Front End Swap 93-97 to 98+ LS1
This was written by SixReasons Ok guys I?m going to give you a very simple and brief tutorial on how to do a front end conversion. This is my first tutorial so take it easy on me guys I?m just try to share a little knowledge?. The model used the conversion is a 1994 camaro z-28. The conversion is very simple and much easer then expected. It?s pretty much all screws/bolts and plastic rivets. 70 % of the bolts were 10mm?s, 20% of them were 13mm?s and about 10% of them were 7 and 8mm (mostly under the car in the weather guard). Two people can knock a front end conversion out is under 4 hours easy. Things were very easy for me because I had a donor car and I had a chance to see exactly where the brackets went... One thing you have to understand is once you strip the cars down to the frame they are the same car even down to the screw holes... You don?t need to do any drilling or fabricating of any parts what so ever as long as you have all of the main parts and brackets
even the lights use the same plugs. There are 2 steps that I did not get into details on that are self explanatory and simple (steps 1 and 2). If you pay attention when you remove parts from the car the information in the tutorial is more then enough information you need to complete the conversion.
The 1st step is removing the hood. (take your time and make sure you don?t damage your windshield trust me I did this before and taking you time can save you a couple hundred dollars) 2nd step is to remove the bolts and brackets from the weather guard and all of the black plastic on the bottom of the car. Don?t for get the long piece of plastic right below the radiator there are 3 white plastic bolts at the top of it that you can knock out from the inside. ( these 3 bolts are strong enough to hold the whole front clip on by them self? they had us baffled for about 15 mins trying to think of what else could be holding the nose on.) 3rd step begin to remove the fenders by removing the bolts on the top of the fender under the hood. 4th step Then make sure you open the door and get the bolt behind side rear view mirror as in exp 1.
I?m sure it was a 10mm and you might want to use an extension to. then get the two bolts on the bottom of the fender behind the tire. Right next to the spot where your floor jack goes. Once you do that remove to remove all of the screws/plastic bolts in the wheel well. Now you have to stick your hand under the bumper and unscrew the screws on the wing bracket as seen in Exp 2. (this is why you have to remove all of the black weather guard plastic from the bottom of the car.) After that there is another bolt to remove inside the fender behind the wheel well as seen in exp 3. 5th step the front nose is very easy make sure you remove all of the bolts on the top and behind the headlights... at this time make sure you unplug all of the lights and move them to a safe place... 6th step
there are 3 main brackets that you need to complete the conversions. I don?t know the correct name so of them so I?m posting the pictures below... make sure you have 2 of each brackets (for both sides) 7th step now the confusing part is the 93-97 from clips only use on bracket to line up the fender and hold the front bumper cover in place where the 98-02 uses 2.
8th step Once you remove the fender you may find out like I did that your car previously had some front end damage with other owners. Lucy alee its was not serous enough to prevent me from doing this conversion. once you strip everything down your fenders should look like this. after that you remove the 3 bolts holding on the bumper on each side (13 mm) 9th step then install bracket 1 and bracket 2 as seen below... make sure you do not for get the washer bracket the is shaped just like bracket 2 but is installed last once the fender and bumper cover is installed. once installed they should look like this...
at this time you should install the head light bracket. As seen below Once you do that install your fenders and front bumper cover (make sure you line them up properly) the same way you took off your old fenders and bumper cover. . Then plug up your fog lights and amber signal lights and test them. Then install head lights and hood... and your all done... |