I built this car over the last year. It is a 1977 Jeep CJ7 Body wrapped around a 1984 Corvette Chassis. The engine is a 5.3 V8 from a 2002 Chevrolet Tahoe. It is not technically an LS1 but it is from the LS1 family of engines. It is an iron block, aluminum head engine and is all stock inside. Rated at 275 horsepower.
Transmission is a 2001 4L60E electronic overdrive unit from a 2000 LS1 Camaro. The engine is fuel injected with a custom tune on the ECU to remove the vehicle anti theft system, rear O2 sensors, etc.
This vehicle was built by taking a 1984 corvette, removing the body, moving the radiator back and the gas tank forward. Then I wrapped the jeep body around it. The jeep body is welded to the steel corvette chassis. I took the jeep body panels down to bare metal. I painted the car myself. It was the first time I ever painted a car (although I have built several other major conversions). The paint looks good from a few feet away but it does have some major runs in places. It was painted approximately 1 year ago but I think the runs can still be sanded out. Although there is very little body filler there are some dents I didn't fix before painting. Most notably a couple dents on the hood and around the rear corners.
The car runs, drives, stops, steers, shifts, etc. I have driven it but never more than a couple of miles. The motor runs and sounds really nice.
I installed a gage cluster from a 2001 Silverado. The speedo, tach, oil pressure and voltage gage all work.
The chassis is all corvette so it has the legendary C4 aluminum wishbone suspension, aluminum independent rear suspension, aluminum driveshafts, four wheel vented disc brakes, etc.
The car is titled as a 1969 Specially Constructed vehicle, body type: CV for convertible. The title is clear and in my name. It is on planned non operational status right now. The car is smog exempt in California because of the year. The VIN has been welded onto the frame in the front but it should probably be stamped in a couple more locations. The old Corvette VIN is still on the dash and needs to be removed.
These are the things that are still needed to do to make the car a good driver:
1. Needs cooling fan relay installed.
2. Power brakes work but the pedal is a little on the hard side. Maybe not enough vacuum?
3. Needs data port installed to read engine error codes.
4. Some of the wiring under the hood needs to be tidied up.
5. Coolant temperature gage not working.
6. The gage panel needs to be trimmed out.
7. Needs stereo.
8. AC compressor is mounted and functional, Corvette AC is intact but needs custom AC lines made.
9. Driver's seat needs upholstery work.
10. Needs rearview mirrors. The corvette windshield sticks out past the body as shown. My plan was to hide this with rear view mirrors.
11. Rollin on 20" rims. There are 5 rims. However, 2 of them have cracked spokes so they either need to be welded or it needs new rims.
12. The car is now lighter than it was as a corvette so it needs to have some camber taken out of the suspension which is adjustable.
13, There is a coolant leak, I think it is the radiator which is stock 1984 corvette.
14. The main driveshaft rubs on an exhaust heat shield sometimes, sounds terrible.
14. There are other things that I'm sure will come up as the car is driven.
As you can imagine the car gets an incredible amount of attention. You can read a build story about the car with build pictures in the Conversions & Hybrids section of LS1tech.com
You can email me through ebay or call or text me at 530-554-7401 with questions.
Brian
