HOW TO LS SWAP ANY VEHICLE - 5 THINGS YOU NEED -- LS Swap Basics Overview (LONG VERSION)

what is up you guys my name is giovanni and welcome back to another video so glad of you guys to be joining me today today i hope to answer a lot of questions that i see over and over again on various forums facebook groups etc today i'm gonna be giving you guys the absolute bare minimum essentials of doing any ls swap into any car now i want to make one thing clear this video is not going to be going into detail on how to swap an ls engine into a specific car this is going to be a very general video showing you guys what you need to swap an ls into any car hopefully this video will be something to refer others to when they have a question or you know hopefully it helps you guys hopefully by making this video i can help you guys that are new to this you can use this video as a point of reference for someone that's new to this thing so anyways enough of the introduction let's go ahead and get started now a preface if you're gonna do an ls swap first thing you really do need is some kind of space to do it in whether it be a driveway a shop borrowing a body shop your garage at home whatever this is a project where you're gonna need space and you're gonna need enough room to work so step one acquire a motor i can go into another video on all this but your cheapest bet is going to get a 4.8 or a 5.3 out of a silverado sierra tahoe yukon suburban any of those trucks between the years of 2001 i'm going to say just to be on the safe side and on up to 2005 you're golden most likely going to be a gen 3 motor that's fine past 2005 and on it's going to be probably a gen 4 motor and anything newer than let's say 2014 is going to be an lt motor that's all you need to look for 2001 and up with some exceptions you might find a 99 2000 whatever but just for general rule of thumb 2001 plus is gonna get you an ls 5348 or 60. that's going to be your cheapest bet you can go and get a car motor which is gonna be ls one two three six or seven or even nine if you want to doesn't matter all the same fundamental block or principle i guess i should say for the sake of saving money we're gonna assume that we're gonna get a 4.8 or a 5.3 block first off what i would do and to make your life easy find one that's in a vehicle already that you can see running or get one that's certified from a junkyard or something where there's a warranty there's a return side period whatever just make sure that the motor runs because now you don't want to tear into it i will make another video going into greater detail on you know the whole 485360 whatever modification upgrade debacle whatever but as of right now we're planning to do this as cheaply and as efficiently as we can also we're not going to be talking about modifying the motor at all this is just to get the motor in the vehicle starting running and driving let me just tell you guys this straight up okay dropping an ls motor into basically any vehicle will get you a great driving fun somewhat fast vehicle if you're putting one in any vehicle that was made before 1980 and it had any motor chances are this motor will be more fuel efficient more powerful and all around more reliable than whatever vehicle you're pulling it out of so just get that through your heads stock 4853 will be better than 90 percent of engines out there okay so now you've got your motor and you've got your vehicle what do you need to do now motor mounts step two is figure out your motor mount situation motor mounts are gonna get your engine to sit in your vehicle properly and permanently okay without motor mounts we're not gonna go anywhere on this build so let me just preface this by saying this if your vehicle was a gm vehicle that had a small block chevy or a big block chevy between doesn't matter any year if it had a small block chevy if you had the option to have a small block chevy or if you had a big block chevy who are in luck because this is actually going to be pretty simple for you okay the reason i say that is because the ls motor is dimensionally and in some characteristics very similar to a small block chevy or a big block chevy and most likely will bolt right up to it with some very inexpensive adapters if you have a gm vehicle even if it's a gm vehicle that had a six cylinder motor but it had the option for a small block chevy or a big block chevy chances are you can find a mount that would fit it and it's very inexpensive to do so take this car for example this is a 65 chevelle it was an inline six vehicle but the chevelle had the option for a 350 chevy all i had to do was purchase the actual mounts that mount to the frame and basically convert this chevelle to accept a small block chevy once i did that all i had to do was buy an adapter plate that goes from a small block chevy engine mount to an ls engine mount it was about maybe 100 total and it sits in here i can lower this voice right now and this engine sits by itself in the vehicle so that's our step one that's our most crucial phase of this build i would say i should say one of the most crucial phases of this build is just getting the motor to sit in the vehicle it's 2019 as i'm making this video chances are any vehicle you decide to swap has probably either been thought of or has been done with an ls swap chances are there's something that you can buy off the shelf to put an ls motor in that vehicle if you're doing something custom and this is your first build i do not recommend it start off with something easy and work your way up to that if you're trying to swap an ls into something exotic or something i mean you're on your own really you i hope you have a friend that can fabricate i hope you can fabricate because really that's what you're gonna have to do if you can't find something you're gonna have to make something so there you go step three decide what transmission you're gonna run in your vehicle now to make this very simple if you wanna run an automatic hopefully you got an engine that maybe you can get the transmission with it if it's two wheel drive great perfect just grab the transmission with the engine on a side note when you purchase your engine get your engine as complete as can be it'll save you the most amount of money in the long run try to find yourself a pull out engine even if you have to pay a little bit extra for it you're going to get all your accessory brackets all your wiring harnesses everything with the engine maybe even a transmission and that's going to save you money in the long run because having to piecemeal all those pieces out is going to end up costing you more money than it would just to get a complete engine from the start trust me i know this so back to the transmission figure out what transmission you're going to want to run to make life easy if you want an automatic grab yourself a 4l60 or a 4l80 okay if you're not planning on making a lot of power later on 4l60 is perfectly fine hold up to a stock motor for years it's all okay if you're planning on making a little bit of power later on something modifying the engine even just slightly just go ahead and spring for the 4 lady right away if you're on a tight budget grab a 4l60 for now you can always upgrade to a 4l80 later if you want to run a manual transmission this is where things get kind of tricky you can get a t56 transmission but they're very expensive so if you want a spring for one gravity 56 it'll be fine it'll bolt up it'll be great okay just make sure it's one out of a gm vehicle not a viper or anything like that you'll have to get a pressure plate and a flywheel and a clutched in all that stuff but gravity 56 that's easy another cheaper option nv 3500 or nv 4500 out of a work truck that would have had a standard transmission and a 5 3 4 8 6 0 whatever you know those will hold up to a stock engine for however long and it's simple bolt-on comes with the engine itself you know those are a little bit harder to find but if you find one and you want a manual trans grab it it's not a racing transmission but it's a good work transmission it'll get you from point a to point b if you absolutely have to you can grab a th-350 transmission out of an older vehicle let's say your vehicle came with one great it will bolt up you'll have to make some changes not for this video same thing with the th-400 it'll work you'll have to make some changes but it'll work at the end of the day it'll work 700 r4 200 r4 i would stay away from those unless you absolutely have to use them it'd just be cheaper and probably easier to just run a 4l60 and it'll actually hold up a little bit better than a 700 r4 now if you're trying to do something something custom you're on your own figure it out i don't recommend trying to get a 6l80e 6l40 anything other than a 4l60e if you're trying to run a gm automatic the six speeds are great in the cars that come in but right now the aftermarket there's not much support for it you're gonna end up paying an extra thousand dollars to be able to control that transmission so just stick to the basics here automatic 4l60 4l80 manual nv 3500 mb 4500 or a t56 step 4 decide how you're going to control your engine and transmission favor of keeping this build cheap we're hoping that we would have got a wiring harness to go along with our motor now sometimes either the wiring harnesses are cut or they're messed up is not worth trying to repair so do yourself a favor go to a junkyard and just go ahead and pull one out of a vehicle make sure it's complete even if maybe one or two connectors are cut off or whatever that's fine just get yourself as complete of a stock harness as you possibly can make sure it's for any ls vehicle and go ahead and grab the computer while you're there one day i'll make a video on how to pull a harness out of a junk card in the most clean and efficient way possible but for right now i just hope that you got a stock harness okay when you get your stop harness you'll peel off all the old plastic covering and the umbilicals and all that and it'll look something like this there's plenty of guys on the internet lt1swap.com it has pin outs it has everything you need to be able to convert this harness and remove as much unnecessary wires as you can and basically make your engine run and drive standalone if you guys don't have your stock harness and it's going to be too expensive to get a stock harness or you want to splurge a little bit look into micro squirt if you feel you're capable of wiring your own vehicle and whatnot look into microsquare or mega square you can get them with an ls harness already attached to them already pre-tuned ready to go those are a great affordable option or right now the uh big talk on the town is the holley terminator i want to say it is it's the cheaper holly one uh it comes in at about a thousand bucks without transmission control and about 1200 bucks with transmission control but you're getting a beautiful harness ecu complete package ready to go out of the box pretty much something that you'll be able to tune and whatnot right out of the box it's not a bad investment if you guys want to splurge the extra 1200 on the holley system all right and since we're on the topic of wiring harnesses i thought i'd just throw this out there and talk about computers briefly this is a stock truck ecu it is a uh oh well those don't have the colors but it's a green and blue one there's also a blue and red one there's many various different types of computers hopefully grab the one that goes with your stock harness but just remember if you're going to use a stock harness and stock computer you're going to have to get the computer reprogrammed there's plenty of places that will do it there's plenty of online places you ship your ecu to they'll reprogram it take off the vats you tell them what you're running and it'll be great so now hopefully you've got your engine you've got your transmission you've got a wiring harness and you have some way of controlling the engine this is where things get exciting if you've got your motor mounted in your vehicle well you're very close to getting this engine started next step which is step five is the fuel system now i will be making a video for sure going in depth on the ls fuel system what you need and specific parts whatever now for sure what you'll need in the meantime is just know that you'll need an electric fuel pump something that can flow at least 255 liters per hour now that could be an external fuel pump that you'll plumb in line or it can be an internal fuel pump that sits in the gas tank now depending on your intake there will be some intakes that have a single line in for those systems you'll need an external fuel regulator with a return a great option for that would be a corvette fuel filter regulator if your intake has two fuel line feeds one is an inlet and one is a return now for that you'll need to plumb an inlet line and a return line and the fuel regulator will be built into the intake so you don't have to worry about that just know that you have to have a means of getting the fuel from the tank through some kind of fuel pump up to the intake and then after that you have to have some way for the fuel to go back to the tank the way these engines work is they pressurize the fuel rails whatever is not needed at the moment will be returned straight back to the tank and it goes on and on again i will be making a video going very in-depth on all this so stay tuned for that but as of right now we just need to get the fuel to the engine so now you have the engine in the vehicle you've got your harness hooked up you've got your ecu that'll run the motor and you've got fuel going to the motor you should be able to fire this puppy and it should run congratulations you got yourself a running ls motor if this is a stock motor you're pretty much done at this point you know whatever you have to do to get the car running and driving stopping go ahead and do it that's out of this video but as of right now you should have a vehicle that works of course there's going to be some things that you might have to purchase or may you know have to modify or whatever one of them being the exhaust manifolds there's plenty of kits out there there's a million different exhaust manifolds that you can purchase find one that fits your vehicle and use it it's as simple as that same thing with oil pens there's tons and tons and tons of oil pans that you could get there's aftermarket ones there's factory ones that might fit whatever it is find one that fits and use it and that's pretty much all that you have to do to run an ls motor these things are not as complicated as people make them out to seem at first the efi seems kind of scary and whatnot but once you get it you know it's that simple five things you need to run this engine so again i'll be making videos going in depth on every one of these steps but for now this is what you need to run the engine in your vehicle so i hope this video clears up the air for you guys i hope this video helps you guys out a little bit understand what's needed to get an ls swap done again i will be making some very in-depth videos going through all the steps of this video but for now i figured i'd make this video to give you guys the basics if you guys want to check out those videos that'll be coming go ahead and hit the subscribe button also you can follow me on instagram if you guys would like to ask me questions or leave your questions down in the comments below again i hope this helps a little bit and i'll see you guys in the next video hope you guys have a great day [Music] you

Channel: Jovani Dante Griego

Views: 862,637

Keywords: how to ls swap any vehicle, how to ls swap, ls swap, ls swap basics, 5 things you need, how to, ls engine, engine swap, budget ls swap, cheap ls swap, lsx, 5.3, 4.8, 6.0, basic engine swap, diy engine swap, engine swap at home, how to do an engine swap, ls wiring harness, hptuners, ls engine mounts, engine mounts, jovani dante griego, turbo ls, ls turbo, Budget LS swap, 5.3 Swap, best cars to ls swap, LS swap parts list, cheapest way to ls swap, ls1 swap, vortec swap

Id: DucuEkh9yJE

Length: 16min 29sec (989 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2019