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The 1961 c-10 story

99 LS1/6SPEED SWAP in a weekish
So he stopped up for a visit and drove this truck around 400 miles up with a 350 vortec roller block and carb intake and 700r4 . He had this 99 LS1/6speed combo from a wrecked 99 pontiac with 15k miles on it from a trans-am car pulled over 15 years ago .

We decided to tackle the swap as he did a lot of the measuring and asking the right questions . So with a few parts orders we got started .

He already had swapped in square body front suspension and ditched the torsion bar setup . He also added the p/s box and a newer gm column.

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With very little work this combo swapped in easy with some motor mount plates for 40.00 . We set it back 1 position from stock bellhousing spot .

Next we found zero mods to the floor pan other than shifter hole just past the bolt in pan section . And it just needs a little height adjustment on the length of the handle .

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We ordered a 94 full size blazer 31gal tank with measurments he took . Got a matching sender and used a acdelco ep381 pump with a Corvette fuel filter with built in regulator. We fabbed up plastic line from sender to filter . And i changed the sender ends from o-ring to push connection style with my flairing tool . Then we did 3/8" hard steel to the engine bay and hooked the stock line up to the fuel rail .

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Nice. How much clearance on the oil pan and the exhaust manifolds?
 
Next we fired it up and no real hickups . We figured flush the cooling system to get rid of the old nasty dried up dex-cool before we plumbed it up .

Well mid garden hose feed and flush we developed a miss on the left bank and the exhaust was blowing water out :doah:

Shut it down and drained the block the best possible . Went to turn it over and she was locked up just solid CLINK .

Pulled the plugs left side and found #1 full of water . So i called my 1 buddy and we had it blown apart in 1 hr on the bench and found the problem .

Gm dex-cool sucked in storage for years . It caused HEAVY corrosion on just the heads thank goodness.

Found both heads had HEAVY corrosion at the lower cooling ports . So we found a guy local to grind out the spots to clean build back up .

Next we took them to local machine shop and he hooked us up with super fast turn around time next day done . He found 3.5 tho out and all cleaned up by 5.0 tho . I then opened up the ports to stock size again . The 1 local parts store got us 2 head bolt sets and gasket set overnight .

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Nice. How much clearance on the oil pan and the exhaust manifolds?
All car doner pan / manifolds used . Had to take the motor stand pass side ( 62 stands ) and cut 1 50cent size pocket out / flip over and burn back in . Then driver side o2 had to open a hole in frame a hair more that was already there .
 
Clutch parts was stupid easy . Stock car hydro in trans . 95-00 gmt400 master and line setup . Make plate for master to plug in to like O.E.M and put inline with original clutch pedal but driver side now over older 61 pass side hole .

Used the new master rod but removed stock pladtic mold on section and tapped it to1/4"-20 thread . Took a extra brake booster rod end from newer and matching bolt mount pivot point . Welded a 1/4"-20 long threaded rod nut on the end . Then checked and needed to shorten 1.75" on the threaded rod end and test fit good . But found angle off so i spaced it off with another long nut but 3/8" to match the bolt size and PERFECT line up . Last was drill a new hole for up/down height in the middle of the stock 2 original return spring mount holes .

This got a super nice / easy / great action clutch pedal setup . And no return spring needed .
 
Today was test runs to make sure no problems .

She burped fairly easy . The 17" fan kicked on easy . And the pass side o2 sensor bank 1 was super slow so new one fixed that .

Then after a 4,500 rpm hit she had a skip that come and go ? ? ? We stopped at my buddys shop and scanned it and in 2 min we found miss fires #7 . So we swapped the coil to #1 no change . Swapped plug wire still no change . Then started to swap plugs and found #7 plug electrode was 95% closed off ? Guess someone accidentally dropped it or bumped it . Re gapped and problem gone .

Did some more driving and sent him on his way back home 400 ish miles away .

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Nice swap!

Cool truck!
a lot of the fine point will be done by him when he gets time back home . so some of the quick make it work stuff is just temporary for now .

but as he said the LS swapped crap down his way is stupid scary and not sure how it all stays in place and people live after driving it .
 
a lot of the fine point will be done by him when he gets time back home . so some of the quick make it work stuff is just temporary for now .

but as he said the LS swapped crap down his way is stupid scary and not sure how it all stays in place and people live after driving it .
No offence to anyone on here. But how do you and some of the other guys get the wiring done so quickly and others take months and have nightmares with it?

That would be me with the months and nightmares BTW. I’m more of a three wire guy.
 
he got the engine / trans combo with a computer and harness all modded ready to go . each one was labled were the plug went and just clip in / power up / fire up .
 
Devil is in the details or in this case what level of parts you buy . Go cheep work longer . Go premium plug and play . Spend your money smart also . No stupid high end fittings or tank . Lots of rides can be modded easy to feed the fuel .

We paid arounds 400 for spectra premium tank / sender no pump / straps / acdelco ep381 pump . Thats half of a specific swap tank and if need parts there at any store .
 

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