© Hot Rod Network Staff
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Drive Junky's LS-Swap drive system looks great and is built to stand up to high-performance hard driving.
Swapping an LS engine into your hot rod is about a lot of things besides the actual LS engine. You need to figure out headers, engine mounts, cooling lines, oil pan to frame clearance in addition to the electronic choices. One big piece of the LS-swap puzzle is coming up with the right serpentine accessory drive system for your particular car or truck. Now, many times you can get away with using a new or used GM drive system, but there are issues going this route.
Can You Use a Low-Mount A/C Compressor With an LS swap?
For example, many GM drive systems mount the A/C compressor (which won't even work with most aftermarket A/C systems) low on the engine, not a good place for most factory frames. Aside from packaging issues, the GM systems are also less than good-looking. For a guy building a track car, this might not be a big deal, but some people want to go fast and look good doing it. This is where the aftermarket comes in. Here there are a wide array of LS drive systems to fit just about any budget. For this install, we'll take a look at a drive system from a smaller company called Drive Junky. Cheapest option? Nope, but for those that want a rock-solid and beautiful system, it's a kit worth checking out. Besides, we all know LS engines need all the help they can get in the looks department.
© Hot Rod Network Staff But Zach Schary, owner of Drive Junky, didn't want to just make a GM-style drive system; instead, he wanted to make a stronger, better-looking system that would eclipse what the factory offered in every way possible. The brackets are all 6061 billet aluminum and are polished before being hard-anodized. As Zack told us, "We utilize heavier stock and machine away more material than our competition. This minimizes additional parts (spacers) needed and results in a better, stronger fitment. It's more expensive and labor intensive than the 'plate and spacer' design you see elsewhere, but our goal is to have the highest-quality drive system possible."
© Hot Rod Network Staff So, let's check out what's involved by installing their kit on a spare 6L LS engine we had at the shop. The good news here is that due to some brilliant engineer at GM, the procedure for installing this kit on any LS (or LS truck variant) is just about identical.
Stock Water Pump or Aftermarket for an LS swap?
© Hot Rod Network Staff This installation starts with a water pump, but not just any stock GM pump. Instead, the kit came with an Edelbrock Victor (PN 8896) pump. It's a nearly $400 pump that's designed for maximum cooling. Heavy-duty roller bearings, billet steel hubs, and larger, CNC-machined impellers with cavitation-killing curved vanes are just a few of the benefits this pump brings to the party.
© Hot Rod Network Staff Since the Drive Junky LS-swap drive system uses many monoblock brackets, there's actually very little to assemble, which is nice compared to stacking up shims and spacers in "just the right way." First up was attaching the power steering mount to the main support truss using the two stainless Allen bolts in the kit.
© Hot Rod Network Staff We then installed the alternator support brace, which will further tie the main truss to the block. As Drive Junky's Zach Schary told us, "Our brackets are cut from solid blocks of 6061 billet aluminum instead of the more common 'thin plate and spacer technology' often seen in the industry. We also package the fasteners with our associated brackets to eliminate guesswork and make the install go faster. When the pulleys and brackets are cut the way we do, it allows greater accuracy, fewer parts, better, more consistent belt alignment, and long-term reliability."
© Hot Rod Network Staff And here's the fully assembled main support truss for the LS drive system. The main bracket is cut from a solid piece of 1.5-inch 6061 aluminum for a custom fit. They also use arigid idler and custom tensioner pulley,with stainless axles and twin 20,000-rpm bearings for the idler and tensioner.
© Hot Rod Network Staff The support truss bolted in place using the six bolts for the water pump. As luck would have it, Drive Junky supplies these stainless bolts as well. Oh, we made sure to use a few dabs of antiseize on all the stainless bolts before spinning them into the engine.
© Hot Rod Network Staff Here you can see how that support bracket we installed earlier attached to the side of the block, which is the same for almost every LS engine out there. Using this bracket is recommended but not mandatory if you have a strange clearance issue due to something such as headers.
© Hot Rod Network Staff Four stainless Allen head bolts secured the water pump pulley to the water pump. Here we used some red thread locker to keep anything from loosening up.
© Hot Rod Network Staff A bonus we really appreciated was that the Sanden A/C compressor came fully assembled and ready to bolt to our LS engine. Fewer parts and more systems coming already assembled made this a very easy kit to install. For frame clearance we went with their high-mount A/C kit, but they do offer a low-mount A/C system as well.
© Hot Rod Network Staff The kit included this billet A/C line manifold, but since we're just mocking all of this up, we wanted to leave the A/C compressor sealed up. Drive Junky LS drive kits can be had like ours or with the A/C and/or power steering deleted.
© Hot Rod Network Staff We were pretty happy when we found that the aluminum GM type-II power steering pump already had the billet pulley pressed on. This saved us a time-consuming step that would have required an installation tool. The pump bolted to the bracket using three stainless fasteners. The "holes" in the pump pulley made bolting the pump to the bracket painless.
© Hot Rod Network Staff Of course, it's not just a stock GM pump, but instead a higher-end Jones Racing custom aluminum power steering pump along with a tig-welded tank and billet, vented cap. If you are going to do any hard driving (road course or autocross), this pump will hold up to that sort of torment. They also enhanced the belt wrap on the power steering for pro-touring and competition builds running late-model boxes, racks, and larger front tires.
© Hot Rod Network Staff The 170-amp single-wire Powermaster alternator mounted to the high-driver side location on the Drive Junky truss. It's a good-looking, heavy-duty unit with an internal fan setup. Again, since the bracket came already installed on the alternator, installation was a breeze.
© Hot Rod Network Staff We could then install the six-rib alternator pulley.
© Hot Rod Network Staff The Drive Junky kit included this SFI-rated ATI Super Damper. We installed it at the beginning and secured it with an ARP bolt.
© Hot Rod Network Staff The billet crank pulley was then bolted to the ATI damper using three included stainless fasteners.
© Hot Rod Network Staff Last, we put the Gates six-rib serpentine belt on as shown. This also shows you the extreme belt wrap around the power steering pulley. Due to the lack of spacers and pre-assembly of many of the sections, this kit was simple to install. We went with black, but the kit is also offered in hand polished and a unique brushed finish.
Are There Kits for LT1, LT4, and LT5 GM Crate Engines?
© Hot Rod Network Staff Being a smaller company, Drive Junky is able to offer solutions for all sorts of situations. Have a Magnacharger on an LT1? Yep, they have a system like the one pictured here. Decided you need the latest and greatest LT4 or LT5? Well, they have a drive system for that LT swap as well as one for the Gen 5 L83/L86 engines.