L33 engine in a 92 supra

[MightyAl]

I have been wanting to do this swap for a few years and finally decided to pull the trigger. I have been working on it for the past 6 months and here is my progress.

Here I am bringing her home 2 years ago. I had been looking for another supra for a couple years before and a friend of mine knew how much I missed my 91 so he gave me this 92.

She had been puled apart for paint and me and my friend spent 2 weekends putting her back together after being apart for 8 months.

I spent the first year just dealing with details. It was a pretty good running car but had a lot of little tuning issues. It was an automatic which was new as I have only owned one other auto supra and it was a mk4. Everything really needed to be R&R'd on the engine. I went back and forth trying to figure out what to do and kept coming back to the LSx engines.

So about a year ago I came a good deal on an L33 and picked it up. This is the all aluminum 5.3L truck engine. 9.9:1 compression and 799 heads which were used on the c5 z06 corvette. All in all a good engine at a good price.

So I pulled out the 7m about 6 months ago.

Bye bye 7m I will miss you

I really wanted to use the R154 since I had one and they have never failed me. I had heard that there were adapters available to merge the R154 with the LSx engines. So I went searching for info and found that very few people had actually done this. I found a guy local to me that was selling an R154 with a novak adapter plate and decided to take a look at it. The price was good and the trans was in good shape so I picked it up.

The novak adapter is a sandwich plate that uses a GM 621 bellhousing to attach to the engine. I liked this setup but the aluminum GM bell was very big and bulky in all the wrong places. I also picked up an LS2/LS3 c6 corvette oil pan. The dimensions looked good and it worked well on mock up but the GM bell caused me all kinds of interference problems.

I fought with it for a little while but finally threw in the towel and ordered an advance adapters AX15 to GM gen 3 bell housing kit.
Here is a comparison between the 2 kits.

The Advance Adapters kit was slimmer in all the right places and fit well in the tunnel with only a little BFH. Now I was able to hook the trans to the engine and get my mounts made. It was very easy and only took me a couple of weeks to get right.

Here is the engine and trans together for the last time. It took me 3 times to get the pilot bushing right. I finally found the right combination and used an adavance adapters bushing for the R150. I had to cut it down by a half inch and the final dimensions are 1.09"x.471"x1"

The advance adapters R150 bushing on the left and my cut down bushing on the right.

So here is the engine as it sits today.

I am still waiting to get my PCM back for an mail in tune. I should be able to start her up by the beginning of January if I can keep things going. I still have about a page of details to wrap up and she will definitely be ready to go back on the road in the spring.

 

[IJ.]

Awesome will keep an eye on this one

 

[AbsoluteSpeed]

Awesome build!

I was worried someone was bastardizing a clean 92' but you're doing it justice.
The swap looks great and shifter position looks near perfect.

Any idea what the weight difference is between this and the old motor?

 

[IJ.]

Base LS engine with a few bits and pieces bolted on no big accessories is 195 Kg, GTE in much the same state was 215Kg but the LS and accessories are a good deal further back in the chassis so it makes a HUGE difference to the handling!

 

[pete05]

Nice work on the conversion, did you buy or build the engine mounts?

Sent from my GT-I9300T using Tapatalk 2

 

[Chambers]

Wow, you have loads of room around that engine! Everything so far looks well done, it's so easy to butcher one of these cars with a GM V8. Good job!

 

[Jacob25]

looks good so far. are you going to turbo it?

 

[RiyadYar]

nice work i would love to see how this build goes ..keep us updated

 

[Riceman83]

Finally got your build posted!

 

[MightyAl]

I built the engine mounts or better yet I had them built by a machine shop.

I don't plan on turboing it. I just got rid of the turbo. The most I am looking for, as far as hp, is about 450-500. I can get that by either sc'ing this motor or just getting a 408 or 416. I like the options and simplicity of the larger cubes in the same package so that is probably the way I will go. You can go from a 4.8L all the way up to a 7.0L or more all in the same box that will fit where I have my engine now.

The options for the LSx based engines are endless. I always feel like a kid in a candy store when I go looking for parts. There is a parts store in town called The Car Shop Inc. They are known for selling S-10 swap parts so they have all kinds of cool bits and pieces for the LSx engines that I can go down and look at. The owner and I sit for hours just talking about parts and he shows me the new cool stuff that they get.

I hate hacking up a car for a swap. You could take my car right now and swap the 7m right back in with no problem. The shifter sits in the factory position and I am using the factory driveshaft. The only con to this swap is that the ecu is humongous. The thing is three times the size of the stocker so fitting it behind the glove box will be difficult. I might hang it underneath the dash and hide it that way.

It really has been a lot of fun for me doing this swap and working out the details. I used a lokar throttle cable and made it so it bolts in just like stock and attaches to the pedal using the stock clips. It took me a day to make but it looks great.

I used the new cast manifolds from hooker. They were pricey but they fit great and look good. It is like they were built for this swap.

The LS2 pan was another piece that looks like it was meant to be there. It tucks up above the crossmember and is the exact length to fit. I didn't have to trim or change anything on the crossmember.

The clutch line has been a bit of a bear since the slave is on the passenger side. I had AZP make me an adapter plate to use a wilwood 3/4" master and the Advance Adapters kit uses the Toyota Landcruiser slave. I made my own hard line by buying a 60" long 3/16" brake line from AutoZone so I all I need to fab up is a 1' line from the slave to the hard line. I am hoping to have that done soon and have one more thing checked off the list.

I did find a useable upper radiator hose but I am still searching for a decent lower candidate. I need to peruse the stock rooms of the local parts stores a little more and hopefully I can get the cooling system wrapped up.

Enough rambling. Thanks for the support and I will be posting up more as I go.

 

[AbsoluteSpeed]

I hate hacking up a car for a swap. You could take my car right now and swap the 7m right back in with no problem. The shifter sits in the factory position and I am using the factory driveshaft.

Doubt anyone will want to undo the swap but it is great to see the option is still available.

I'm looking forward to more updates. GL

 

[NewGen]

We really need to make an attempt to get the Des Moines guys and the QC guys together this summer .

I'd love to see the car in person great work!

 

[Enraged]

very nice swap, I like your methodology of not hacking things apart. Everything looks like it was designed by the factory to drop in!

 

[MightyAl]

We really need to make an attempt to get the Des Moines guys and the QC guys together this summer .

I'd love to see the car in person great work!

I haven't really made too many attempts to meet up with people. I did help a guy in Burlington install a Megasquirt on his 87 but other then that I have stayed on the DL in the QC. Hopefully this summer I can get the car out and meet some more people.

 

[MightyAl]

I put together this post at the urging of Greg55_99 on a long thread of his over at Jeeps Offroad about hooking up different transmissions to different engines. So after waiting for my post to be moderated it finally got put up so I could copy it here. So here is my information on attaching the R154 to the Gen 3 GM V8s.

For the past 6 months I have been working on putting my R154 behind an LSx engine. More specifically I have an L33 from a silverado that I have put it behind.

Right now there are 2 kits that work with adapting the R154 to the LSx engines. I used the kit for the AX15 since the input shaft is a similar length as the R154. The R154 input shaft is ~1/2" shorter.

First I tried to use the Novak Adapter Kit GMAX-15:
http://www.novak-adapt.com/catalog/kit_gmax15.htm

This kit uses a sandwich plate adapter between the trans and a GM bellhousing. I used a GM 621 aluminum bellhousing. I also went with a quartermaster hydraulic throwout bearing since the external offering from Novak was extremely bulky. This combination would have worked but the bellhousing was so big that I had to do a lot of surgery to get it to work.

I then bought the Advance Adapters kit for the AX15 to the LSx engine 712567V:
http://www.advanceadapters.com/prod...o-jeep-wrangler-ax15-adapter-bellhousing-kit/

I like this kit much better due to the fact that it uses a one piece bellhousing instead of an adapter plate and is extremely close in price. The Advance adapters bellhousing is also more compact then the GM 621 bellhousing.

I went with the external slave cylinder and it is a nice compact package. The only con to the advance adapter kit is that you must use a gear reduction hi torque starter that costs about $100 more then the standard starter.

The biggest issue I ran into was trying to find a suitable pilot bushing. Advance adapters offers one for the R150 swap. It is p/n 716149-NS. The bushing is 1.09"x.471"x1.5". I found out the hard way that it is too long by 1/2". I had to buy another and have it cut down to 1" long. It worked perfect and everything is together.

For the clutch I used an LS7 flywheel and pressure plate. The only off the shelf clutch disc is a McCleod unit that is sold through Advance adapters and Summit. It is a 10.5" disc and should be suitable for my current torque level.

Here it is in the car waiting on the details:

 

[NewGen]

I haven't really made too many attempts to meet up with people. I did help a guy in Burlington install a Megasquirt on his 87 but other then that I have stayed on the DL in the QC. Hopefully this summer I can get the car out and meet some more people.

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing your car in person. I have one buddy that lives in the QC. We may of spoken about him before. He has a silver MK II supra with a 7mgte in it. I also have a friend in CR that has a 1jzgte MK III. I'm sure I could get the DM guys to make a trip out.

 

[MightyAl]

View attachment LS to MA70 engine bracket.PDF

Here is a pdf of my engine mounts. I threw it together quick so the dimensioning is a little jumbled. I didn't trim up the end without any bolt holes either.

 

[pete05]

Great drawings, thanks.

 

[MightyAl]

Today the temps got well above freezing so I took the opportunity to do some more work on the swap.

I started with the radiator hoses.

I used the JTR coupler for the upper pipe for the steam tube and it also has a purge built into it. I also got these great adapters that will be able to handle the hot coolant

Next was the heater hoses which I only got partially completed. I need to get a small section of 3/4" hose to wrap it up.

I worked on finishing up the fuel system. I found this great hose that has the GM fuel rail coupling and is unfinished. It is a PTFE hose and the price is right. I got this along with alot of my parts from The Car Shop. They are big in S10 LSx swap parts and do a lot of business online but they are local to me so I am able to take the time to go over and talk with them about different parts.

I am still not completely happy with the way the supply and return run near the driver side header. They are good enough for now but I am thinking that I will rework them once I get things running.

I finished up my clutch line. I used a 61" long brake line and made up a short hose to connect the hard line to the slave cylinder. Bad pic but it gives you an idea.

Next I will be working on the wiring and finding a good place for the ECM to live. It might be awhile as temps are going to be below freezing for at least the next week.

 

[leezymk3]

clean man,keep up the good job,
im thinking of ls1 in fc and looking at your make me
want to change my mind