LS1 swap 318IS

[tyeler18]

Small Christmas update- Ordered an Hvac bezel since mine crumbled taking the radio out for the bluetooth module. It was driving me nuts because the panel rattled going down the road. Picked this guy up for $40 on ebay and was pleasantly surprised just how nice it was when it showed up. Now the radio slide out on acceleration anymore either. The interior is coming together nicely, just needs a thorough cleaning and it's satisfactory for a 30 year old car. Everyone's always surprised it's not a gutted racecar when they hear it has an LS swap.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

This thing has been flawless for a daily, I put over 1000 miles on it christmas week alone driving all over AZ. Our dog with the eye issues finally had to have his eyes removed which we were dreading having done, luckily he seems to be doing much better without them than he was with them. He's had quite the adventure driving him from the eye specialist and back, I'm glad we don't have to make that trek every week anymore.

[tyeler18]

Forgot to upload my race render 66.XX lap from the last event. If you watch the accelerometer you can see how wild the car is to drive with stock suspension. Braking zones were way too early since I hadn't fully tested the hydroboost. Definitely had another 2-3 seconds of time in it with some more seat time. Fully expecting this to change next event. You can hear me get mad coming down the back straight as I caught my buddy in his accord. That would've been a 65.2/3 according to track addicts if i hadn't had to stand on the brakes 300' before the finish to avoid him. The track is currently under construction for it's 2 mile addition. I can't wait!

https://youtu.be/DCLugSiE3ys

[tyeler18]

Corner balancing will make a huge difference. Make sure to take pics of the chart. I’m really curious what the final weight wil” be. I’m guessing it will be under 2800#

I’m hoping for 2800 or so. She’s pretty heavy with AC and all the luxuries. The wheels are by no stretch light weight for what they are either. We’ll find out soon enough though!

[2mAn]

Corner balancing will make a huge difference. Make sure to take pics of the chart. I’m really curious what the final weight wil” be. I’m guessing it will be under 2800#

[tyeler18]

Since covid canceled our track event for this weekend it was time to work on the car again. Had to order the long reach bilstein nuts for my vorshlag camber plates, vorshlag was awesome to deal with for getting these and getting them to me quickly since I was planning to install before our race. Spent the morning get them installed and adjusted to cycle properly. No clue what actual camber is currently, eyeballing looks like roughly 4 degrees, will find out down the road. This is good enough for now.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Wheel was turned slightly so not the best picture, but this is full bump with no spring. I hit coil bind shortly before this at the current ride height. I very well may lift it back up some, although it drives fine how it is and the suspension isn't cycling negative just yet. I will be corner balancing the car and doing a proper alignment on it, i'm just trying not to get to carried away since I've been tearing it apart multiple times lately getting everything where it needs to be.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Here's current ride height. The front was raked higher with the stock top hats, but I knew the camber plates would drop it enough to rake forward. Again corner balancing will change this some as well, so I'm not changing it.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

I will say these vorshlag plates are wonderful. I have cusco, JIC and D2 camber plates on my other cars and have had K-sports, BC, tein etc on prior cars and these vorshlag plates are so much nicer and smoother. The bearing is huge, they rotate very smoothly and just all around are such a nice quality plate. I'm probably going to replace the JIC's on my evo with a set of these now. Well worth the money, front end grip has definitely improved with the camber gain. I'll probably dial some back out because it does have a very noticeable amount and I don't think ill need it with the nice wide contact patch of the 245s. On to the next upgrades!

[tyeler18]

Looks like the A052's handle and put down power very well from that one event you went to in post number 20? How much tread life do you anticipate getting with them?

With all the driving I've been doing in the car I don't see why I won't get 15-20k out of them. They barely wore at that event and they were way overworked on the stock suspension. With the coilovers on it does much better of controlling everything now and I assume tire wear will decrease even more. I've put nearly 2k miles on them already driving it all over Arizona for my dog and they've worn like a normal street tire. The corvette guys claim they'll get 30+ HPDE events out of them before their corded. I'd be happy with half that.

In other news, finally received my appraisal for my montero that was hit. For anyone with a modified vehicle worried about being totaled, an independent appraisal for pre-loss or even prior to accident is worth the $300. I was hoping for a $10,000 appraisal minimum so the truck wouldn't be totaled out, I was more than pleasantly surprised. This is a niche market truck so it's already hard to appraise being stock, a turbo LS makes it a little more difficult.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Needless to say the truck will definitely be getting fixed properly now. Ironically progressive who has been so good about hounding on me every single day for the appraisal has yet to get back to me since sending them the PDF. I may have enough cash left over to add some more mods to the e30 when it's done.

[milosav2]

Looks like the A052's handle and put down power very well from that one event you went to in post number 20? How much tread life do you anticipate getting with them?

[tyeler18]

In post 11 you mention you are using 16x8 +20 XXR 531's wrapped in 205/60/16 tires with no fender rolling and you get occasional rubbing on hard dips. Do you think the rubbing would be no issue with 205/50/16 or 205/45/16 tires due to their smaller side wall? Here are some tire height calculations:

205/60/16: 25.7"
205/50/16: 24.1"
205/45/16: 23.3"

Also, do you think a 225/45 tire would rub with the 16x8 +20 XXR 531's? According to this thread it should be fine: https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/for...fitment-thread

I was on stock suspension at the time which cycled quite a bit. A 205/50 will be zero issue, I'm on a 245/45 now and I have zero issues rubbing with the coilovers. You should be plenty fine with a 225/45

[tyeler18]

Huge difference from what I can see in the photos. Nice work!

Thank you, its by no stretch perfect. The paint is getting very thin so I didn't want to get crazy with a medium cutting compound, its good enough until it gets painted though.

[milosav2]

In post 11 you mention you are using 16x8 +20 XXR 531's wrapped in 205/60/16 tires with no fender rolling and you get occasional rubbing on hard dips. Do you think the rubbing would be no issue with 205/50/16 or 205/45/16 tires due to their smaller side wall? Here are some tire height calculations:

205/60/16: 25.7"
205/50/16: 24.1"
205/45/16: 23.3"

Also, do you think a 225/45 tire would rub with the 16x8 +20 XXR 531's? According to this thread it should be fine: https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/for...fitment-thread

[mike.bmw]

Huge difference from what I can see in the photos. Nice work!

[tyeler18]

Update day again, finally getting some work done that hasn't been important but I've been wanting to do.

First up: LED lights. The stock lighting is pretty dated and i've been meaning to blow a bunch of cash at superbrightleds to update all my cars, so black friday I did. LED trunk, dome, license plate, reverse, and city lights, amazon special high/lows for the headlights, also wired the highs and lows to come on together-

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Still need some adjustment, but theyre much better than the halogen bulbs they had in them. Next my rear 800lb swift springs came in, got those on and worked on re-leveling the car. This was a huge improvement aswell, although now you can tell it's on stiff springs. The 400lb rears masked a lot of the stiffness of the 500lb fronts. Still plenty streetable with B8 front shocks and blown no-name rears. Can't wait to stick the DA konis on. Received my vorshlag camber plates too, these are a new aluminum version. Unfortunately I forgot to inform them I have bilsteins and had to order deep reach nuts today. No go on install yet, hoping to have them before the 11th.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Stupid used hydroboost started leaking, that was a chore to swap out. I have a lifetime warranty now at least. Hopefully this one lasts until the tesla booster as that looks like a promising improvement. These work good but the bulk and complexity is irritating to deal with.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Last of all, spent the majority of the weekend doing paint correction. It's easy to tell the car is salmon pink from the AZ sun, it was time to fix that. Spent all of saturday doing a decontamination wash, clay everything on the car and a single stage polish, then wax. It's a 10' paint correction still, but leagues better than it was.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

The clay from just doing the windows. These were scrubbed heavily before hand.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

[tyeler18]

Nice write up, been reading every ls swap thread for quite some time now. Eventually will get around to posting my own swap, once everything is finished...if that day will ever come.

I'm quite curious about your 245 tire fitment; no rubbing on frame rail in the front at full lock? 245 is pretty wide, my 225 are rubbing pretty good in the mentioned area. Would like to go wider to be able to put the power down. After getting a set of 17" wheels and tires, which I thought would fit "with no issues", I'm a bit cautious about experimenting. I think at least second hand experience would prove to be a little more helpful.

I have very minimal rubbing at full lock on the sway bar but that's it. Some negative camber alone may be enough to tip the wheel around it as it's very minor and you have to be on the stops to hit it anyways. If this was a drift car it would be an issue some spacers would rectify but as a daily/HPDE car the only time I've ever rubbed is if I'm trying to whip the car around on a tight u-turn/donut at very slow speeds. Aside from that I have zero issues, these A052's are impressively grippy. The car's just a bolt on LS1 so it's nothing crazy power wise but it hooks up well with some throttle control.


Thanksgiving update! Hopefully everyones coming out of their food coma, we're having our thanksgiving today (Friday) and I had wednesday and yesterday off from work which meant time for car work. I've been itching to put these springs on and see how well the front end of the car does. I started wednesday with a test fit for the rear. My goal was to make sure the 6" spring length was going to be what I wanted. I don't plan on going very low with the car, but I wanted some level of adjustability to make changes. It seemed a lot of guys wanted to go lower in the rear than a 6" spring allowed, so I figured I'd test fit the 6" and if they didn't sit where I wanted, I'd order 5" rears. I was actually pretty surprised how tall the rear sat with a 6" spring. I tried just the spring with no collar and it was about right where I would want it, but adding the collar and spring perches in was nearly taller than stock. Modifications were made!

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

I decided the height of both the locking ring and the spring perch was too much, so eliminating the locking ring was the first goal. The amazon kit came with a bunch of grub screws that are meant to hold the collar to it's base. Not as useful for me, but they make great grub screws. Drilled and tapped the spring perch and now we have a semi crude locking spring perch, I dont forsee any issues with this, but with the 5" spring I may add the locking ring back in since I know I'll have some height adjustment.

The next issues was the length of the collars, theyre like 5" long which is way to long for the rears. Under compression you'd just be riding on the body of the collar, took some measurements and 2.25" collar length will hit the bumps before the collar.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Here's the perch adjusted all the way down, it's decent, liveable for me, but not very low.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

I stuck the stock springs back in and then got to thinking, I have those cheapy amazon "front" springs that northern said are supposed to be 425lb springs. So I took it all back apart and put the amazon springs in the rear until I get my 800lb swifts.

Moving on to the front I was feeling pretty lazy, so lazy I didn't even want to remove the strut tube from the car so... I didn't. No spring compressor needed lol

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Found a nice surprise from the previous owner in the front strut tubes, I noticed the bilstein gland nut when I went to pull it. Low and behold there's some B8 shocks in here, grandma wanted a sportier ride I guess. They'll do for now until I can get the koni DA's in.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

My vorshlag camber plates still haven't shipped so I made due with the spring hats that came with the amazon springs. They need drilled out to 14mm to fit the shock shaft, but bolt on aside from that. Reuse the stock washer between the top hat and the strut mount and no clearance issues. Left the stock spring hat on to make sure everything worked, before chopping it off. I cut the collar down so that the gland nut tightens down onto it and holds it tight from moving as well.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Rough ride height set, actually not too bad. It rides WONDERFULLY, the rear obviously needs way more spring with a 500lb front and 425lb rear but it's a very comfortable *planted* ride now. Just enough weight transfer to not feel like a shifter kart but not enough to put the tires into the fenders anymore. The brakes work so much better now that the front end doesn't dive anymore either. I ordered the 800lb springs today, so I'll swap them out when they get here and re-adjust.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

[Mustachio]

Nice write up, been reading every ls swap thread for quite some time now. Eventually will get around to posting my own swap, once everything is finished...if that day will ever come.

I'm quite curious about your 245 tire fitment; no rubbing on frame rail in the front at full lock? 245 is pretty wide, my 225 are rubbing pretty good in the mentioned area. Would like to go wider to be able to put the power down. After getting a set of 17" wheels and tires, which I thought would fit "with no issues", I'm a bit cautious about experimenting. I think at least second hand experience would prove to be a little more helpful.

[dadsbmw]

Race prep for the Dec. 11th event starts now. First on the list is suspension. Thanks to Northern posting about the civic coil sleeves on amazon. I was going to order AFCO collars/perches but for $50 these are surprisingly good quality, the springs will get trashed obviously.

Exactly what I did for my build last year, appears to be the same brand even.