Mesa, AZ38 posts · joined Nov 20251930 Ford coupe, LS 6.0, Terminator X
30 Ford coupe, steel, SBC came out, dropping a junkyard LS 6.0 in with a 4L65 behind it. this is the wiring and cooling thread because those are the two things that stop people, not the mounts.
harness first. i pulled a whole truck harness with it and spent a weekend trying to deloom and shorten it before i gave up and bought a standalone. i am running a Terminator X and i want to hear from anybody who has done the same whether you grounded it the way the book says or the way the internet says, because those are two different places. the manual wants the main grounds at the back of one head and the block, and every forum thread wants a dozen extra straps to the frame and body.
cooling second. there is no room in a 30 coupe. a truck LS wants a lot of radiator and the deuce-era cars have a grille shell the size of a shoebox. who is running what, aluminum crossflow, pusher or puller fans, and did you have to hack the core support.
pro_touring_buildRoad worthy#2
Lincoln, NE74 posts · joined Nov 20251967 Camaro pro-touring, LS3, coilovers
grounds are where LS swaps live or die so do not cheap out here. run the two big ones the manual asks for, back of the head and the block to the battery, and then add exactly three more: block to frame, frame to body, and engine to body. that is not internet voodoo, a modern engine has sensors reading millivolts and a bad ground does not blow up, it gives you a misfire code that moves around and makes you buy parts for a year. clean metal under every ring terminal, not paint, not powdercoat.
on cooling, a 6.0 in a small shell means a dual-pass aluminum radiator and a good shroud with a single big puller, and you still have to get the air out of the engine bay or it just sits there and heat-soaks at a light. louvers in the hood sides are not just a look on these, they are how the heat leaves.
ls_swap_wiringOPFired up#3
Mesa, AZ38 posts · joined Nov 20251930 Ford coupe, LS 6.0, Terminator X
that is the answer i wanted, five grounds not fifteen, and clean metal. i had three terminals landing on powdercoat and i would have chased that forever. regrounding this weekend.
brake_master_checkRoad worthy#4
Chattanooga, TN61 posts · joined Nov 20251934 Ford pickup, SBC, Wilwood discs
different wrinkle for you. a 4L65 behind that 6.0 needs a trans cooler and the little stacked-plate one that comes in a swap kit is not enough behind a truck engine in a heavy-ish coupe. put a real cooler in front of the radiator, not the in-tank one in a hot rod rad that half of them do not even have. i cooked a 4L60 family trans in a 34 doing exactly this and it is a 1200 dollar lesson.
ls_swap_wiringOPFired up#5
Mesa, AZ38 posts · joined Nov 20251930 Ford coupe, LS 6.0, Terminator X
regrounded with the five straps, cleaned every landing to bright metal, and the random misfire that i thought was an injector is gone. it was a ground on paint the whole time, like pro_touring said. added the trans cooler in front per brake_master, routed the lines away from the headers.
the Terminator X grounding diagram turned out to match the standalone harness maker's own documentation almost word for word, Holley has the install PDFs and the ground points spelled out at holley.com and i wish i had read those before i read nine forum threads. the forums had me adding grounds i did not need and skipping the one that mattered.
air_ride_setupFired up#6
Lakeland, FL29 posts · joined Nov 20251940 Ford coupe, LS 5.3, bagged
late to this but on the cooling, if you ever bag that coupe the compressor and tank eat the space you were going to put the radiator fan relay and the trans cooler. plan the whole front of the car at once or you will be moving brackets three times like i did. ask me how i know.
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