Cascade Crew

[Midnight Sun]

LT1 engines are fuel injected correct?

I am seeing all of these decently priced t56+lt1 combos. How hard would it be to convert an LT1 to a carb'd set up?

Is this something I should even consider?

How hard would it be to convert my current car be fuel injection compatible?

It seems LT1's have alot computer junk, and I do not want to deal with computrers.

[Jess]

All LT1's are Fuel injected, pretty much every GM motor has been FI since the late 80's. You should check if those LT1 combo's come with all the wiring/computer or not. I think an LT1 swap would be a nice combo for a 3rd gen.

To convert a carbed car to support FI, I believe you just need the High pressure fuel pump and probably some fuel lines.

And to convert an LT1 to a carb you would need a carb intake that would fit the LT1 heads the carb etc.... But the LT1 has the opti spark distributor which is mounted on the front of the engine (under the water pump of all places) so I'm not sure if it has the provisions for a traditional distributor or not (I'm thinking not) and with out the computer my guess is the Opti = no worky. Plus why spend the money/effort trying to get an LT1 to work with a carb when older SBC's meant for carbs are cheap?

[TecherB]

Don’t convert am LT1 to carb it is a waste of time.

Putting an LT1 in a third gen is a little bit of a consuming project just off the top of my head you would need the engine(complete), wiring harness, computer, radiator because you will need better cooling, a fuel pump possibly, and i think it mounts in the engine compartment a little different but I am not sure.


Be careful about engine swaps because you don’t want to get in trouble with deq down the road because you put to old of technology.

[Dewey316]

what they said, the bottom end of the LT1's is nothing specail, what makes them nice is the very good flowing heads, and intake. DEQ shouldn't be an issue, since you are putting a newer engine in.

[rice B-4]

But that question did spark my curiosity, how hard would it be to put an LT1 or an LS1 in a third gen?

[Dewey316]

its not all that bad, LT1 is probably easier than LS1, but thridgenresources sells ls1 swap headers, and motor mounts. the hardest part of the whole bit is getting the engine, and wiring it.

[Roshambo]

There are a few companies (Edelbrock being one of them) that do make carb'd intakes for LT1's and LS1's... The rotating assembly in both is pretty tough, as alot of the guys running boost on stock LT1s are running about 8-10 psi, so they can handle a beating.

I think an LT1 with a carb'd intake would be sorta wierd, and pointless...but expect to pay about $3-4k for everything you need to do an LT1 swap and maybe $5k on the low side for an LS1 swap.

To me I think a bone stock LS6/T-56 combo would be great in a thirdgen, not just for the shear power, but having all aluminum up front would bring some weight off the nose too.

-Joe

[Twilightoptics]

You have to knotch the K member, and weld in a new plate to fit the accessories. That and a new cross member, plus all the headacche of wiring... and then HOPEing the wiring is intact and all the sensors work from the setup.

[J96Z]

From what i understand, a LT1 will go right in with the corvette accesories brackets. I guess the f body brackets put the ac compressor into the crossmember. A LS1 will work if you notch the crossmember. There was an article with this swap that talked about it in detail in chevy high perfomance I believe about 4 months ago. They were showing how to swap a LS1 into any kind of Chevy. The guy who did the swap in the mag sells the swap parts for a LS1 conversion into a 3rd gen. LT1 should be a little easier to swap since it uses all the regular sbc mounts. It would be pointless to put a carb on a LT1 since the heads, cam and intake are optimized for MPFI.