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242 GT Budget LS Swap - Swede Salvage

OhWellTurbo

New member
Joined
Feb 1, 2024
Location
PNW
Grew up around 240's, but after riding in a series of muscle cars I decided I didn't want to head that direction... Fast forward 30 years and enough kids have grown up that I decided to remedy that with my 'collage car' build.

Went looking for a pedal box and found a whole car. Complete 1980 242 GT with flintstone floors and a sorry repaint. Spent 30 years in an Oregon yard protected by blackberries.

In the process of swapping in a mystery 5.3 LS and a Ford TR3650 using my own adapter plate and STS mounts.

Here's a couple photos of when it first got home.


 
Here's where we're at now.

Adapter plate installed and Camaro flywheel/pplate Mustang clutch disc ready to go.


'Final' resting place.


Little nod to my past with a '70 Plymouth 'cuda pistol grip shifter(google Swede Savage if you need background to the name)


Volvo clutch cable operating Ford clutch fork/to bearing and chevy pplate combo. It just might work.


Poor man's BBS test fit. Nothing wrong with a little bulge as we get older.
 
In for the LS swap. I've always been LS curious, but electrons scare me. The more details you can share with the wiring, sensors, brain, etc the better. Looking forward to this, appreciate you sharing.
 
In for the LS swap. I've always been LS curious, but electrons scare me. The more details you can share with the wiring, sensors, brain, etc the better. Looking forward to this, appreciate you sharing.
The electronics scare you? Weren’t you just in another thread saying that you’d run Djet? 😂
The electronics in an LS swap are astronomically more simple, and a million times more reliable. It’s been done so much that these days you can order an ECU and pre-made harness, snap all the connectors in place, hook up a red wire and a black wire to the battery, and turn the key. Or to save money, you can DIY the whole harness conversion with step by step instructions.
 
I put a turbo on mine so never even bothered with the stock ECU's. Just got a Megasquirt and a prebuilt harness. Really was simple to plug the harness in to all the spots on the motor, run the harness through to the passenger footwell, and then connect a modest number of wires to the car in that area (which used to go to the Bosch ECU). Loaded a base map, it started right up***.


*** - it actually did on the first start, but then the cheap crap eBay brand new Chinese crap eBay starter died. Cranked slow on the 2nd start, barely moved on the 3rd. WTF cheap crap.
 
The electronics scare you? Weren’t you just in another thread saying that you’d run Djet? 😂
The electronics in an LS swap are astronomically more simple, and a million times more reliable. It’s been done so much that these days you can order an ECU and pre-made harness, snap all the connectors in place, hook up a red wire and a black wire to the battery, and turn the key. Or to save money, you can DIY the whole harness conversion with step by step instructions.
I said if there were a working D-jet in place, I'd leave it alone. That was what I meant, anyway.

I know the LS stuff is simple and all, I've just never done it, nor ever really seen any step by step instructions. It's one of those things that seems to be so common that there's so much information out there that I can't ever find a straightforward explanation.

The transmission seems to be a similar situation- I've seen all sorts of transmission options from a T10 to a TKX, and supposedly they all work, but there's never any "recipe" for doing it that I've seen- just an overload of "information".
 
Love the budget aspect to this. I have another LS waiting to get all the cheap stuff this time, bought a scratch/dent adapter bell housing to mate up a muncie/t10/tko/tkx etc. On the hunt for a cheap gearbox and clutch next. I'll keep watching this unfold.
 
Sure do appreciate all the replies. As far as complexity I've done a couple subie to Vanagon swaps and one Jeep 4.0 to '69 Rambler swap. Once you get your head around how little you really need to make a modern injected engine run in an old chassis you start to lose the fear-factor. As covered by other commentors; LS swaps are well-documented on the interwebs. I probably won't be doing step-by-step on that particular area of the build, but I'll try to throw in some relevant comments. The first is that STS did a bang up job on optimizing their engine mounts and I highly recommend. After working at an OEM and doing a bit of my own design/build projects you really appreciate the thought and follow through that goes into well done aftermarket swap parts. The second is that if you're addicted to the flat hood that cheap truck 5.3 loses a bit of its shine after you price out ls1/ls6/aftermarket intakes/injectors/rails. I'd read that maybe the truck intake would clear, but even with a spacer between crossmember and body mine isn't even close. Something, something... internet isn't full of truth? However, I am going to try to run the truck rails and injectors(by removing the plastic caps on the end) on the cheapest ls1 intake I could find in the name of keeping the truck ecu somewhat happy for first drives. The rail does clear the hood, but it isn't much to look at. I'll follow up with some pics of that.
 
I’m interested to see how much hammering is needed to fit the 245’s on 16x7’s. I habe the same wheels in a pile on the side of my house, waiting for me to buy tires and adaptors.
 
I’m interested to see how much hammering is needed to fit the 245’s on 16x7’s. I habe the same wheels in a pile on the side of my house, waiting for me to buy tires and adaptors.
I’m going to run a narrowed exploder 8.8 in the rear and re-drilled front hubs. Currently I have some of the cheapest and thinnest(20mm) adapters I could find on the factory Dana for mockup because it happens to match the width of the future ford rear. The hubs should be done in the next couple weeks and I’ll be able to see how bad the front is going to be. Pretty sure the rear is going to need axle centering(for aesthetics, I can’t stand it, looks like a friends drag car Duster when he threw too much power at it and the rear attempted to leave) and possible seam splitting. As reported elsewhere the rear lip is no joke. Paging Towery? I love his 244.

Also, look this guy up, he’s running adapters and a more reasonable size and also mentions centering the rear for clearance

 
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