LQ4 into a 3rd Gen/1972 Nova by frojoe

4 minute(s) of a 891 minute read

Here's another side project that I forgot to update on.. I wanted the dipstick to be shorter for aesthetic reasons, so I thought I'd do it simply and get the LS3 dipstick+tube to match the new Holley pan. Well, the curvature and placement of the dipstick tube mounting tab squarely interfered with the CTS-V manifolds in a flipped orientation. It was really hard to get a pic of it, but there was simply no way the LS3 tube's bracket was going to match up with the threaded hole on the head no matter how much bending I did to it. So I decided to then go back to the truck dipstick tube and shorten it, to lower the top of the dipstick.

Here is the truck LQ4 dipstick and its crazy height....

This shows how much better/closer the truck dipstick tube bracket is to fitting around the CTS-V manifolds (just like the old Cmaaro LS3 manifolds)...

This is a comparison of the truck LQ4 dipstick+tube (top) and the Camaro LS3 dipstick+tube (bottom). Note how the mounting brackets are completely in a different location...

This is just a comparison of where the oil level read range is on the dipsticks.. truck (top) and LS3 (bottom)...

So after deciding to keep the truck tube, it gets hacked. Think I removed about 2.5" from the overall length of the tube...

Mocked up new height of the dipstick... time will only tell if it's too close to the turbo piping and ends up melting...

Little weld.. should do the job....

I ended up breaking the existing truck dipstick when I was trying to shorten and tack weld it back together, so I got a new truck dipstick. Slightly different in length, so I suspect it is from an LY6 or something like that which might have a revised length of dipstick tube. Anyways, I was expecting the oil level range to be significantly lower than it ended up being, as shown in the pic below...

Learning from my previous mistake of not successfully cutting/welding the dipstick, I just trimmed the extra length and drilled a second hold for the "full" line in a location that matched the LS3 dipstick...

Not a drastic height difference, but enough to tidy things up a bit and make it worth my effort I think...