Pivonic's E30 LS1 Project

[Pivonic]

Been slowly building my fun little weekend toy so I figured I'd make a build thread!

How she looked when I bought it from a fellow r3v member




Started stripping it basically the next day I got it home



Engine and trans removed; sold


Cleaned everything down now it was time to work on the front end, removed the entire subframe with all its components



Cleaned and painted




Suspension goodies came in, H&R sport springs and bilstein struts, st swaybars, full poly bushing kit from Garagistic, full reinforcement kit, 90mm drop hats




Everything mounted up, subframe reinforcements welded in along with an e36 steering rack



Now time to work on the rear, car put up on the lift

And everything all dropped out


Everything dissembled


Reinforced, painted, and put back together with new bushings and also a new (used) medium case 3.73 diff



Put back on the car after undercoating area which it covers



Cut rear spare tire hole out, installed Garagistic secondary diff mound



New oem calipers, ceramic pads, drilled/slotted rotors, parking brake kit, parking brake cables



Picked up this beaut, '98 z28, which I'll be ripping its ls1 heart out of shortly



Plenty more done to the car so far, I'll post the rest later on today so the threads all caught up!


-Instagram @vinnypennisi

[oekundar]

Subscribed... ;)

[Pootis]

Looks like a great start!

[Pivonic]

Looks like a great start!

Subscribed... ;)

Thanks guys!



-Instagram @vinnypennisi

[Pivonic]

Let's get this all caught up to current time! :)

Wilwood pedal setup along with Garagistic's kit to mount them so I test fitted everything, went this route manual brakes to give me room in the bay for the v8. Also had to pickup a non-airbag steering column for this to work!


Engine Bay was an eye soar, not like this is going to be a show car or anything, so I cleaned it up, cut off most of the brackets, sanded and painted it flat black




Looking mean, also notice the roll cage fitting going on in the inside of the beast


Cage welded in



One can of rustoleum professional later haha, interior painted. Undercarriage also mostly under coated at this point





Floor and tunnel wrapped with some heat/sound deadening and light padding for the floor, then covered with some lightweight black ozite carpet. Didn't want to go full race car since this will mostly be street driven



Rear seat back and parcel shelf made from a couple light pieces of 1/8 birch then covered with the same ozite as the flooring



Slowly starting to look like a car again!


Picked up this little guy on eBay used, it's a ob2 monitor/tuner mostly aimed towards the diesel truck community but I figured it would work great in my center dash area for monitoring gauges & engine diagnostics


Back to the brake system, chase bays rear line kit installed, New hardlines and ss fender lines ran up front

Fabricated an aluminum mount for the new brake and clutch reservoirs and fitted them to the car along with associated tubing


And the inside, ran short with the clutch hose currently waiting on more to arrive


Still wanted to retain heat in the car for purpose of windshield fogging so I modified the stock hvac unit to where the floor and windshields vents are constantly "stuck" open. Also cut all unneeded wires so I can simply have two toggle switches; fan on/off, water valve open/closed



New dash since the old one was basically deteriorating


Next up I fabricated a new steering column mount to lower the assembly about 2"

Mount and column painted up!


And that's where I am so far, I definitely missed some things but I'll stay on top of this thread and keep it updated regularly! I have a lot of parts in boxes waiting to go into the car, sikky ls1 mount kit, headers, etc.

Any feedback is welcome!





-Instagram @vinnypennisi

[318aye]

Looking good! I love it when the car comes all the way apart.

What made you want to revise the brake system and lower the steering column?

[Pivonic]

Looking good! I love it when the car comes all the way apart.

What made you want to revise the brake system and lower the steering column?

Thank you! We'll I had to either do a booster delete or relocation so that's why I went with the wilwood's, the lines were pretty bad looking so I decided to replace them, went with the premade rear kit by chasebays because the ease of installation and not having to bend lines above the rear diff area. The steering column's old bracket had two stripped threads. I also read somewhere that a couple people used spacers to lower the column for more comfort so I figured I'd just make a longer bracket, if I decide I don't like it lowered I can always cut and drill new holes.


-Instagram @vinnypennisi

[Jean]

Nice and quick progress ! Welcome to the forum :)

I didn't think you needed to go with boosterless pedals for LS swaps as they are more compact compared to BMW v8s ? Couldn't you keep the pedal box and just remove the stock booster or replace the master mounted directly to firewall or use hydroboost ?

Wilwood pedal setup is okay but it's less than optimal in off the shelf configuration with the stock gas pedal ..make sure you set the masters rods correctly or you'll run into problems with not being able to bleed them .

What rear end you plan on running with LS1?

[Pivonic]

Nice and quick progress ! Welcome to the forum :)



I didn't think you needed to go with boosterless pedals for LS swaps as they are more compact compared to BMW v8s ? Couldn't you keep the pedal box and just remove the stock booster or replace the master mounted directly to firewall or use hydroboost ?



Wilwood pedal setup is okay but it's less than optimal in off the shelf configuration with the stock gas pedal ..make sure you set the masters rods correctly or you'll run into problems with not being able to bleed them .



What rear end you plan on running with LS1?

Thank you! I'm not sure about the compactness, I've seen a lot of setups where they would have the remote booster but I decided I wanted to simplify the process. I plan on either running a new gas pedal or altering this one and I hope I set the masters up correctly lol will be bleeding the brakes soon so we'll see. For the rear I'll be using stock axles and a 188mm 3.73 lsd for now until something breaks then I'll upgrade everything.


-Instagram @vinnypennisi

[efficient]

Nice build. In for more

[rzerob]

Subscribed.

[AWDBOB]

Is it possible in any configuration to use a booster with an LSJuan? That's what kills me on all of these V8 builds. I want to do it so bad, but feel like a booster is non-negotiable.

[twiggletwaggle]

Man this is some great content and an awesome build. Just curious, what's happening to the f-body?

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[Pivonic]

Is it possible in any configuration to use a booster with an LSJuan? That's what kills me on all of these V8 builds. I want to do it so bad, but feel like a booster is non-negotiable.

I seen a couple of instances where people did a remote booster setup and placed it behind the headlight but I wasn't interested in doing that. With the proper setup I don't think the manual brakes is going to be that intolerable, possibly if it was a daily drive which this isn't.

Man this is some great content and an awesome build. Just curious, what's happening to the f-body?

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Thanks bud, I'm not really sure about the f-body yet, I know I could probably make some money parting it out but I don't have the time/space to do that. I'll probably end up trying to sell it cheap as a roller to someone and if that fails I'll bring it to a junkyard.


-Instagram @vinnypennisi

[twiggletwaggle]

The thing looks pretty clean so I'm sure someone would pick it up. I know I would if I could. For some reason I've been drawn to F-bodies very recently.

I remember back '99 I went to see The House on Haunted Hill and my buddy's big brother took us to the theater in a shiny new SS. I thought that it was the coolest car ever.

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