With the wiring finished, I prepared the engine to drop in. I made motor mount adapter plates in Bucknell’s machine shop out of ¼” steel to allow the new engine to be mounted to the old frame mounts.
I placed the engine in its new home using a “cherry picker” hoist and managed to wedge it in with the hood still in place.
The new motor fit like it belonged there. There were no tight spots, with the exception of the impossible-to-fit AC compressor from the new motor. More on this later.
With the engine in place I installed the intake manifold, transmission, fuel lines, engine wiring harness, radiator, and other auxiliary equipment. The next challenge was to come up with a way to get air conditioning. Based on a recommendation from an LS1truck.com forum member, I acquired a 1992 Camaro AC compressor bracket. With some heavy modification, I made the bracket fit and built some supports for it out of ¼” steel bar stock. The serpentine belt tensioner was rotated 180 degrees and the back clearanced to fit in the new position. This setup has taken a lot of effort to get working. I didn't get around to making the A/C work for at least 4 months. See this thread for details on how I got it to work.
With the AC bracket installed, I finished up by installing the radiator and coolant hoses, transmission oil and engine oil cooler lines, and some other small things like the engine cover.
The first startup was a success. The motor started on the first try, and idled somewhat roughly. The problem was tracked down to a loose fuel injector connector after a few hours’ worth of troubleshooting which included pulling valve covers, testing fuel injectors on the bench, checking plug gaps, etc. Here is a video of the engine starting up with no exhaust connected:
And a video with the exhaust finished:
That’s it for the engine. The next step towards getting the truck drivable was to create the exhaust system.