383 SBC to Gen V LT4

dynajeep · Aug 25, 2017

This is my first attempt doing a build thread so it might be a little jacked up. I am going to share Chris (croes) and my experience in swapping out the 383 sbc out of my buggy and putting in a Gen V LT4 engine. Chris is doing the majority of the work/research/brains behind this swap.
I'll try my best to share everything I can about the swap, so if someone is interested in doing the swap can possibly use this as a guide. Mind you the LT is a new platform and the aftermarket support for this engine isn't quite there yet.
So I decided to go the LT4 route because the horsepower and torque is 650/650 out of the box. At the price tag of $13,200 from Jegs I figured this was a decent price for this much power. I also purchased the harness which was a bit expensive at $1900 but did come with o2's, bungs, pedal, pcm... everything to get it to run.
First thing croes did was pull out all of my wiring on the entire buggy. Some of it was pretty messy and with no fuses a fire was in its near future. Also since we are relocating the shifter to the dash and going digital gauges and less switches we decided to gut it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

dynajeep · Aug 25, 2017

After most of the wiring was gutted, croes pulled out the sbc and also the th400. I forgot to put the nut on the dipstick tube on the trans and also needed to bang out a dented trans pan (i drove it through the rocks with no skid) installed a new filter and pump seal and back in she went. We cut off all the motor mounts off the chassis and decided to start fresh. I should mention that Chris has a cnc plasma table in his shop, and he's an engineer so making brackets and tabs is super simple for him and takes minutes. So after a few hours we had the motor hung in the engine bay. Right away we noticed that the stock oil pan wasn't going to work with what we had for clearance to the skid plate so on the phone with Holley and they had a oil pan coming our way. Also right away we noticed the the exhaust manifolds that were sent with the motor were off a CTS-V and the way they exited it wasn't going to work. So we borrowed a sent from a buddy that come off his Vette and those wouldn't work either, they were going to exit into the front driveshaft. So a full custom exhaust was our only option.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

dynajeep · Aug 25, 2017

After the motor was hung croes put the starter on and loaded it on the trailer and took it to Elite Fab over in Ohio. These guys have been in the business of building drag car exhaust, chassis, and interior for years. These guys snuck us in their busy schedule and were able to get this exhaust done in 3 days. We are on a very tight schedule as we are racing September 2nd, and again for the Outlaw finals on September 9th at hawk pride. So we needed the buggy back asap so we could get going on wiring and plumbing.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

dynajeep · Aug 25, 2017

So from exhaust croes took the buggy over to Parker browns for some wiring love. We had a game plan setup and everyone was on board. Owner Owen got started doing his thing on the wiring and Chris did his on the cnc plasma table. This is where we are at now so I'll keep updated as they come.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

croes · Aug 28, 2017

Cool build thread AJ. This is definitely not anything like the average LS swap.

Air intake/PCV plumbing/MAF and battery relocation got done yesterday.

TO DO

Mount supercharger rear radiator
-Mount electric pump
-Plumb

Mount Drive Junky accessory system
-Finalize steering pump plumbing
-Finalize coolant plumbing
-Mount steering reservoir
-Install ATI balancer etc

Finish wiring (almost done)
Finish fuel line plumbing (almost done)

Install ICT Billet straight out oil cooler adapter and plumb, couldn't fit Improved Racing version due to header interference.

Add fluids, tidy up any loose ends and start it. Break it in, change oil.

Reassemble and dyno.

redneckengineered · Aug 29, 2017

Super cool man. I'm a huge LS fan obviously, the new Gen V stuff is definitely bad ass. $13k for a complete factory built 650/650 motor is really not bad. That will be rowdy as hell. The future of LS swap the world continues to be bright!

edit: The harness, pedal, ECM. Is that also a GM Performance kit? Does it come pre-tuned so you basically plug and play and peel out?

croes · Aug 29, 2017

redneckengineered said:
Super cool man. I'm a huge LS fan obviously, the new Gen V stuff is definitely bad ass. $13k for a complete factory built 650/650 motor is really not bad. That will be rowdy as hell. The future of LS swap the world continues to be bright!

edit: The harness, pedal, ECM. Is that also a GM Performance kit? Does it come pre-tuned so you basically plug and play and peel out?

Yes, its plug and play. The manuals will get you about 60% of the way on the install, but there is still a lot of research and part sourcing to do. I'm sure its a pretty basic stock tune, which these LT4's are showing significant gains from just a tune alone, upwards of 40hp.

http://www.jegs.com/i/Chevrolet-Performance/809/19331517/10002/-1

cdemart2 · Aug 29, 2017

Cool build, it's going to scream with those headers.

Are you running the Insight off the OBD-II port, or hard wiring it to the harness? What else besides plugging it in needs to be done to interface with the management system?

dynajeep · Aug 29, 2017

cdemart2 said:
Cool build, it's going to scream with those headers.

Are you running the Insight off the OBD-II port, or hard wiring it to the harness? What else besides plugging it in needs to be done to interface with the management system?

We are plugging into the OBDII port to get most of what we want data wise We are using separate cables to pull temps from the trans and also the oil temp. This engine comes with a heat exchanger for the oil cooler and we are planning on using it since one day we could be running the king of hammers

dynajeep · Aug 29, 2017

redneckengineered said:
Super cool man. I'm a huge LS fan obviously, the new Gen V stuff is definitely bad ass. $13k for a complete factory built 650/650 motor is really not bad. That will be rowdy as hell. The future of LS swap the world continues to be bright!

edit: The harness, pedal, ECM. Is that also a GM Performance kit? Does it come pre-tuned so you basically plug and play and peel out?

LS motors are super hard to beat for sure! We are finding out these new genV motors are on another level as far as computer and being able to tune them. Like croes said they are pulling huge gains on just tuning on the dyno with these. Adding an intake and gaining up to 60hp over stock.

XRR · Aug 30, 2017

AJ, We used circuit breakers instead of fuses. All of the switches on the front panel are circuit breakers. The only two switches that aren't are the winch control and the fuel pump selector. We decided to use circuit breakers instead of fuse so if something faulted it could be reset during a race instead of stopping and finding a fuse and replacing it. I'm glad to answer any questions.

Thanks

Benjamin
[email protected]
205-901-7661

croes · Aug 30, 2017

XRR said:
AJ, We used circuit breakers instead of fuses. All of the switches on the front panel are circuit breakers. The only two switches that aren't are the winch control and the fuel pump selector. We decided to use circuit breakers instead of fuse so if something faulted it could be reset during a race instead of stopping and finding a fuse and replacing it. I'm glad to answer any questions.

Thanks

Benjamin
[email protected]
205-901-7661

Half dozen of one, six of the other. I'll throw a baggie with spare fuses in the sealed bussman box.

TBItoy · Aug 30, 2017

XRR said:
AJ, We used circuit breakers instead of fuses. All of the switches on the front panel are circuit breakers. The only two switches that aren't are the winch control and the fuel pump selector. We decided to use circuit breakers instead of fuse so if something faulted it could be reset during a race instead of stopping and finding a fuse and replacing it. I'm glad to answer any questions.

Thanks

Benjamin
[email protected]
205-901-7661

I was wondering about this after the "no fuses, fire was in it's near future" comment in the first post ???, since I knew this was a pretty in depth build, high $ buggy.

Didn't really want to ask since it would just look like I was :stir:

croes · Aug 31, 2017

TBItoy said:
I was wondering about this after the "no fuses, fire was in it's near future" comment in the first post ???, since I knew this was a pretty in depth build, high $ buggy.

Didn't really want to ask since it would just look like I was

The whole buggy has been rewired, it needed it, especially after stripping all the Holley integration out plus AJ wanted the controls laid out more to his liking. There was one big thing in general that was found, that has nothing to do with the fuses or switches that was corrected.

Oh, and it started lastnight.

kmcminn · Aug 31, 2017

croes said:
The whole buggy has been rewired, it needed it, especially after stripping all the Holley integration out plus AJ wanted the controls laid out more to his liking. There was one big thing in general that was found, that has nothing to do with the fuses or switches that was corrected.

Oh, and it started lastnight.

What was the problem? Maybe you can prevent us from doing it.