LS1 combo good deal?

[Kane]

Today on Craigslist I found a person selling a 98 LS1 from a camaro mated to a five speed and a Dana 300 . Everything has been adapted and it is all bolted together. This person bought this for a Jeep swap and never used it. It also come with a painless wiring conversion harness. The only things missing are some exhaust manifolds, power steering pump and the ECU. He wants $2950 for the whole package. This seems like a pretty darn good deal considering what I have been seeing LS1 motors sell for alone. I am thinking about calling him up and grabbing this for my Scrambler build. Does this sound like a good deal to you?

 

[Kane]

Here is a picture of the whole set up

 

[Jimbos76cj]

Ive never done a ls swap into a jeep butseems like most of the high dollar parts are there.. I would pull the plugs and turn the motor over to make sureits not shot but it seems legit.

 

[Jimbos76cj]

How does he plan to run the ignition. I see no coil packs in the pics. Last time i priced them they were going for about $80 a piece for stock units. Also inquire about the throttle body.. is it cable or drive by wire.

 

[Kane]

I am going to talk to the owner today and I will ask about the coil packs. Thanks for the reminder. He might have a box of parts not in the picture hopefully. The early ls motors are drive by cable so the throttle won't be an issue. They didn't go to drive by wire until the multi- cylinder mode came about around 2005.

 

[BusaDave9]

WOW sounds like a good deal.
It's always scary buying an engine from some guy on CraigsList but I think it's worth the risk.
You never saw the engine running in the Chevy.
Why didn't he put it into his jeep?
Mileage?
I would think it's most likely that he just started a project and never finished it. There are no guarantees on a deal like this but I would say go for it.

 

[Kane]

I spoke to the owner today. He bought the set up from a person who had it in his jeep. The guy has dyno sheets and a video of it running from the PO. The downfalls are the five speed is a 5lm60 which is the early NV3500. This is a downfall because the shifter is missing and this model has a different 4 shift rail set up so I would have to find that exact part. Also the motor had head work and a new cam that he knows about. I don't trust unknown builders. For all I know the PO went to town with his dremel tool and a six pack. The painless wiring kit is an $1100 nice set up though. Also four coil packs are missing. The ecu is fully set up for a jeep though. Think the head work and the oddball tranny is shying me away. I am still leaning towards my small block mill out of my CJ5 with a fuel injection kit. I know my motor is solid.

 

[Jimbos76cj]

Id look to see if maybe you can swap the tranny out with some thing else just incase you cant find a shifter. If your worried about engine condition ask if you can pull a head. That way you can check at least 4 cylinders and look at the intake ports to see if its a hack job on the porting. Then all your would be out extra if you decided to get it is the cost of gaskets.

 

[Kane]

The whole savings to this purchase would be the fact that everything is there and ready. LS1 motor can be had for this price so I would buy this one and then need to buy a different Transmission . That would negate the whole deal in my eyes. No biggie though since I wasnt ready for the motor part yet anyway.