DD G8

what's the bullet doin' hidin' behind the lift post?

It moves again! Long weekend, but we pretty well got it done in two days. Still some sorting to do in the tune, but it's drivable. Big thank you to my friend Ryne, I wouldn't be anywhere close to done without him. 
 

I'll go through the swap in more detail soon. Here is a teaser. 
 

yes yes yes OHY!!!! awesome.......which Camaro?

In reply to garaithon :

Awesome!

Great job!

Nice, can't wait to see the details.

Is the 6.0 spoken for?

In reply to Norma66-Brent :

It is not! I have someone coming to look at it but nothing in stone yet.

We started about 3 in the afternoon last Friday. We had it running about 6 Saturday evening and we even got a full night sleep! In all we probably have about 20 hours of work to have a "functional" car. Keep in mind I have been gathering parts for this project since April. So I easily have that much time in research and running around before hand. 
 

Also keep in mind I run a GM parts department and my Friend helping me is a GM master mechanic. We also had the whole shop at our disposal over the long weekend and I had absolutely everything on had to complete the swap. 
 

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, I can go into detail! Every part I used was a new GM OE part, minus HP tuners, upgraded motor mounts, and a remote clutch bleeder. I had a local tuner prepare a start up tune for my setup to load before we took anything apart. It is necessary to load the Manual tune file before you remove the transmission due to the fact that the Transmission Control Module is located inside the old automatic transmission and the ECM will not load a new tune if it can communicate with the TCM. 
 

Me uploading stock tune file. I am the dealer! Haha!

Next we began disassembling things!

The whole front end comes off in about 30min! It helps having somebody who knows how these come apart (not me.) Plenty of room to work now! Ryne focused on the mechanical part of the swap while I worked on taking the interior apart to install the clutch pedal and so forth. We had the whole front cradle dropped out in roughly 2 hours!

Ryne worked swapping in the new engine and transmission on the cradle. 

Here are the specs! I choose part# 19432424 since the L76 6.0 from my car uses almost all the same external components.

And we lowered her in! 

Having a lift at your disposal make dropping the cradle possible. I'm not sure you could do it on jack stands. You could pull everything out the front with the fascia and core support off, but it would definitely take more time. 
 

I removed all of the lower dash and most of the center console trim. I needed to install the new shifter, the clutch pedal, reprogrammed BCM, and reprogrammed center display (not needed I just wanted it.) I used a OE 13 Camaro SS shifter and ZL1 suede shift knob. It literally just bolts in, absolutely no modifications! Any 10 to 15 Camaro V8 manual shifter should work. 13+ are supposed to be improved (it does shift nice, just a touch rubbery, definitely short enough throws.) You can see the shifter installed here and interior in full disassembled mode.

Next was the clutch pedal. It also came from a 13 Camaro. The pedal comes loaded with master cylinder and clutch pedal position sensor. Again any 10 to 15 Camaro pedal should work. The upper clutch pedal mounting bolt holes are already there along with a "cutout" for the firewall insolation.

Remove the insolation to begin cutting holes. I failed at taking pictures here but you can loosely bolt the upper pedal mounting holes in to guide were you need to drill. The new pedal also comes with a little foam mounting pad you can use to trace out your holes.

You will need to drill two roughly 3/8 holes and a teardrop shaped hole for the master cylinder to pass through. I used a step drill bit that went to 1.25" which worked well for this. You can use a dremal tool to finish out the hole. You will need to loosen the brake master cylinder and brake booster to gain access for this. This was all very easy and took less than an hour. This is the only mechanical modification you need to do for the swap.
 

I used an 09 GXP clutch fluid reservoir. The cap was discontinued so I found a brake master cylinder cap that fit well enough, was off like a 17 traverse so any newer GM car. I used a 13 Camaro reservoir to master line. The GXP one was like $60 and the Camaro one was less than $20. I just used some push pin zip ties to mount it. The GXP reservoir bracket was discontinued as well. 

It looks factory surprisingly.

Here is a shot of the old engine. Definitely clean and ready for DOD delete!

Old engine is gone! Here is a the new cross member, compared to the old one. 

It doesn't look much different but it's an inch or so set back from the auto one. Even has a cool stamping! 

Here is the auto driveshaft compared to the new manual one.

Manual one is about an inch shorter. You could easily have your auto shaft shortened.

This is awesome, but I gotta ask ....does this have the Getrag diff in it? 

In reply to 759NRNG :

I think they are all ZF units. Same as 5th gen Camaro. I am still running the stock auto 2.92 gears which are OK. 6th gear is turning roughly 1600rpm at 70mph. I was hoping to hit 21 or 22MPG with the auto gears like the old DOD setup, but I have been in the 19 to 20 range for three tanks since we got the tune lined out. 
 

I will probably change to 3.45 gears out of a Camaro SS Manual and hope to stay in the 19 to 20 range. 

This car is SO close to perfect now.

Love the G8s and SS

Impressive.

Now I'm off to shop for g8s...

Bump.  Are you still daily-ing this beast?

I had a good chat with Garaithon about his Amazon Wagon he's selling.  While on the phone, this car was discussed.  

It's going to be up for sale soon, so you guys better start making plans to acquire this beast 

I'm in.