Going In

That engine is going in this car!

This year I gave myself an early Christmas present.  I took some time, dropped the engine in and fabricated a set of motor mounts and a transmission cross member.  I'm trying to take a different approach, with the LS1 sitting on my Nismo motor mounts.  I was able to find some of the important dimensions searching the forums to get a good base line and had some plates laser cut for my mounts.

 

The LS1 went in pretty smoothly, but it had to come right back out.

We needed to do some more pounding in the tunnel, in a band from 4-6 inches in front of the pinch weld you have to knock it in at least an inch, it doesn't sound like a lot, but it takes some serious pounding to get there.  That's my friend Kurt in the tunnel, we were taking turns with the hammer.

Finally after getting savage on the tunnel with a compthane sledge hammer there was enough room to mount the engine where I wanted it.

There is the passenger side motor mount, its just tacked for the time being and there will be gussets if I stay with the tube design.  I have the engine situated with the sump of the oil pan about 1/4" above the bottom of the cross member which should offer it some protection against bottoming out.  Its about 1/8" forward of the cross member, in attempt to get it as far back as possible.  The biggest limiting factors in getting the engine low and back in a 240 are the heater core outlets if you want to keep heat (in NE Indiana its a necessity at least for the defrost) and the massive T56 bellhousing.

Drivers side, this side is going to be a nightmare when building headers.

Just in case you were wondering why the front looked so open in the other pictures, I cut the front core support and it is now a bolt in piece.  This is nearly a necessity if you want to make your own mounts and makes the engine go in and out a lot faster and easier