LS 5.3 motor and trans for a '56

[johnshill]

I have a '56 2-door HT. I picked up a new rolling chassis from Nerd Rods a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday I had a LS 5.3 motor and trans (out of a '07 Suburban) delivered to my house. I'm getting ready to drop the engine and trans into the chassis. The motor & trans is complete and was pulled with all of the wiring harnesses plus alternator, power steering pump, AC compressor, drive shaft, accelerator, etc. I'm a bit overwhelmed (to say the least) with all of the electrical wiring and computer stuff. I'm thinking I will leave everything on the motor and trans intact and put the body onto the chassis and start installing all of the other necessary parts and components to make this car driveable and then take the car to someone that understands EFI (I want to stay with fuel injection) to do all of the electrical work. Am I going about this the right way? What should I be doing? Any and all suggestions are appreciated. I live in Southern California so if you know of anyone in the area that you could recommend I would appreciate that also. Thanks, J. Hill

[the_dawg]

Look for a ls1 stand alone harness. Get a tune and run a internal pump. You will be happy/

[NickP]

I have a '56 2-door HT. I picked up a new rolling chassis from Nerd Rods a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday I had a LS 5.3 motor and trans (out of a '07 Suburban) delivered to my house. I'm getting ready to drop the engine and trans into the chassis. The motor & trans is complete and was pulled with all of the wiring harnesses plus alternator, power steering pump, AC compressor, drive shaft, accelerator, etc. I'm a bit overwhelmed (to say the least) with all of the electrical wiring and computer stuff. I'm thinking I will leave everything on the motor and trans intact and put the body onto the chassis and start installing all of the other necessary parts and components to make this car driveable and then take the car to someone that understands EFI (I want to stay with fuel injection) to do all of the electrical work. Am I going about this the right way? What should I be doing? Any and all suggestions are appreciated. I live in Southern California so if you know of anyone in the area that you could recommend I would appreciate that also. Thanks, J. Hill

Consider this book as a decent reference for all of your questions - pretty handy.

You might also look for a shop that has an engine dyno and have them run it up for you.

[56-210Sedan]

Great information source Nick, i may pick that up myself, Thanks for sharing.

[BAM55]

Consider this book as a decent reference for all of your questions - pretty handy.

You might also look for a shop that has an engine dyno and have them run it up for you.

Yeah that is a very good book I have it and read it cover to cover. It covers way more than just the basics and also gets into parts interchangeability. There is another decent book called How to Swap a GM-LS Series Engine into almost anything. Its not as detail as the book Nick posted but it has a lot of good info.


As far as a stand alone harness I purchased mine from PSI Conversions http://psiconversion.com/ and I'm very happy with it and plus the guy is very nice to deal with. I made a mistake and he corrected it free of charge.