Best donor vehicle for an LS swap?

frenchyd said:

In reply to maschinenbau :

You obviously failed to read my suggestion.  The Cadillac Escalade  which does have the  6.0 liter  & 4l80 E. Plus it can be bought cheaper than commercial vehicles. Commercial  Leases seldom last long enough to get the price down  to the point where you can get a cheaper soccer Moms former beat up rust bucket.  
      As far as Commercial trucks?   They are used much harder than a Soccer mom drives.  I really should stop saying soccer moms because they are also owned by upscale ladies,  realitors, and other light uses.  
      I did also mention to check the oils of the engine and transmission the parts that  the OP is focused on. 

Once again, misinformation. The Escalade NEVER came with the 4l80e. 

maschinenbau said:

4l65 was AWD only, so not good for swaps. They never came with the 4l80e. The 6l80e is good but not as swappable due to a larger case. For example with C10's you have to cut the floor for a 6l80 but not for a 4l80 (which is about the same size as a TH400). 

Thank you

RacetruckRon said:

In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :

8 lug = 4L80e in the LS powered stuff (TBI powered vehicles too).  This is a quick check I have come up with over there years of flipping LS parts and I haven't found an application, through junkyard searches and research, where an 8 lug truck had a 4L60e or a 6 lug truck had a 4L80e.

The medium duty stuff is where the 4L80e was actually required as were the beefed up bearings and gear sets on the 8 lug axles.  You can get 6.0L on 6 lug trucks, Escalades, my 03 Denali and the Silverado SS are great examples but they have "beefed up" variants of the 4L60e.

I'm just going to go ahead and quote myself so Frenchy can read it a second time.

I wish I could just delete some posts. Threads like this get hard to read with all the incorrect crap. 

In reply to RacetruckRon :

Thank you for your helpful feedback. 

In reply to maschinenbau :

Thank you too

In reply to SV reX :

Something like this.  6.0 liter, 365 hp.  It'll need a bit of body work in the short term, but it has the car intake and shorter accessory drive already installed.

In reply to Indy - Guy :

Very nice!

maschinenbau said:

Once again, misinformation. The Escalade NEVER came with the 4l80e. 

But as long as you say it with complete conviction, it's everyone else that is wrong. Then, pretend they just didn't understand. 

The 4l65 is an oddball.  It's not bad just limited use. 
 

it's a shame the 6l80 size makes swap ability tough.  I like the drive ability  with that trans over the 4l60 greatly.

I'd go Look at that as cop car. That'd be easy swap into anything.  Everyone dumps the truck intakes due to size. 

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

What are the differences in those transmissions?  Not sure I've driven either one. 
 

I wouldn't make the choice based on an intake- I have a car intake and pan if I need them.

I WOULD make the choice based on the trans, or driveability, or ease of swap. 
 

My El Camino engine bay is enormous, but it does sit on an X frame (so there may be some space issues for the trans...)

In reply to SV reX :

It's a 6speed vs a 4 speed.  The 4 speed is more ponderous getting up to speed and the 6 speed has more choices for downshifts.   Sometimes I gotta really get agressive with my 4l60 to get it to shift to move down a gear.  Im sure you could tune thst out in your application.  I just like the 6 speed better. 

Some X-frame specific LS swap insight. Sounds like a 4l80 barely fits, so the 6l80 will probably need some tunnel cuts.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/conversions-swaps/1718736-61-bel-air-l96-6l80.html

6l90 in a Biscayne: https://ls1tech.com/forums/conversions-swaps/1698865-63-biscayne-ls-conversion.html

Picture of 6l80 next to TH400:

RacetruckRon said:

RacetruckRon said:

In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :

8 lug = 4L80e in the LS powered stuff (TBI powered vehicles too).  This is a quick check I have come up with over there years of flipping LS parts and I haven't found an application, through junkyard searches and research, where an 8 lug truck had a 4L60e or a 6 lug truck had a 4L80e.

The medium duty stuff is where the 4L80e was actually required as were the beefed up bearings and gear sets on the 8 lug axles.  You can get 6.0L on 6 lug trucks, Escalades, my 03 Denali and the Silverado SS are great examples but they have "beefed up" variants of the 4L60e.

I'm just going to go ahead and quote myself so Frenchy can read it a second time.

I could have sworn that the eight lug 1500HDs had 4L60s.  I have only seen a couple of them.  They had aluminum 5.3s and the absolutely lightest 8 lug wheels I have ever handled.

They were also the only time I had seen eight lug wheels on a half-ton, so maybe there is something there.

Don't the 6 speeds have their own TCM as well, while the 4 speeds are controlled by the ECM? And can't that make tuning a bit more expensive/difficult?

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Those 1500HD trucks were 6.0 and 4L80e but agreed that they were odd birds.  The L33 aluminum 5.3 most most commonly found in the extended cab trucks.  I want to say the vin code for that spicy 5.3 was "B"  I remember hunting LKQ looking for B in the VIN when I was looking for a cheap set of 799 heads.

In reply to STM317 :

Technically transmissions are never controlled by an ECM  When the engine controller also controls the transmission, it is called a P(owertrain)CM.

It's a shrug... I think you do need to register it separately with HPT, which means having to buy however many more credits, but I have not tried to.

In reply to SV reX :

Do you have a decent idea of what chassis specific hardware might be needed for a basic LS swap in your Elky? If you have to change out accessories, manifolds, oilpan, etc to fit in the El Camino then the price advantage of a cheap truck motor starts to evaporate pretty quickly.

If you're going to be using aftermarket manifolds/headers, oilpan, accessories, etc then I'd think crate long blocks start to look pretty appealing.

$3500 gets you a 5.3L long block from Jegs that could make ~460hp/425ft-lbs.

$2300 buys a brand new 4L80e (I think this $200 adapter might be required too)

A control pack like this probably gets you pretty close to running for $1800

So for ~$8000 you could have more power and all new components rather than dealing with a 15-20 year old donor vehicle for the same money. I know that you need to drive something in the mean time, but if it comes down to a choice between spending $8k on a donor with a bunch of miles and stock powertrain, or spending that same money on nicer, stronger new stuff that doesn't have to be harvested from it's home of 20+ years I think it's at least worth considering what you're actually getting (parts wise and time/effort wise) with a donor vs ordering stuff from a catalog.

In reply to STM317 :

That's really good info!

Very worth considering...

In reply to STM317 :

I thought I was on LS1Tech or Protouring Forums for a minute.  $3500 for a 5.3 longblock that has a $300 cam and flat top pistons. Seems like money well spent /sarcasm/

$4000 van 

In reply to RacetruckRon :

Yeah, you can rebuild old stuff for cheaper than buying new. But it comes at the cost of time and effort. For some, saving the money is worth it and for others, saving the time and getting brand new stuff is worth paying a bit more. I hadn't seen the second option presented yet.

For a challenge style build, the donor van makes sense. If the stock 6.0 will drop right into the El Camino without needing a bunch of parts to be swapped out, then it makes a lot of sense, at least financially. But if those things have to be changed out anyway, or if OP is considering buying something nicer as a donor, then things start to get a little less clear I think.

For a busy guy with a bit of disposable income who's building a '60 El Camino that's going to be worth some decent money when the swap is done, I think it's worth considering whether spending $8k on a donor and then investing a bunch of time just to get a powertrain with 200k+ miles is better than swiping your credit card and getting brand new stuff and cutting out roughly half of the time and a lot of the hassle.

RacetruckRon said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Those 1500HD trucks were 6.0 and 4L80e but agreed that they were odd birds.  The L33 aluminum 5.3 most most commonly found in the extended cab trucks.  I want to say the vin code for that spicy 5.3 was "B"  I remember hunting LKQ looking for B in the VIN when I was looking for a cheap set of 799 heads.

I could have sworn that every 1500HD that I'd seen was a 5.3.

The recipe for the aluminum 5.3 was to have a crew cab 4wd model 1500HD.  I have a feeling that they needed to use the aluminum block to keep the weight down under some limit.

FWIW there is an 08 Avalanche here with an aluminum 5.3 as well.  It is our CSR's nephew in law's truck or something.

In reply to frenchyd :

I just wanted to present the option and let OP decide what he wants to do. Not everything has to be a challenge car or hand hewn to be Grassroots.

Shopping for the donor takes time. Harvesting the engine and trans from the donor takes time. Rebuilding engines takes time. Dealing with rusty fasteners, brittle 20 year old wiring, etc sucks and adds time. Having to sell/part out/scrap the donor (while SWMBO nags about the hulk taking up space) takes time and requires dealing with humans which generally sucks. Having to repair an engine or drop a 230k mile trans that you just swapped in 6 months ago sucks and takes time away from driving and enjoying the vehicle.

I'd bet that the new parts could be procured and installed much faster and with less hassle than going the donor route. It might cost more, but that extra cost might be worth it to some. I know it would for me. I can make more money. I cannot make more time. Harvesting stuff from a donor, and then committing to an engine rebuild, followed by parting/scrapping the donor shell would probably add months to the build for me. Time is my most precious resource, so things that save me time can certainly be worth a bit more money. I don't know what OP's life is like or his priorities but I know from previous posts that he works a lot and may not be home very much. Considering that, I think it's ok if buying new parts seems more appealing than dragging an old donor home and dealing with all of that time/work/hassle.

In reply to frenchyd :

$8000 does not define something that's "not grassroots". 
 

Grassroots doesn't mean cheap. 
 

It was an excellent suggestion, and I have already expressed my interest.  
 

Please back down.