Some History:
As all Thirdgen owners know, the stock engine in our cars, no matter what it is, is not the powerhouse that many owners like to think it is. In fact, it's just sad how much horsepower GM was able to strangle out of our engines, especially the 305's. Like most of the RS Camaros out there, mine came with the LO3 TBI 305 backed by a T-5 transmission. Sure, it was fun at first, it was my first car, I didn't know how it should have performed, I was just content to have gotten what I wanted. Then the racing started. Or maybe I should say the attempts to race. Very quickly I got disappointed by the paltry 170 hp that the beast of a V8 was pushing out. And with 130,000 miles on the clock, I just knew things were going to start going very bad very soon.
So began the look for bigger and better things. I found Thirdgen.org and soon began spending hours on the message board, reading through posts about engine swaps, tips, complications, you know, things like that. At first, all I knew was that I wanted a 350, I didn't really care where it came from, how much it cost, or how long it would take, as long as I could get more power. I'm sure this is the same way most of us feel or have felt like at some point.
And then it happened. A coworker of mine, who also works in an automotive repair shop, mentioned that people were always selling used LT1's for relatively cheap and sometimes, if you were lucky, with low miles. The search quickly began, and ended soon after at Auto Recycler's of Houston. What started out as just a hopeless dream ended up with a '95 LT1, complete with wiring harness and ECM, and with only 30,000 miles, sitting in my garage, waiting to be stuffed between the fenders of my car.
After a 6 week ordeal that started out simple enough and ended with my dad and I cursing, bleeding, sweating, and ready to burn the car, the swap was, for the most part completed. It was in the car, it ran, and ran pretty good at that, but as most projects go, they are never completed. So is the case with my car, after nearly 2 years and 30K more miles, I still say that swapping in an LT1 was absolutely one of the best decisions I've made towards my car.
Below you will find a few pictures of the LT1 in my car. These were taken almost a year ago, and things have changed quite a bit since then, but you get the general idea. Come back soon because I will be taking a number of new pictures of the latest modifications I have made.
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For now, I'm just going to post a general list of tips for doing an LT1 swap. I hope to be able, with the help and input from other Thirdgeners, to put together a comprehensive swap guide that covers all possibilities for LT1 swaps.
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©
Tristan Reeves
April, 2002
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