This is how it starts, isn't it??? I've been debating transplanting a Camaro 3.8L into our Amigo for about 2-3 years now and finally found a cheap, complete Camaro. Our 2.6L died about 3 months ago and I've been debating what to do evern since, waiting for the first "cheap" donor to show up be it Isuzu 3.2L, Toyota 3.?V6, or even a later model 96-97 Isuzu 2.6L since I want to get something OBDII under the hood. So I bought this 97 Camaro for the organ donor for our Amigo. $650 for the whole car, 124,000 miles, and supposedly just had new head gaskets installed. Now I have to figure out how to get it home... And remember to get the reciepts the guy has for work he's had done recently (like those head gaskets)

And so it begins.....

Sounds good nothing crazy there. Start shopping for exhaust manifolds or maybe building your own, they are very wide and I am forseeing a problem with their width.

Step two is complete, I've pulled the engine/trans and now have them sitting on blocks on top of my super precision weight scales.





OK, so they're just cheap bathroom scales but they're close enough. Total weight for the engine/trans is #490 the only things missing are the AC compressor, and the York compressor that it'll eventually get, and a T-case. This isn't nearly as heavy as I had figured it would be. I'll weigh the 2.6L setup when I pull it for comparison purposes just out of a sense of curriosity.

I'm definately going to need to do something to tuck the exhaust in as it's about 2" too wide to fit between the frame rails. OOPS! And I have to be "CA smog legal" to boot, so this should be fun.

I pulled the poor ol' 4cyl and MUA5 today. Combined weight is #550 for those who might be currious about such things.

Not surprised... the 2.6 is an oinker <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/oink.gif" alt="" /> IIRC, randii said the weight difference between his 2.6 and 5.0 was some tiny amount, like 50 lbs or so. Good luck on the project <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

I finally got around to doing a trial fit today. In order to get the tranny pan to sit even with the bottom of the frame rails I need the engine to sit about 2-3 inches further down than it can go with the front diff assembly in there. I'll either be making some dropped brackets, or removing it entirely for a furture SAS. Chances are I'll just pull the diff assembly and all it's mounting brackets for now, so it looks like we're going to have a 4x2 when I'm done, at least until I'm ready for another big project.

And in order to get it to sit as far back towards the firewall as possable, I need to move the heater connections over about 3 or so inches. As it is they'll line up perfectly with the back of the passenger's side valve cover. I've had that dash out once, and am not looking forward to doing it a second time.

Sounds good Chris. Why not just trim the ends off the heater core and slip a pair of rubbber hoses with the ends formed in a 90 degree elbow. You can't move the heater core without moving both the evaporator and the blower housing. Unless you build some ductwork.

Looking at the pics this is the first time I have noticed the stock radiator hose configuration. I always assumed driverside was the rad top port and passenger side was the bottom one. the rad hoses look ridiculous in the stock setup.

I just ordered a stock radiator inlet hose and notice it infact connects to passengers side top. Really crazy. They usually draw coolant from the bottom of the rad to prevent sucking in air bubbles.

How does the inlet hose stay its shape without kinking? It seems if you set it up it would bend right near the water pump. The camaro radiator must be very far forward of the engine.

You should not have to do this. Mine is as far back as it'll go and there is still just enough clearance for the heater hoses. The heater core hose ends are kinda angle towards the passenger side and this gave the room for hoses to fit around the head.

--Dan

I just kind of 'stuck' the motor in for a rough guess as to how things will fit.

My heater core tubes stick straight out from the firewall, but some carefull use of an box end wrench will fix that.

Considering you're(Dan) running basically the same motor, I'll have to pull the front diff, and cut the mounts off the frame to make clearance for the motor to sit down where it should, then refit so I can get a better idea as to whether or not I'll have to do something with those heater hoses. Thanks for the heads up, I was all ready to tear the dash apart to make room.

Since I'm going to have to hack the diff mounts off the frame, that makes it more work than it's worth to restore the front diff to working order, soooo... does anybody happen to need a stock front diff? Half shafts?????? For sale... Cheap, make an offer in PM or send mail to FSJ1978@verizon.net

I played a little more today and I think I'm going to use the stock single core aluminum V6 Camaro radiator and dual fan setup. The core for that radiator is 17x25.

I had swapped in a 2 row cross flow brass/copper radiator a couple years ago to help with cooling while towing our 2,000lb pop up trailer, the core for that one is 18x18. So...

18x18 = 324sq/in - old 2row - brass/copper
17x25 = 425sq/in - new 1row - aluminum

Anybody have opinions on how well that will cool the V6 lugging around our aprox #4500 Amigo, plus a #2000 trailer up a grade?

And after searching Kragen's website, it seems the V8 and the V6 use identical radiators (as far as I can tell) with the exception that the V8 has a thicker core. I'll go ahead and mount this one, if we have cooling problems it's easy enough to swap it out down the road for the V8 variety which should certainally do the job. Odd thing is that they're both single row, the V8 must just use bigger tubes.