Install after new oil pan

Finally got the Mast Motorsports oil pan. Installed it and put engine in car. Tranny still hits on tunnel in a couple of places, should be able to clearance those areas enough to get final installation completed. As is the oil pan really helped but without some more beating on the tranny tunnel the pan is still up against the crossmember in one spot and I think I crushed a brake line that I will have to repair.

Out with the old

396 sold and removed from car. Ready to start working on car again. Dropped a nut into a lifter pocket on the 5.3L engine while engine was upside down on stand and had to pull heads to retrieve it. Will begin install once the parts come in to reassemble.

Taking a Break

Haven't done very much on the swap recently, still working on the oil pan mod. Did learn how to put video on youtube however.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmzCdGC-D-8

Break-Time!

Time to get away from this project for a week, and everything else.

New paint for engine

I decided that the engine needed to be painted. I decided that I could not easily get all the surface rust off using wire brush or scraping or chemical cleaning. I got a portable sandblaster and a bag of "black diamond" blasting media from Tractor Supply. I taped off everything that I did not want to get blasting grit into. I then put on a clear faceshield and covered myself and the engine with an old bedsheet to contain the blasting spray. Holding a flourescent worklight in one hand and the blasting gun in the other, I blasted all the non-aluminum surfaces on the engine. These LSx iron block engines do not have much exposed iron. Front, rear, and valley covers are aluminum and the heads and oil pan are aluminum. Used about 60# of the 80# bag of "black diamond" and took about 1.5 hours to finish blasting. I will spend the next year cleaning black specs from stuff in my garage, even trying to contain it with the sheet. I then painted it with spray can self etching primer and then spray can krylon engine paint, cast iron grey color. It turned out exactly how I wanted it, a dark grey that has a bit of a gloss to it.

Changing 4L80E wiring to 4L60E wiring

First I should note that this is applicable to PCM that uses blue/green connectors. I suspect it will be similar for blue/red PCM, but haven't verified yet.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Av2_VYcgmwMqdHdhUnZ6aUpTNFZtUXk2OWtSOGozNlE&hl=en

Another pic of finishing up wiring. I sat down at the table and went one wire at a time to make sure I got it right. Be patient and double check at each step. It is easy to do if you get it right the first time. It is a severe headache if you make a mistake and have to track it down later.

The Wiring

First, a pic of the recipient of this documented struggle to convert from BBC to Gen III SBC.



The harness from the salvage yard was not from the same truck as the engine/tranny and was somewhat damaged. I traded this harness for programming on my PCM to make it ready for stand alone operation. Purchased a 2003 6.0L/4L80E harness off truck forum classifieds. Was advertised as in new condition and complete. It arrived in that condition, best $124 I have spent on this project.



The harness from the salvage yard was not from the same truck as the engine/tranny and was somewhat damaged. I traded this harness for programming on my PCM to make it ready for stand alone operation. Purchased a 2003 6.0L/4L80E harness off truck forum classifieds. Was advertised as in new condition and complete. It arrived in that condition, best $124 I have spent on this project.


Started by removing plastic split tubing and the back endcaps for the PCM connectors.





Then I laid the harness on the engine/tranny. This helped me to figure out a few more plug ID's. Most of the info I have gotten from LT1swap.com. All the info necessary to convert a harness to standalone. I also looked at a 2004 GMC YUKON engine to figure out where some of the connectors went.


As I determined what each plug was I labeled it accordingly. After determining purpose for all but about 5 plugs I started removing pins/wires from the PCM connectors. Just use the info from LT1swap.com and it is fairly easy to do. Here are some pics of the process. Wires balled up in chair are not needed.







After I removed wires from PCM I then removed the unneeded plugs such as oil level, EVAP, A/C, ect. Then I Labeled all the wires that did not go to a plug. I ended up with a harness that had only the wires I need for my 64 Chevelle, all plugs/loose ends labeled as to function. All thats left is converting the Tranny plug from 4L80E type to 4L60E type, but thats another post.