Sloppy Guide to Junkyard Turbo LSx Builds
**Currently typing this up and adding to it ** stay tuned for updates **
So you want a turbo LS series junkyard Mill powering your shitbox into a pavement punishing "tyre fryer", and you're not sure where to start. Since this is the pandora's box of starting mountain sized arguements, Ill start with the minimal, tell you what I know and also give you my opinion on what is a waste of time and money. This can be as easy as going strait from the Junkyard into your car, or spend a small fortune on a stock engine, it all depends on the owner and your goals, and how much you want to spend.
Alright, lets begin with, This is going to be budget minded, I will start by explaining what you need, get the car running, and then again more budget minded add ons maximizing power per dollar only, All Killer, no Filler.
Engine Selection
The standard junkyard long blocks, Including! but not limited too! the 4.8/5.3/6.0 in my favorite flavor, Tired Iron.
Here is the bread and butter of the LS swap engines. Cheap, Effective, and manufactured in extreme bulk, 99-13ish (since 14 is now the direct injected LT series engine pouring in.) Vans, Trucks, Chassis, SUV's you name it. You can get lucky some days and maybe even find a ls1, ls2, l76, ls3, and some kind of car based alum engine. Or other crazy things, but don't count on it. Engine Codes and names and all that bullshit aside. ALL OF THESE ENGINES ARE EXCELLENT, quit being weird about needing a 6.0 only, or LS1-2-3 only. Listen, you have a budget, and you don't have a motor, Just get one and put it in the damn car.
I would say the most common is the "LM7" 5.3l motor in the 99-03 years. the 4.8 sometimes easier to find since who would want a shitty 4.8 right?
also people will tell you, only get a late model, or newer gen4 motor, talking about pistons and rods etc etc, Listen, the later year model engines do have "better" or more robust rods, and they have a floating piston, but we have gone extremely fast with the "shitty" gen 3 motors, and you can too... Furthermore, people will have the opportunity to buy a complete 4.8/5.3 for 500 dollars, oil pan to throttle, all coils, wires, sensors, etc. They will get what I commonly refer to as 6.0 envy, and instead, buy a 6.0 shorblock or largely incomplete longblock for 600+ instead. Stop and think, what the fuck are you doing. You're going to spend hundreds tracking down all the little nit pick shit to get that motor running. More commonly I have seen shit 6.0s for sale like this and people will buy into a problematic motor instead of just getting a running 5.3 or god forbit the junk 4.8.
We have to go on here so I will end my tangent. You can refer to other articles on the site to get information about the engines and more on the heads, casting numbers, dimensions and more.
Use your money wisely
This sounds obvious, but get whatever engine is most complete and in known good shape for your dollar, easiest thing you can do is pull the valve covers and see how clean the valve train is, make sure there isn't a rod hanging out of the block and the engine spins with some drag meaning the rings are not total shit. This is a funny statement because we have had some absolute sludge beast motors, looked like they were filled with wax, smoked terribly but made tons of power problem free haha. Try to get the engine Oil pan, to throttle, including coil packs, be weary buying an engine from someone they disassembled, why did they take it apart? why would you take it apart, its assembled and running, don't fuck with it haha. Obviously the more you start with the less you have to chase down or possibly buy incorrectly. Once you get into the mind set of just adding 20 dollars in stuff on top of everything you are getting, your budget will go to shit and you wont know why... you could have had a running swap for 2000 and you spent 6000 dollars and you don't even have a turbo, and you are cursing me out.
Early vs Late model Gen3-Gen4 Engines
Later year engines have benefits like better cyl heads, beefier rods and floating pistons, bear in mind they also come with bullshit like, DOD, VVT, expensive intakes and throttles, you will possibly need to buy items to delete and remove these things off the engine for performance setups, they might have failed or be ready to fail and give you issues etc. Keep in mind that you might need to spend the money on all these things when choosing a newer engine. My opinion is if you can get the 04-06 engine, 24x crank trigger, with beefier rods, and floating pistons, that runs all the old equipment pcm wise and has the most simple setups... In my opinion are the best engines to start with, since you will have room to grow pretty far, but still a simple start, and no complicated hardware.
LS1-Gen3 style cam position sensor on the back of the block
LS2 front read cam position cover on the first gen3 style engines and now on all gen4 motors
Hardware, sensor, internals, and other blended technology over years of gen3 to gen4 engines
what is tricky about choosing a junkyard motor is they blended years and items, hardware and technology over year make and model.
Ill try to briefly cover this, the first gen3 engines, have a 24x crank trigger, rear read cam position sensor, and very simple hardware, return fuel rails on the trucks, easy to use stuff... Now you see around 03 they started making the LS2 style motor, electronic throttle (in early corvettes also) and they moved the cam position sensor to the front timing cover.
next up floating style pistons and thicker rods, started going into the cars, then i think it went into the trucks next, and eventually hit things like vans, chassis truck etc, an easy way to tell if a motor is a gen3 but with the good internals, it will have the rear cam read, on the back of the "lifter valley" and have 13mm header bolts, and 13mm lifter valley bolts. They installed the larger head bolts at the same time they did the Internals, this has proved true in our experience so far.
Now that you have the most complete engine in any size for your swap car. We can move on.
How much power do you want to make, what is your goal
This is where it all goes wrong most times, most people come out swinging and say I need to make 800whp or I dont even want to start, Truthfully 500whp through a turbo automatic is enough to boil tire at highway speeds in most cars and make most people shit their pants.
How much power and what your goal for the vehicle is pretty important, I try to explain to everyone from what i have learned, almost everything numbers and slang wise about cars, is totally irrelevant. You need to see your build in the Currency of Horsepower... how much power you want to make will dictate your turbo size, build requirements, fuel system size, cam selection, trans, rear, converter, everything.
The one thing that everything can be compared to, directly is how much power it will make, or break, or take to create the power.
for most people 500-600wheel in a turbo LS car in the 3000lb range is flat out scary, or awesome, depends on who you are.
but that much actual power to the tire is enough to put a 3300lb notch into the 9s at 140mph, that is pretty fast, not sure who you are but 9s hauls the mail with a car you can drive to tractor supply and buy cat food.
if you have no idea what to do, i would say totally copy one of my standard setups that is proven, youll be pretty fuckin happy with it.
Recipie for 500-600whp Junkyard Turbo LS build
quick and dirty it goes like this
acquire junkyard LS engine, leave it totally stock other than installing Pac1218 valvesprings and boost it, or install a turbo cam under .600 lift (limit of the pac1218s)
install 80lb siemens deka injectors in stock intake, add 044 external or walbro400 internal fuel pump to vehicle (proven to support over 600whp so far by themselves)
3/8ths fuel line is fine, install any chinese 70-80mm turbo ($220-550, and 50-60mm wastegate $60-120)
use megasquirt or stock pcm and tune it or have someone tune it on pumpgas and methanol... wham 500-600whp
Links to items i mentioned and where i buy them:
I actually have KIT from VSracing where he grouped my most commonly bought items in one flat rate with adjustable upgrade items including injectors and all, VIREN who owns VS racing is SUPER smart and helpful and he can field tons of questions.
check out the DENMAH (sloppy mechanics) turbo kit
Walbro 400 in tank fuel pump ( you should install this in a stock style basket EFI tank )
look for them on jay racing
200 dollar cooling mist base methanol kit ( i use this or something similar everytime)
EFI source's modified Microsquirt computer and pigtail harness (you wire this yourself)
EFI sources plug and play microsquirt setup for LS engines (comes with plug and play harness)