LS1 swap 318IS

[tyeler18]

Long time since the last update. I ended up leaving the auto shop I've worked at for nearly 12 years and taking on a position at a friends off road/motorcycle shop. He's been trying to get me over there for years and finally called me on a day I was about ready to walk out on. This meant more money in my pocket and 2 less hours of work/day, but also much less time spent on a computer. Haven't changed much on the car since the holley install, but I did a test/tune cash day at a local air strip. I only lined up with one car in the BMW the whole night since I'm sure my rear diff isn't going to enjoy life for too long. Managed to sneak out a win against a turbo GSR civic and realized at the end of the run I forgot to drop the hand brake after staging my clutch was already hating life before this but with nearing 150k on the original LS1 clutch I'd say it was due for an update.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

This is actually the mcleod RST out of my now-boss' C5. He stripped the teeth off the discs in his car and mcleod didn't have the parts to warranty it at the time, nor was this rated for the torque his car makes so he bought the RXT and gave me the now warrantied RST for swapping it all out for him. In order to swap the clutch the drivetrain has to be dropped out, and I said the next time the driveline is out that I'm doing the cam too so here we are.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

I had Pat G spec me out a road race cam and texas speed cut it. It's a .600/.600 228/232 with a 112+4 LSA, similar to a TSP228R cam. I also bought matching .660 lift dual valve springs with TI retainers. Spent a day after work dropping the drivetrain out, it takes about 2 hours from start to on the ground. Its not too bad all things considered.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Cam, clutch, and springs all in

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

And back in the car and running the next day with my buddies 85 318I we just got done with a 4g63t RWD swap he bought off me, which ironically was the original engine swap plan for my car.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

The holley makes quick and easy work on getting up and running. I had a pretty good starter map in the car and worked on dialing in the VE but wanted a professional to look it over. I had it remote tuned and the holley estimator spit out 394whp, I'll be putting it on a dyno at some point just for some power pulls but I honestly couldn't care what kind of actual numbers it puts down on paper. The car absolutely rips now, definitely in the near 400hp realm. It's pretty much exactly what I wanted power wise out of the car and while 2nd gear is pretty tough to manage if the tires are cold it should definitely work really well for most tracks we race at here with a some taming of the right foot. I also picked up a set of koni DA shocks for the front to replace the bilsteins in the car and I plan to swap the rears out too. Rebound/compression adjustments would be very nice at this point. And lastly for the cash days they've recently started out here I've got a bottle of nitrous to play with. We're going to start with a 125 dry progessive shot and move up to a 200 if I or the car survive that point. I raced my montero at the cash event with it turned down to wastegate and lost to a 750hp procharged coyote, but they're doing small tire events and im on a 33x12.50 mud tire. They've been letting me run with the mud tires but once it's turned back up and people start losing I know it'll be the end of letting me run "small tire" on a "big" tire, so the e30 can step in at that point and be competive with some spray.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

I plan to upload a youtube video for the sound clips and some flybys with the new cam, I just need to get some time to put it all together.

[tyeler18]

Good fix on the AC. I was just saying to a few on Monday it felt like summer officially is here. We got some teases of decent weather last week. No mo' till October now I suspect. Why do we live here? (AZ Native - I love AZ and Phoenix, but also not.)

Also really like reading the updates of changes made prior, during, and after events. Especially in regards to brakes, since I'm seriously considering that same setup to get 5lug, but with your suggested 325 brakes so I can run 15/16s.

And like John - you have me weighing options of a V8 for the forever project instead of k24 - both of those possibilities are a ways away though.

I'll let you know the next time Im up in phoenix with the car and you can take it for a spin to see if it's a swap youd want to take on vs a K-series. I think both are great platforms but my buddy that races with us has a K24 CD5 accord that makes 230hp and it's really entertaining watching his reactions in the car when you stomp on it I think a K-series would be better in a lot of aspects of being able to point/shoot the car like an m20/m42 but I sure do love sending the car sideways from idle. There was one point during the event I was following 2 b-series civics and ended up just throwing it into 4th at part throttle following them around the track until they let me pass. We said it felt like a pitbull chasing down some chihuahuas

[DEV0 E30]

Good fix on the AC. I was just saying to a few on Monday it felt like summer officially is here. We got some teases of decent weather last week. No mo' till October now I suspect. Why do we live here? (AZ Native - I love AZ and Phoenix, but also not.)

Also really like reading the updates of changes made prior, during, and after events. Especially in regards to brakes, since I'm seriously considering that same setup to get 5lug, but with your suggested 325 brakes so I can run 15/16s.

And like John - you have me weighing options of a V8 for the forever project instead of k24 - both of those possibilities are a ways away though.

[tyeler18]

It wouldn't be the start to AZ summer without the A/C trying to die on you. Noticed the airflow from the vents was pretty low despite the speed of the blower motor sounding OK.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Needless to say we're back and operational again with a new OE resistor and a $48 amazon blower, just in time for a hot afternoon trip 100 miles to the track for the first night event of the year! I did some race prep friday night, part of which was installing new rear shock mounts since whoever installed these did so wrong and allowed the shock to blow the tops out of both. I ran the last track event like this but wanted to fix it prior to this one. I still have some crappy monroe sensatrac shocks on the rear that need to go, but this was an improvement in both sound and ride quality.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

The transponders were down for the event and I didn't even bother turning on track addicts so I have zero time from the event. I only did 2 sessions before a buddy blew up an axle in his k-swap accord and helped fix that just in time for the event to end. The first sessions was a slide fest. These RS4's are pretty heat cycled and took the whole first session to come up to temp, dropped the pressures down to 30 hot on the second session which helped tremendously but even holding 3rd gear the whole track I had to pedal 20-40% throttle out of the corner to put power down. I started using 2nd towards the end coming out of the slow turns and had a few uneasy 2-3 upshifts resulting in a lot more wheel spin than I like at 70+mph. I plan to have the hydroboost gone and tesla booster in for the next event. Using the stock 318is master with e46 brakes is less than ideal, I'm 3/4 pedal travel into the fast braking zones to get the car slowed down. A 25mm master would definitely fix it, along with some brake bias to be able to trail brake. If I trail brake this car at all the back end just comes around so you're scrubbing all speed before corner entry and then just hammer down early and try to control the slides out.

Hopefully I'll have some videos from friends to upload shortly, I only took one picture the whole event with my buddies ST165. We switched him out to spec'd feal coilovers last week along with a pulsar G25-550 replica turbo. His car hauls absolute ass now and was an absolute weapon on the track despite the laggier powerband.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

[tyeler18]

I've always liked those. Eagle/Mitsubishi stuff always is cool in my book.

Got another question for ya regarding your E30. With your 5lug setup, (E46 calipers and rotors) what is the smallest wheel size you can run?

I may be considering that setup, but I like basket-weaves and I'm wondering what I can run (15/16s) etc.

I'm using 330I front brakes which supposedly limits to 16's or bigger but only certain 16's clear. If you use 325 brakes up front I'm pretty sure any 15+ fits

[DEV0 E30]

I've always liked those. Eagle/Mitsubishi stuff always is cool in my book.

Got another question for ya regarding your E30. With your 5lug setup, (E46 calipers and rotors) what is the smallest wheel size you can run?

I may be considering that setup, but I like basket-weaves and I'm wondering what I can run (15/16s) etc.

[tyeler18]

Dude I need to go check your cars out. Lmk I can bring the beer.

Whenever you want man. I've got a museum of old mitsubishis to go through lol. Speaking of I added another one this weekend. Most will question wtf I got into here I'm sure, but this has been on the list of wants for a while.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

It's a 1992 Eagle summit 3 door (aka mitsubishi Expo/RVR for non N/A markets), This one is a little more special being an AWD 5 speed which weren't very common here. It's a south west car it's whole life so it's pristine underneath which is even less common since the SW most lyreceived FWD's and the salt belt ended up with the AWDs. I've had 3 dodge colt/mirage hatch- 2 with 4g63 AWD swaps and 1 base 1.5L which is what I traded for my e30. This is basically a bigger sliding door van version, but factory AWD. It has a rod knock on the 1.8L so we promptly took it out in the desert and tried to blow it up. So far we've failed, but the engine comes out this week and we're dropping in one of my 4g63T's to make a nice comfy sleeper. I should not be allowed adult money. Race weekend this saturday and the e30 will be out, can't wait to see some improvements.

[iso_hi]

Dude I need to go check your cars out. Lmk I can bring the beer.

[tyeler18]

I'm definitely up for that. I've only met a couple of the phoenix guys but I know quite a few of the Tucson guys from racing at mussleman.

[DEV0 E30]

I love everything in this thread. Need to have an Arizona E30 day at some point.

[tyeler18]

Something about the Evo 7/8/9 really does it for me.

Holley's recent ECU excursion seems to have been very good for them. Seems like the only way to go for anything LS.

I love my 8 but the 9 has such a nice front IMO. I have a voltex widebody getting painted for my 8 right now so we'll see how I feel after that's installed.

The terminator is definitely impressive for the $1600 price. The harness is a pretty cheap china built harness but it's a powerful setup for how cheap it is. I'm definitely sold on ditching OE pcms in swap vehicles completely with it. Now that HPTuners is slowly pulling emissions controls from the software it makes an even easier choice.

[Northern]

Something about the Evo 7/8/9 really does it for me.

Holley's recent ECU excursion seems to have been very good for them. Seems like the only way to go for anything LS.

[tyeler18]

Spent the past couple months racing the evo and prepping some of my other racecars.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

The e30 developed an intermittent wiring issue where it would drop the whole right bank of coil packs at random. I knew it was either the power feed or the ground since the whole bank shares it, but I couldn't get it to act up without driving and it was intermittent enough to not catch with a scope. I had ordered a terminator X max for my montero and liked how well it worked enough to order an X max for the e30 too and just ditch the whole OEM harness and ecu.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

While removing the OE harness my suspiscion was confirmed. The ground cluster on the back of the head broke right at the eyelet. There's 4 grounds all bolted together there and the harness is taped together so tugging on the wires wasn't enough to pull the wire loose. It was easy to see with it unbolted that 20 years had done a number to it. No turning back at this point though. Harness went in much simpler than the OE integration. This also meant I could ditch the modified stock e30 gas pedal I made for DBW and go to an e46 DBW pedal. The modified pedal was pretty sensitive and most people struggled to drive the car with it. The e46 pedal has a more OE response to it and I can tune the throttle curve and kill some of the quick torque spike the LS produces at low throttle.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Spent about 30 seconds using holley's start up "wizard" and away we went. We were working on a buddies e30 this weekend and needed a few parts, so another friend took my car and I asked for a flyby on the way back to the shop. He reluctantly gave me the keys back and said something about not having enough money to make me a cash offer on the car lol

https://youtu.be/1R4utkZTic4

[tyeler18]

Haven't updated in a while, mainly because I haven't had much to update. I've just been driving the car. I ended up rolling my montero back in july of last year which warranted building a new one and ate through a bunch of e30 mod cash. In came V2, out with my poor V1. V2 got a cam, billet triple disc converter, and a TBSS intake along with a 615hp/670ft/lb tune on a measly 9lbs of boost.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Then we decided to take all 6 of our huskies back to south dakota for christmas in it, which ate even more play cash.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

And just recently I traded my C5 for an evo 9 MR to become the new track toy. Ive been wanting a 9 to go with my 8 for a long time. I'm excited to see how this stacks up against the e30 on track. 275 tires all around, similar power to the e30, but ~700lbs heavier. My 8 would decimate the e30 with a wheel/tire change, but the 9 is near stock power wise. There's a track day on the 24th and I plan to bring both cars and see how they compare!

Evo 9 by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

[tyeler18]

Sweet, I will join that group! That's a good tip on finding a discounted L92 too. I've never researched these engines in depth, so I've been on an internet crash course lately. I looked into M/S5x swaps many years back but never strayed outside of BMW options. I figured it was a pipe dream to find anything aluminum in decent condition in the yard unless you are there the day it shows up haha. The 6.2's are so easy to pick out being in a Denali/Escalade it makes sense they would yank those instantly with how much they go for online.

I found a channel yesterday that goes out to junkyards to find engines to flip or potentially use in projects and they mentioned the same thing about ls swaps. Just get a cheap iron block that runs and use it as a working mockup engine to get the swap done and then you can wait for the engine you really want to pop up that will drop right in. And you have a drivable car in the meantime. I like that idea a lot as well because I would be a lot more willing to at least source an engine and get it cleaned up on the side if I'm only a couple hundred deep into it vs a couple grand for a larger displacement aluminum block.

And that leads me into another question, how did you handle the wiring harness (and ecu) setup since the stock one was melted? I don't recall seeing that ITT. That's one area where my brain just flatlines thinking about figuring it all out. Doesn't appear to be overly complicated, it just looks like a disaster anytime I see one yanked out. That's definitely one of the more intimidating area of the swap for me. I know sikky has a harness ($$$), there's the diy painless harness or you can use the factory harness and pull what isn't needed. I assume if I go LM7 -> L92 I'd be SOL on reusing a harness since the LM7 is gen III and the L92 is gen IV? Trying to find some build threads that go more in depth on the various harness setups but there's a lot to sift through.

I bought what was supposed to be a 99-02 fbody harness and then depinned, stripped it and made it standalone. Midway through stripping I found out it was a 98 harness which is quite a bit different than 99-02. The smart thing would've been to just buy a new harness and start over, but in the interest of budget building I converted the harness to 99-02 and then to 04 vette hybrid (i use an 03-07 pcm). It was a bunch of work, and would've been more cost effective to buy the cheap $260 standalone harnesses off amazon and then add in the wiring for cruise control and A/C (they dont come with it, easy enough to add). An fbody harness is the easiest way to go if you can get one cheap. Mine was $40 so not a bad initial price if it would've been 99-02 like it was listed as.

Gen3 to gen 4 causes some issues. Gen 3 PCM's are way more swap friendly for things like A/C and cruise control, I'm building a gen 4 for a friends truck right now and we're using a P59 03-07 pcm like I use by swapping the 58x crank reluctor for a gen 3 24x. With the reluctor swapped you're good to go with gen 3 electronics so no issues there. Lingenfelter sells a converter box but theyre problematic and if you can pull the crank a reluctor swap is cheap, easy, and no extra module to worry about failing.