Hey all. Finding this forum has saved me tons of hours. I own a 2007 LS with a 2.2L L61 and a 5 speed. It's bone stock with the exception of some OEM replacement cheapo front struts. Since owning this car for just over a year, I'd barely popped the hood, but a few weeks ago, I started getting a really bad rod knock. I decided to park it for a while till I got the time to replace the engine.

A little bit about myself, I live in Michigan in the Detroit metro area. I just graduated a little over a month ago from the University of Michigan-Dearborn with a degree in Digital Forensics, so I'm in the IT world. My automotive background is mostly rooted in offroad vehicles. Trucks and jeeps mostly. I'm 24 yo and I have been working on cars for the last 10 years, since I was about 14 starting with small things like brakes and such learning from my dad and eventually taking auto shop in high school. I've worked on countless projects and cars/trucks/mowers/boats/bikes/snowmobiles you name it. I'm my family and friends go to mechanic when it comes to anything that has wheels and/or and engine or computer/phone related.

I've learned most of what I know from having to fix my personal vehicles and working on other peoples vehicles. The vehicle I put the most amount of time or money into was my '96 Ford F150 302 automatic 4x4. I bought it from a junk yard that also sold auction vehicles. It was bone stock with it's own set of problems. I did some little upgrades like headers and true dual exhaust with FlowMaster Series 44s and a custom H pipe so I could still use the O2 Sensors. I also put a 4 inch lift on it, new rear gas tank, new front fuel pump, I replaced everything in the front end and most of the engine accessories including A/C.



I basically learned a lot from it.. Unfortunately, It had a bad crack in the front of the frame by the steering gear box so I ended up trading it for a stock '94 jeep YJ 4.0 5 speed.

Being someone that's into offroading, it did not remain stock very long. My original idea was to dub the jeep #cheapjeep that was until I hydrolocked my engine blowing a hole in the side of the block and tearing a gash in the oil pan.



I ended up replacing the engine in that in the spring of 2016 and that's when the upgrades started to pile on.. 4 ish inch lift, 35 inch tires, ford 8.8 rear end with disk brakes. This thing was a toy mind you. I never intended on this ever being a daily.



Now, before I even traded my truck for the jeep, I bought my Cobalt off of my best friend who got it as a part of a trade for one of his old jeeps. It was my don't give a **** about this car, gas saver (30 mpg avg compared to the trucks 10mpg downhill with a tail wind avg). I drove this car while I was finishing up college (just graduated Dec 2016) and drove it to work. It was my daily until the engine took a **** on me. I had to scramble to finish up a few things on the jeep, throw out bearing, rear shock mounts (yes, I was driving my jeep daily for about 3 weeks without any rear shocks... It sucked!) etc... and it became my daily.. butttt just the other week, I noticed my jeep was leaking oil like a siv..... ~5 qts ever 4 days, found that out the hard way and then out of the blue, the starter stopped working even though I had just replaced it (prob. bad reman part) so now I'm back to fixing the cobalt. I went salvage yard hunting for a new engine and didn't know anything about them except that it was a 2.2L. I figured, hell, as long as I get a 2.2, I'll be golden. Found a 2010 2.2L with only 79k miles on it that was in a roll over. Cylinders were locked up full of oil but after pulling the plugs and turning the engine over by hand dozens of times.. I'm pretty sure I got it all out.






While I was removing my engine, my brother pointed out to me that there were 2 sensors that were immediately noticeably different. That's when I found out that they changed models of engines from the L61 to the LAP with VVT. The sensors were for the intake and exhaust solenoid sensors. I did some research and found that to make this work, I would need to change the ECM and wire harness and that should be all. Doesn't sound too bad. I found out that the ECM from my 2007 is supposedly the same P/N that's in the 2010's so all I really have to do is find a VIN for a '10 2.2L LAP MANUAL and reflash the ECM. I also found out that the wire harness that I need is also the exact same one from basically any 2.4L '07-'10 or any '09-'10 2.2L. Then I found this gem which is the whole reason I felt the need to join this forum.

https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/2-4l...d-help-276754/

My original plan was to stuff an engine into the car to get it running and sell it for whatever I could get for it. Now I think I'm going to run it till the doors fall off (which was my original plan until the engine died).

The point I'm at now is I have the old engine out.





I decided to take the route of removing it from the bottom so everything is out right now. I'm still doing a little more research as far as what accessories are compatible and what all needs to be done to make this happen. Here is a list of what I THINK I need to do to finish this little project off and get my daily back:

1: Either rewire the harness to incorporate the 3 additional sensors or purchase a harness from a salvage yard.
2. convert the back of the '10 LAP to be compatible with my 5 speed trans as the '10 was an automatic.
3. find a vin for a '10 2.2 5 speed to be able to flash the ECM
4. put it back together and go


I know it's now going to be this easy and I think I'm leaving some things out.


Things that I've come to know in the last few days:

- the alternators are different between the '07 L61 and '10 LAP ('L61 has a computer regulated alternator while the LAP has an integral regulator)
- one of the bolts on my engine cradle wouldn't come out cuz the nut broke off inside the car so i had to cut it off but not until after it mangled the hell out of my cradle so now I have to replace that... DID YOU KNOW: There are two different cradles based on the suspension package (1 - FR1 & FR3 suspension packages) and (2 - FR5 suspension package). I was told that the suspension package could be found on a tag either in the glove box or trunk. I haven't looked much into this yet but I have a feeling FR5 is the SS/SC and my LS would fall under one of the others, but we'll see.
- I don't perform very well at work when I come home and work on the car for all hours of the night.
- IFF this goes well, I should get better gas mileage