After months of planning a few ultimately minor headaches & some great work by the Gods on Mount Olympus -- oops I mean Lindsay Cadillac -- Cajira is finished. (As in "Rook [points to Tokyo skyline]! Cadjira!"). Yep, my baby's back with a new lease on life with a C5-R block based 6.7L K.spec engine by Katech, a built RSG trans and (ahem) a new rear differential.
Once again, I can't thank James and his crack tech Donny over at Lindsay enough. They took on the project when others wouldn't dare (really) and waded through more than a few weird details that cropped up getting the C5-R block to mount into my '06 V's engine bay (with a little help from Luke and UUC).
The install includes a set of the redesigned engine & trans mounts from UUC -- which certainly seem to be a radical improvement over the OEM mounts (I was on my second set of the OEM mounts already & didn't think they'd withstand the bigger plant for very long).
From the LS2 set up I'd been running, we reused my TPIS ceramic coated headers (which Donny had to recoat because the a/c condensate was killing them fast), the TPIS hi-flow cats and Zoomer's cat-back. (The ability to re-use this awesome sounding exhaust set up was one reason -- other than the 525 hp/535 tq power rating -- why I went with the Katech plant instead of an LS7 swap.
To strengthen the driveline, I went ahead and added a heavy duty Rockland Standard Gear "Son of Tranzilla" trans rated to handle over 750 hp -- which I might add was very reasonably priced. I already had the UUC shifter so we reused that, but we did put in an LS7 ZO6 clutch & flywheel (consensus was the UUC one I had in there might not be enough and I didn't want to find out the hard way).
Since the car was apart anyway, I had Lindsay add a BMR anti-hop kit, UUC SS brake lines, some unobtainium anodized radio knobs (what the heck why not), replace two hubs, replace some of the racing studs I use to run the STS-V wheels (the shop I had originally do that swap beat up one hub and screwed up some of the studs when they cut them down -- fixing that mess way back in the day is another great example of James Pollack's roll up the sleeves and get things done approach to customer service).
Anyway it sounds & runs great. I was frankly surprised given all the work I begged Lindsay to do to the car at once that everything came out GREAT!
Will post dyno results soon. Heading to Behe to get it dyno tested Monday and check & tweak the ECU (I had a spare so I had Vector Motorsports reflash it for the Katech plant, and it seems like they got it perfect or close but I want to be sure because the C5-R knock sensor location is different than the LS2, but I am running an ECU for the LS2-model CTS-V -- so we had to relocate them to mate to my LS2 ECU).
My thanks to George at Rockland Standard Gear Co. and Jason Harding at Katech, both of whom put up and patiently answered my never ending stream of idiotic questions -- especially Jason. Katech and RSG's customer service is excellent, folks.
If anyone's considering a significant upgrade, I highly recommend Lindsay for the work. Frankly, their know-how on these beasts makes them the only cost-effective option, in my humble opinion.
See you all at V-Day. Mine'll be the stealthy de-badged silver V (well, stealthy when its not running anyway).
P.S. I paid everyone mentioned in here in full for the labor & parts. No discounts were offered, given or expected for this post. Oh, and no animals were hurt in the execution of the engine conversion or the drafting of this post -- but the result might be a hazard to select species of venemous snakes (Cobras & Vipers come to mind he he).
Once again, I can't thank James and his crack tech Donny over at Lindsay enough. They took on the project when others wouldn't dare (really) and waded through more than a few weird details that cropped up getting the C5-R block to mount into my '06 V's engine bay (with a little help from Luke and UUC).
The install includes a set of the redesigned engine & trans mounts from UUC -- which certainly seem to be a radical improvement over the OEM mounts (I was on my second set of the OEM mounts already & didn't think they'd withstand the bigger plant for very long).
From the LS2 set up I'd been running, we reused my TPIS ceramic coated headers (which Donny had to recoat because the a/c condensate was killing them fast), the TPIS hi-flow cats and Zoomer's cat-back. (The ability to re-use this awesome sounding exhaust set up was one reason -- other than the 525 hp/535 tq power rating -- why I went with the Katech plant instead of an LS7 swap.
To strengthen the driveline, I went ahead and added a heavy duty Rockland Standard Gear "Son of Tranzilla" trans rated to handle over 750 hp -- which I might add was very reasonably priced. I already had the UUC shifter so we reused that, but we did put in an LS7 ZO6 clutch & flywheel (consensus was the UUC one I had in there might not be enough and I didn't want to find out the hard way).
Since the car was apart anyway, I had Lindsay add a BMR anti-hop kit, UUC SS brake lines, some unobtainium anodized radio knobs (what the heck why not), replace two hubs, replace some of the racing studs I use to run the STS-V wheels (the shop I had originally do that swap beat up one hub and screwed up some of the studs when they cut them down -- fixing that mess way back in the day is another great example of James Pollack's roll up the sleeves and get things done approach to customer service).
Anyway it sounds & runs great. I was frankly surprised given all the work I begged Lindsay to do to the car at once that everything came out GREAT!
Will post dyno results soon. Heading to Behe to get it dyno tested Monday and check & tweak the ECU (I had a spare so I had Vector Motorsports reflash it for the Katech plant, and it seems like they got it perfect or close but I want to be sure because the C5-R knock sensor location is different than the LS2, but I am running an ECU for the LS2-model CTS-V -- so we had to relocate them to mate to my LS2 ECU).
My thanks to George at Rockland Standard Gear Co. and Jason Harding at Katech, both of whom put up and patiently answered my never ending stream of idiotic questions -- especially Jason. Katech and RSG's customer service is excellent, folks.
If anyone's considering a significant upgrade, I highly recommend Lindsay for the work. Frankly, their know-how on these beasts makes them the only cost-effective option, in my humble opinion.
See you all at V-Day. Mine'll be the stealthy de-badged silver V (well, stealthy when its not running anyway).
P.S. I paid everyone mentioned in here in full for the labor & parts. No discounts were offered, given or expected for this post. Oh, and no animals were hurt in the execution of the engine conversion or the drafting of this post -- but the result might be a hazard to select species of venemous snakes (Cobras & Vipers come to mind he he).
