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I have just started the swap process myself with a 5.3 LM4, I am looking at around $4500-$5500 for the total cost of the swap + my time. To get a rover motor pout back into it you're looking at $10-12k and up depending on who does the labor.
What RPM is everyone's swap switching gears at? I believe different gears might have different shift points but it seems like I'm consistently changing gears at 4.5k RPMs which feels early.
I think mine shifts earlier than that generally, depending on load of course. That seems pretty high in my mind for casual driving.
When you guys mounted the motor, was it perfectly straight in the engine bay?
Im struggling to line this up, & I dont think my mounts are sitting right...
Passenger side Passenger side Driver side
I have 3 bolts in the bellhousing and that is flush to the engine so Im a bit confused now.. 🤷🏻♂️
No, my engine is also sitting at a slight angle just the way yours is. I tried pulling everything back on the drivers side and tightening the transmission mount bolts once it was in place but it ended up shifting forward again at some point.
Just watch the coolant hose that comes out of the top of the radiator on the drivers side. That bit can get really close to the pulley on the AC compressor.
Sorry for the late reply, like Losinov said, it's expected. I cheated mine as far back to normal as I could but that only did so much. I had just what you had in your photos, I forced it enough so that I didn't have to shorten up the mounts nor slot holes. I cringed at the idea of slotting them, after forcing everything over a half inch, things worked out better anyway. Otherwise the passenger side spark plug against the firewall would have been trapped and the block would have actually been touching the transmission tunnel. After cheating it over it's still just 3/8 of an inch off the tunnel, what I consider the minimum. If you cheat it any further than I did, your belt will rub over by the power steering, I've just 1mm of clearance over there, worked out well.
To cheat it into place, I believe I landed the mounts where they needed to be, then tightened the engine side of the mounts second, this allowed for the rubber mounts to take the give. In any case, play around with it a couple hours and suddenly I got it to happen. Might be able to get a jack in there somewhere to gently hold pressure while you get things into place. It wasn't much fun but it did finally work out.
If you read back far enough, you'll see my pics just like yours and I think I discussed this whole matter there.
@05TurboS2K Thank you!
Very helpful...man this forum is so long I forget to re-read before asking questions...So much other valuable information back there too. Around page 60-62.
When I get another chance I'm going to try the bottle jack from the frame to the front drivers side of the engine combined with straps around the transmission mounts to pull one side forward and the other side backwards.
Really hoping to not have to cut & drill the mounts but we'll see what happens. Its going to rain here for the rest of the week so might just leave it until next week and read over this forum a few more times.
Got my 2 harness' ready to go...I'm so close...get this engine sorted out, plug it all in and away we go (hopefully)
I bought this thing with a dead motor and haven't even driven it ever...I'm getting too excited
It's worth the full 2hr read to get many opinions and background info. In the big scheme of things, what's a couple hours of reading before a swap? Well spent IMO. I was at the stage your at for a couple weeks eager to finish it, it was so nice to hear it turn over and actually fire up the first try.
Another tip for anyone that is planning on going down this path... depending on how your exhaust shop modifies your exhaust to work with the new headers you may no longer be able to drop your transmission pan without unbolting the exhaust from the headers as well as the rear section of the exhaust.
You might want to replace your transmission filter while you've got the exhaust out. Make sure to soak those transmission pan bolts in penetrating oil for several days prior to removing it so you don't strip any of them. Atlantic British's video below does a great job of walking you through it. The magnet in my pan had a quarter inch of metal shavings on it! Probably the first time anyone has changed the filter on my truck in it's liftime.
I haven’t checked in in a while but was getting closer to doing a swap myself, and while shopping for a truck to swap into I’ve narrowed it down to two trucks but with two important differences, one has ACE and one does not. I know originally there was no way to retain the ace system but was curious if that was still the case.
