GM Forum - Buick, Cadillac, Olds, GMC & Pontiac chat

I was planning on this. First off, you don't have a Series I, you have a pre-Series I. LN3/VIN "C" depending on who you talk to. I had a brief talk with Bill [willwren] one of the admins here. Here are our PM's.. I believe everything you would need to plan for are in this conversation. It's a little bit of a read, but if you can't read this, you most certainly aren't prepared to do this swap.

Quote:

I don't want to post this publically, since it is probably a long ways away, before I tackle this. However, I want to be able to plan for all of this. When my tranny takes a S**^, i'm not going to drop 2k into a new one [since I would only buy it new], when for a few grand more, I could get something more reliable, and faster. I want to buy a low miles SII engine, something with the 4T65-HD tranny [I am still a little blurry on which years have the HD]. This way there is the aftermarket for the tranny. I want to drop the money into making that tranny handle 12 sec 1320's and my abuse. Then whatever is left of the money I have, to drop into the engine. Some headers, cam, 1.9:1 rockers, etc. Get all the S**^ that is a B**** to install, when I do the engine swap. Now, that is the fun part.

What I am not mentioning is the difficult part. The actual swap. Going from everything mechanical to everything electronic. I know I would need to swap out my ECU for that year's PCM [INTENSE, custom burned, of course], Probably something will need to be done with the steering with that magnasteer whatnot. I'm not sure what may need to be done with the speedo, since on those cars the PCM tells the speedo.. versus the VSS telling it. I know the shifter will be an issue.. since on my car it's mechanical, and on those it's electronic. I thought it might be a possibility to take the shifter assembly from the donar car, and adapt the electronic part from it, to mine, essentually making it electronic [however I do not know the actual operation of the shifter, so I do not know if that will work properly]. Is there anything else i may be forgetting?

I know Spiral did this conversion, however I do not know how much he would be able to help, in that his car has more electronics, and didn't he have the electronic shifting already? When I buy the engine, I would purchase the FSM for that year, but since that is such a ways away, I don't have the slightest idea what year I will pull it from.

Thank you for your time [I apologize for the long PM].
-justin

Quote:

First of all, you're not swapping Series1 to Series 2. You don't have a Series 1. Be prepared to break new ground, as nobody has done it yet. You need the trans, engine, full wiring harness, and PCM. You also need the upper tie bar, and your motor and trans mounts won't fit to the frame. Most will need to be custom or will need adapters. Have you ever fabricated structurally or welded before? You should also plan a full brake system upgrade.

In the end, I realized it wasn't worth my time/money, and if I wanted something to really perform like I wanted, it wasn't going to be in a Bonneville. Maybe if I had more money, or more experience it would be an awesome sleeper effect, but by the time you fix all the SII problems for making serious power, you could invest that money into building a chassis for our cars, dropping in some monsterous engine.. and having it be RWD, where the possibilites are endless.

-justin