooling- I run this same radiator in my boosted montero and it never goes over 210F with the A/C cranked on a 115F AZ day. The truck has a giant trans cooler, intercooler, and part of the frame rail blocking with just a single taurus fan to cool it. So far it's been a beast in the e30 as well. I haven't had it on track yet, but I'm more than confident that it will maintain temps during 20 minute sessions.

E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Currently waiting for the rest of my images to upload, so I'll slowly be adding to this. I've put about 100 miles on the car so far in the past 2 weeks and aside from ripping the diff bushing to shreds it's been holding up great. My small case 4.10's are going to be the next to explode, but the car doesn't have enough traction to actually break them yet as it is.

[tyeler18]

Mods as of 7-25-20

Engine: 98 LS1- stock cam, Milled 243 heads
Sikky 1-7/8" Longtubes
3" dual exhaust, 3" x-pipe, Dual 3" magnaflow 14419 mufflers
4" intake
Sikky 7 QT oil pan
Earl's remote mount oil filter housing

Cooling:
LS2 waterpump
Becool 35202 radiator
SPAL 12" 1800CFM fan

Fuel:
Walbro 255
28lb LS1 injectors
AEM AFPR

Drivetrain:
T56 trans, stock clutch and flywheel
PST 3" aluminum drive shaft, JTR 1310 U-joint conversion flange
MGW short shifter

Steering/supension:
ZHP steering rack
Condor airbag column steering coupler
Condor offset FCAB's

Brakes:
E30-LS1 remote hydroboost


Exhaust video:

https://youtu.be/eWfOIa7ZFtQ

E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
E30 build by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr