I lot of people are using the budget (China) CNCH standalone wiring harness for these types of swaps.

If interested you'll have to find the one to match your transmission.
Wouldn't surprise me companies selling six seven hundred dollar harnesses using these as a supplier.

CNCH Harness

 

That looks like a pretty sweet deal, I do however wanna do the harness myself, for a few reasons, one of my favorite parts of building cars is learning new things from it so digging into the harness and making it work for my s10 should be a great learning experience. From what a few of my buddies have told me the ls swap wiring really isn’t too bad. Also if the truck has wiring issues down the road at all the more familiar I am with the wiring the easier it will be for me to figure out what the problem is. I’ve been tuning gm’s for a couple of years now, I mostly tune Honda’s and Acura’s so getting into them has been allot of fun, the software is definitely allot different then most of what I’m used to. I figured a project of my own would be a great chance to familiarize myself with the aspects of building the engine, cam choice, what to expect from what mods, what builds work out and what don’t so I can advise my customers on what to change on their setups to improve them. That being said I’ve spent a few hours reading up on cam choices and what would work well for my 4.8l and what to stay away from. I’ve only tuned one 4.8l Chevy truck that had a btr stage 4 cam in it which is 224/230 .553”/.553” and 109 lsa, I was surprised that the truck seemed to pull very well, top end seemed great although we didn’t rev it any higher then 6200 because he didn’t know what his valve train was safe for and neither did I. That cam seems to have a bit more duration and less lift then I would think is ideal for a high revving 4.8l. Any feedback or knowledge would be great as I’m still a newb on choosing cams for gen3 trucks.

 

I'm not help with cam specs but I do have a question. Are you the kinda guy that like to build something awesome and then sell it cheap? Because I really like this project

 

Actually I’ve been known to do that lol. My awd crx I sold for 6k after swapping back in a stock b20 with the same turbo kit. I always just add up what I’ve put into the car and try to get a little more then that out of it.

on a side note, the swap headers came in. Overall fitment seems great. They tuck in real nice, flanges were flat and the only thing I saw wrong with them was a couple of the welds inside the runners on the driver side header but I was able to smooth them out in like 20 min with a flapper wheel on a dremel. I need to do allot more reading on cam selection. I don’t wanna do anything that will really kill gas mileage, but I guess allot of that can be helped by tuning, I plan on tuning it in speed density since that’s what I’m used to and I’ll probably do lean cruising on it as well. My little insight I built lean cruises between 22-24 to 1 afr and runs super smooth still. I can pull about 40mpg highway with it and 30 in town if I’m beating on it, it’s a light car though.

 

Clutch is ordered from 02-06 Silverado, got a eBay stage 2 grippy boi with Mr slave cylinder and pilot bearings and what not for $200 shipped.

found out my blue/green Ecu and wiring won’t work with dbc conversion because the Ecu doesn’t have the processor needed to run the iac motor. No big deal but one more thing needed to get. Seems the 0411 ecus can be had for around $100 on eBay.

also as for wiring, I think you guys may be right. My harness is old, ugly and been through a bit too much mud. Those Chinese harnesses are looking allot more appealing for simplicity sake I think I’ll get one then I’ll just have to pin into the gauge cluster for vss, tach, oil pressure, voltage and ses light. I’m gonna go to a nnbs/ tbss intake manifold cause everyone says their coooo and I wanna go with a 92mm dbc throttle body so I got both those ordered up.

and still gotta figure out which pan I wanna run on it. I need to price out the h3 alpha with pickup tube. Also this motor had the dipstick robbed off of it so i gotta find one of those.

 

Little update, mostly been ordering parts left and right trying to get everything needed for the swap without feeling to broke from it lol.

I finally decided to pull the trigger on a btr stage 3 (not v2) truck cam with btr springs and new valve stem seals, total cost was $398 shipped.

I also ordered the muscle car/ h3 pan from summit for $232. That included windage trey, pickup, dipstick, dipstick tube and pan itself. Considering just the dipstick and tube for my truck pan was about $50 I’ll take it.

There’s still a few fittings I need for the return fuel line to quick disconnect, also need to find some nnbs/ tbss fuel rails. Crazy how all the small stuff adds up.

 

Today I swapped on the gm muscle car pan (h3 pan I beleive) made sure to oil the oring in very well for the pickup and push it in by hand, felt like it went in smooth to me. Also I started working on replacing the knock sensors. The front one came out without issue, the rear was terrible though lol. Top part of it crumbled, then the bottom half broke off from the threads but after pulling the valley cover I was able to get the threads out using an easy out. My valley cover was super corroded so I’m gonna see if any of my local gm buddies have one before putting it together. Last pic is a 260z car that I have been building a twin turbo setup for. The car is really small for a twin turbo small block, some of the fitment stuff took forever. The dump tube on the drivers side took me like 4 hours to build and get it to fit around the steering column.

 

Wow I haven't seen a knock sensor that bad before! That 260 looks like it will be a rocket ship any plans for a cage?

 

Not sure if he’s gonna cage it or not. Its still irs, open diff too. Not sure what his plans are for it once it leaves here. I will say this I am excited to get it out of here though, I want my space back.

 

Looks good. I'll be watching this one closely. Planning on running a 5.3 in my 93 reg cab. I want to go the t-56 route but can't bring myself to spend that much right now. I'll likely go with an NV for now while I wait to hopefully find a deal on a t-56. Crossmember seems to be a gray area when doing LS/NV3500 so I'm interested to see what you find.