You don't have to do it. It just requires a little more effort to put it into reverse. I've been doing it everyday for 3-4 years now.

 

again thanks for the help haha. Im 19 and on a pretty tight budget so id be scavenging the junk yards for most of it. most of my money is going to just the truck, then the $2500 or how much it will end up costing me. i have to sell alot of stuff for the trans and materials so ill be collecting parts for a while then doing the swap. i know the LS1 belhousing will fit the 4.8 and 5.3 but will the LT1 fit also? i know they have been making the small block chevy since the 283 in 1955 and i believe the bolt pattern hasnt changed but im not entirely sure. im pretty new to the truck scene, been wrenching on a 67 GTO for the past couple years

 

4.8 and 5.3 are an "LS1" just smaller bore (and stroke on 4.8)

as such...

• NOTHING LT1 will not fit on our trucks (sadly I know.....would be cheaper...)
• you MUST use an LS1 f-body bell housing
• you can either use an LS1 GTO or F-body transmission (but no vette or LT1 tranny)

When you go searching for your trans, keep in mind you might want to have someone give it a look over for you. Nothing worse than going through the trouble/cost/etc of installing it, only to find it doesn't shift right because the syncros are dead or you have a cracked/bent shift fork. This is also a good time to have the person go ahead and change out the 3-4 shift fork. It's a whole $49 ( http://www.ddperformance.com/shop/pr...d=225cPath=145 lucky you...its now billet steel!!! I have the old cast iron version) and it is THE #1 thing that fails. Then depending on what the person finds, a full set of syncros is $200.

Just things to keep in mind (and plan)...

 

damn haha all the LT1 stuff is way cheaper.. oh well, nothing is ever easy right?! so my ideal situation would be to find a totaled LS1 car and just take everything including the transmission wiring harness from it? i planned on having someone looking at it anyways, i bought a muncie that was "rebuilt", long story short it was junk. i dint know the 4.8s and 5.3s essentially were LS1s?! do all the internals and heads swap out or would it be easier to just swap the in LS1?

 

why would you buy the wiring harness?

if you can get a full LS1 and T56 combo out of a wrecked f-body, sure....you can do that, though it will cost you more than just getting a tranny

 

well im going to need the harness off of the trans wont i? or can i just use the existing wiring from the 4L60 and make the rest of it myself? i have wired my goat but other than the straight forward stuff im new to wiring. i have a volt tester and wire of every size and a soldiering gun. other than the master cylinder mod to make it adjustable i think i can figure most of it out. i saw someone mentioned a "skip shift mod" earlier? do i have to do that to be able to go from 1st to 3rd to 6th and so on so forth? im just trying to learn everything now and have all the questions answered before i start to mess with anything so the trucks only down maybe a weekend.

 

you do not need to do any mod for skipshift, just dont hook it up...

for the wiring, you can just buy the plugs off of ebay or hope ur trans comes with them, and you can splice into the auto harness.. there is a diagram in this thread somewhere...

 

alright cool, i didnt want to have to buy anything to be able to skip gears. and ill try to buy a trans with the harness on it and ill just splice into the 4L60 one using the diagram on here.

 

it's a manual.....you can "skip gears" any time you want.....

WHY would you want to? "skip shift" isn't a good thing!

GM put it in place to help improve their EPA MPG figure. It's a lock out solinod that FORCES you to jump from 1st to 4th, which bogs the engine!

It's one of the first things people REMOVE when they buy a manual GM vehicle!

 

haha yeah i know its a manual, but the skip shift gm puts on the T56 stock keeps you from being able to choose what gear you want to be in? i dont understand haha is it similar to a lockout or is it electronically done? well either way i wont have it on there. i just want a DD truck i can beat on off road and still pull decent gas mileage with 37s