Trevor57's 86 240 5.3 ls t56, and 7875 turbo

I have been collecting parts for about a year, and just finished moving all of my tools, cars, and parts into a new shop. I have removed the stock engine/trans, and powerwashed the 30 years of grime from the engine bay.

I will be using the existing formula of sts mounts, holley oil pan, hooker cast manifolds. This engine is ready to have the trans mounted to it.



My corner of the shop, with a mountain of **** that still needs to be organized. Sitting next to the lemons car.

pressure or no pressure?

(lots of ls swaps here lately. baller)

I am keeping the motor stock for at least this summer. I have no plans for boost, as of right now.

I spent some hours this afternoon cleaning, organizing, and finishing moving in to the new shop. Here is a pic of most of the parts I have ready to be put in the car.



Not pictured, tick master cyl, summit aluminum radiator, and mounts. I lost my hardware for the mounts in the move, and the guys at sts are sending me a new set for a nominal charge.

Shot of the trans.



Clean and ready to begin work.



I am going to be at the shop on Sunday, and will document the progress.

So I realized this weekend why most of the pictures of people putting the ls motors in a 240 do not have the intake manifold on the engine. The manifold hits the firewall, and needed to be removed. After this I pulled it back out, and removed the intake manifold.

I know I will need to modify the trans tunnel, and so I began to remove the seats, and carpet to facilitate cutting up some sheet metal. I am planning to use wrx seats in place of the oem volvo seats. I have some from a wrx donor car from an unrelated project, so the price is right. In removing the seat brackets I learned that the oem seats have height adjustability in both front and rear. I can't believe I didn't learn that before this.




I pulled out the stock clutch pedal, to begin to convert the pull cable, to push hydraulic. The hole I drilled in the new piece is 7/8." I still need to determine the position of the second hole for the master cylinder pushrod in this piece to get the 1.1" of stroke that my Tilton master cylinder has. then I will file, weld, and paint.

Nice. I'm going to be paying lots of attention to the details, this is sort of what I see in the future for my 240. Ellis and a tre-fitty sicks.

Looking forward to more progress!

Finally finished the pedal assembly stuff. took out pedal box, chop up pedal, weld.



It may be somewhat hard to see from these pics, but there are two pieces of 1/8" x 3/4", not just one.




Part of my time has been spent building a rolling stand for a b230/m46 combo for the race car. This way I can have a spare engine and trans ready to drop in, without having to assemble anything. I will post pics when done.

Got the engine in the car, on motor mounts. Still need to take some material out of the trans tunnel to fit the reverse lockout. I also need to finish up a few things under the hood before the engine gets bolted down for good.

Here is the pedal box completed, and ready to be installed back onto the firewall. I chose to use a clevis pin, and cotter pin to secure the spherical bearing on the master to the pedal. It is pretty much the same way the brake pedal works from the factory.



a strange perspective, but you can see the reverse lockout sticking out of the hole I created in the trans tunnel.

Made some very promising progress this weekend. The engine, and transmission are in the car, and mounted. Hopefully for the last time, as I should not need to pull them back out.

I fabricated the transmission mount from 1/8" channel, 1/8" flat, and 1/8" angle. This is not exactly what i had in mind, but I feel like this will be strong enough, and I had to do something. I was limited by what was immediately available, and not knowing exactly what I plan to do with the exhaust. I feel like even if this doesn't end up being what stays in the car forever, it will at least allow me to accomplish my big goals for under the car. Fab the exhaust, and get the driveshaft built.



I have been hung up be small details, and have done a lot more waiting for parts, and driving to and from the shop then I wanted. I finally got the pedal box, and clutch master in for good.

This is a tilton master, sold by tick, as an upgrade for the oem corvette master. It comes with the correct stuff to plug and play with the t56. I also added the aluminum plate, since the tilton mc did not cover the hole created by the volvo factory.



Installed this universal steering shaft to maximize clearance for manifold. This may not have been needed, and this was a huge pain in the ass. Also did the u joint since i was in there.



Some pics of the car on the lift, and close ups of the trans mount.







Also a couple projects I was picking at, and finished while not working on the swap car.
Canoe trailer.





This is my b230/m46 dolly. I built this the use the factory mounts so we can just lift it right from the dolly to the lemons car. I plan to paint the dolly, when I either clean up, or install this engine.

I got the start of the exhaust built. I chose to pie cut for these two pipes, since there is a compound bend on the passenger side due to the starter, and the control arm. I also thought it would be good practice, and I have not done it before.



This is the drivers side. 2.5" from the manifold, and will go to a merge, then into 3.5" single out the back.



The passenger side was more difficult, with more things being in the way. If I was going to do this again, and I probably will. I would do stainless, and TIG it. I'm sure this will work well, even if it isn't going to win any beauty contests. I also have my driveshaft at a shop, and I should have it this week.

sweet job man! How comfortable do you feel about the cross member set up?

Not very. I didn't know how I was going to do the exhaust when I made the trans mount. When I have the exhaust done, it is very likely that I will go back and redo the trans mount. It is good enough for now, but I would do it differently.

The car is coming together, and I hope to start it this weekend. Here is some progress.

Throttle cable, and bracket



The battery fits perfectly in this area. I need to move that ground though, to use the stock cover without modifying it.



I opted to use the stock lp pump in tank with an inline 255, here is the new fuel filter, and sweet ss lines, and an fittings.



Belt on, and intake on. Pretty much ready to start.



Very tight fit.



Driveshaft in and ready to make burnouts.



exhaust view from below. Went under the axle, rather than over.



Shot of entire exhaust tacked up. 2.5" running into 3.5".



Radiator installed.

looks good man. looks like you're gonna be doing some skids soon.

Trevor57 said:

Not very. I didn't know how I was going to do the exhaust when I made the trans mount. When I have the exhaust done, it is very likely that I will go back and redo the trans mount. It is good enough for now, but I would do it differently.

Click to expand...

Nice wagon. Please post photos of the wrx seats in front.

Just a suggestion on your transmission cross member clearance for exhaust. Instead of all those bends, just use a straight piece of 1.5 x 1.5 square tubing, and add a short piece of 6" dia sch 40 pipe for the exhaust to pass through. This is much simpler and results in a very rigid mount.

This is on my coupe, but the concept is the same.

That is very nice. I have another idea I am playing with in my head. I am going to redo the trans mount for sure. I am not going to do it until winter though. I want a couple months to drive the car, test, and see what I like and don't like. Then I will have 5 months to iron out that stuff.

As for the seats, it is low on the list, since I just want to get the car running. I will post pics when done.

.

Started the car today, but had a lot going on, and couldn't stay to work on it. Hoping to drive it home in two weeks.

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