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Convincor LS Swap Project Thread

corey331 said:
Ron, I actually checked into one of those. That Speedmaster stuff is Chinese junk!!! Thee is a reason you can get it for just over $1000 and a Hilborn set up is 5-6 times that. It would look wicked under the hatch though.
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Dang, I figured as much seeing it was on Ebay and the price was affordable. I still love stack injection though! Nothing looks better on a N/A motor IMO.
 
you might want to think about fresh water cooling with all the aluminum even in fresh water corrosion could be a issue...also would maintain constant temps the EFI will like...Rob
 
He mentioned earlier that he was going with a carb set up so at least the EFI won't be an issue.
 
ezstriper said:
you might want to think about fresh water cooling with all the aluminum even in fresh water corrosion could be a issue...also would maintain constant temps the EFI will like...Rob
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I have been thinking really hard about doing a closed loop cooling sytem on it. Might be something I add later. But like atc250 said, I am 99% sure that I am going to go with a carb set up for now. If I get tired of that I will go with an EFI set up similar to what Ron (GimmeFuel) is running. But that will be down the road.
 
I have often wondered if this would be a good way to go with my 251. I think this would be a great alternative for my aging 502. A 6 liter LS can make tons of power with minimum mods and would shave off quite a bit of weight. I'm going to keep an eye open for updates. Can't wait to see how it turns out.
 
Looks like Im going to have to come over and "beer in hand supervise" this project a few times after work slows down. Can't wait
 
CARB FTW!!!!:bigthumb:

We are about half ways thru harvest, so when it slows down some I'll come over and check it out..


Also, carbs rule!!!:D
 
OK, I decided I would do a little update to this thread. Over the past few months I have done a lot of learning about these motors, and the more I learn, the more excited I am about this swap and more impressed I am with the LS line of motors. And also, as most projects tend to do, this has grown over the past few months.

First thing, I found out that the motor was not an LS3, it is an LS2. Which in the grand scheme of things, doesn't matter much anyways with what the motor is now. Since the rod bearing that spun on the stock crank pretty much wiped it out and I was going to have to buy a new aftermarket crank anyways, it didn't take much convincing from my engine builder to say "Screw it.....go big or go home!". So needless to say the block has been bored .030 and with the help of a Callies compstar forged crank, H-beam rods and a set of Wiseco pistons, the displacement has been upped to 408ci. This is what I mean by the project growing, lol. With the ported heads, my compression ratio will be right at 10.5:1. As far as the heads go, I finally got the flow numbers back and I have to say that I am very impressed with the numbers they get out of a small head. @.500 lift they flow 294cfm, @.600 they flow 316cfm. With those numbers in hand I contacted Bob Madera at Marine Kinetics about a custom ground camshaft. After several phone conversations, we have a good idea of what to do and the cam has been ordered. I will have specs on it early next week. Needless to say Bob is a great guy to work with and he was actually as excited about the project as I am.

My next chore is tackling the cooling system. This is where a lot of the after market parts are scarce, or if they are available, are priced to the moon. The more I thought about it, I just couldn't bring myself to pay almost $1000 for a raw water pump, no matter how pretty it is. So with a lot of help and advice and some parts from Jason Kunkel at Kunkel's Marine, we have come up with a plan on how to make it work saving me about $700 in the process. I'll post up more pics of this stuff as it comes together as well. I'll throw another plug out here, Jason and everybody else at Kunkel's Marine are plain awesome to work with and really know their stuff!!!

As I said, I'll be posting up more pics of stuff as it all comes together. I have a trip up to my engine builder planned later this week, so I will take a bunch of pics and post them up of what's going on.
 
DropTop5.0 said:
Woot Woot!! I love it when a plan comes together.
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I couldn't agree more. But with the extra expense of the stroker kit, and a few other things that I want to do, obviously the motor won't be in the boat next year. Which isn't totally bad cause while it lacks in power, the stock 454 still runs great so it will remain in the boat for next season. No way was I going to miss any of my boating season by doing an engine swap. My plan is to bring the boat home after the Lake Cumberland Poker Run next September and start taking it apart. The new motor should be all together by then. That gives me plenty of time to get it put in, do all the plumbing, and hopefully get some run time in to work out the bugs before summer hits. So while my boat will still be slow, I'll see everybody out on the water next year!!
 
Nice flow numbers! Those actually outflow stock GM 088 BBC rectangle port heads which as poor as they are, can make up to 600 hp! That will make some good hp for sure!
 
All aluminum 408, great choice! That's the same direction I went in my Camaro but, I went with 11.5:1 compression :bounce:

How high do you plan on spinning the motor? My car makes peak power around 6800 and holds power to 7200 before it starts to tapper off.

Are you going with LS7 lifters? Did you just port the stock LS6 heads?
 
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