Q: Engine swap - 2011 Chevrolet Camaro
i was wondering would the northstar engine out of the cadillac sts 4.6l work in my 2011 v6 camaro i didnt think it would be that expensive of a swap bc the transmission is the same in both cars i was wondering what else i would have to change ? and how much would everything else cost with the swap i found an engine for $400 and thats pretty good
My car has 89995 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.
In the olden days, you could "adapt" any engine to any car frame, assuming you were mindful of any necessary changes to the suspension to safely carry a possibly heavier engine. The reason you can’t do the interchange you are proposing is you would have to completely re-wire your car and change to to the "other engine’s" computer in order to get the new Northstar engine to run.
You face the same issue with the transmission. There though, even if the transmission appears physically identical, the TCM is different and that will necessitate re-wiring all the transmission controls as well.
In other words, the only way this would be doable is if you have the donor car and are able to carry over the donor car’s wiring harness to your vehicle but even that will be problematic because the donor car computer will have security and body control functions in it which won’t match that in your present Camaro.
Technically, it can all be done if you are really determined to do it, but this would not be very practical. If you happen to need a new engine, say due to failure of your existing one, your best bet is to either rebuild what you have or install a crate engine. For more advice on this, you may want to consult a local auto shop to see if they can perform an engine rebuild or replacement for you.
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