grumpyvette

the fastest and cheapest route is usually to find and buy a complete donor car like a older v8 impalla,camaro,chevelle, etc. with a body thats rusting out but an engine that still runs well, Ivs bought several over the years for $100-$400 not only will you get an engine and trans, youll get lots of little parts like mounts, brakets,accesories that help lower the cost of the engine swap, BUT DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND MAKE SURE ITS A 350 or 400 engine BEFORE YOU BUY IT!

the rear cap was mailed to the address you gave me first thing this morning hope that takes care of all your problems. btw be very carefull when you tighten the stud/bolt holding the oil pump because if your not carefull the tip of the bolt bears on the bearing underneath and binds the crank and if much preasure is used torqueing it down , cracks the cap. you might have used a stud/bolt that was too long last time and that can and will crack the cap MEASURE EVERYTHING BEFORE TIGHTING IT DOWN TO THE RECOMMENDED torque setting for testing purposes assemble the oil pump to the cap before installing it (the cap) on the engine and check how far the bolt tip protrudes through the cap, if more than a few thousands grind the bolt tip shorter in length untill it sits flush with the inner cap surface after thats checked then put the cap on the block and reinstall the oil pump

BYE FAR THE CHEAPEST DEAL is a basic crate 350, it will cost about $1500 plus a few extra parts like water pump, starter, carb.,exhaust,dist,etc. installed your looking at $2500 minimum ,YOUR KIDDING YOURSELF IF YOU THINK YOULL BE DRIVEING A CORRECTLY REBUILT/NEWLY REBUILT ENGINE FOR LESS, yes it can be done but if you count the time and machine shop and parts costs on a junkyard rebuild your going to find that either you have not done everything rebuilt back to new condition or you did all the work yourself. http://www.sdpc2000.com/cart.asp?action=prod_detail&catid=128&pid=110 now on the plus side, rebuilding it yourself allows for much better parts to be used and better high performance parts that boost the hp but the price will go up!

corZette please send me your (mail IT TO ME HERE address )Ill look around and see if I have a rear main cap for a sbc lying around, if I do Ill let you know!(Ill send it to you if I do, Im fairly sure I saved a few) GRUMPYVETTE

the cap is free but I want to be sure that this GySgt Terry Baldwin PSC 557 Box 2754 FPO AP 96379 is where I send it? that does not look like an address but if thats it Ill send it

worth it,too who? hp wise no! for looks maybe!you want looks and hp? heres a nice set of webers or EFI

Greimann your correct they (trickflow twisted wedge heads) were discontinued because they got a bad name because TRICKFLOW was STUPID and used cheap valve guides in the early heads(G1) (VERY EASY TO FIX) they opened the ports up and put better valve guides in the second version(G2) but the marketing damage was already done so they started makeing the heads more standard (23 deg) so they sold better, its really a shame because there was nothing wrong with the design that top quality parts would not fix (both the 429- 460 ford and 396-502 chevy use twisted wedge designs)and they work fine!

yeah! its very rare , its called A.... #%*&*&^ 350-383 CHEVY SMALL BLOCK thats why everyone else runs one, less problems, good hp, swap is well known,costs are relatively low, the engine fits and thats why that swap is so popular

the newer 23deg trickflow heads work fine on the street,the ® series works better for racing, and if your really serious a set of ported AFR or DART heads work even better(at a big increase in price) Im useing a set of the trickflow twisted wedge heads (ported) on my vette now

if your worried about gas mileage your not interested in a supercharged big inch high performance engine tips (1)use all forged parts (especially the connecting rods and crank.) (2)keep the static compression at about 7.5-8 to 1 ratio (3)use huge port heads with big valves and a cam DESIGNED ESPECIALLY FOR A SUPERCHARGED ENGINE, standard design cam timeing would cost you lots of hp that a supercharger design cam keeps (4)large full length headers and a free flowing exhaust (5) spinning a large supercharger slower works much better than spinning a small supercharger much faster to get your boost (6) intercoolers and timeing retard ignitions are great ideas

there is no pontiac (SMALL BLOCK) a 400 is the same size as a 455! no matter what pontiac you build you must replace the connecting rods if you want the engine to live over 6000rpm if it makes good hp as stock pontiac rods are weak. heres some choices http://www.flatlanderracing.com/olivermopar.html http://www.partshp.com/Rods http://www.scatcrankshafts.com/forged4340hbeamrods02.html heres more good info http://www.classicfirebird.com/hand/hand.html http://www.classicfirebird.com/tech/bprint.html http://www.pontiacengines.net/ http://www.teufert.net/pontiac/cranks.htm http://ourworld.cs.com/gaotman428/pontiacengines.htm http://www.highperformancepontiac.com/

if possiable start with a 455 or 428, all pontiac v8 engines from 326-455 are the same basic size and weight, now it depends on how much money you want to spend but edelbrock and WENZLER make much better cylinder heads than stock. http://my.execpc.com/~lewenz/schief1.htm heres some info youll need http://www.boyleworks.com/ta400/psp/blockID.html the wensler heads flow better than the pontiac heads so Id use wensler heads and intake then look at what edelbrock got even with their heads out of a 467(bored 455)

heres what a custom top that fits the dual crossfire throttle bodys looks like heres the SY1 base that far out flows a stock intake looks like again

buy these FIVE books, it will be the best money you ever spent, read them, and you will be miles ahead of the average guy. HOW TO BUILD THE SMALL BLOCK CHEVEROLET by LARRY ATHERTON&LARRY SCHREIB . HOW TO BUILD MAX PERFORMANCE CHEVY SMALL BLOCKS ON A BUDGET by DAVID VIZARD . JOHN LINGENFELTER on modifying small-block chevy engines how to build & modify CHEVROLET small-block V-8 CAMSHAFTS & VALVTRAINS BY DAVID VIZARD SMOKEY YUNICK,S POWER SECRETS then read and understand these http://www.torquespecs.com/gmfs70-88chv8.htm http://www.newcovenant.com/speedcrafter/tech/camshaft/1.htm http://www.unofficialbmw.com/all/misc/all_oilfaq.html http://www.fernblatt.com/longhurst/engineoil_bible.html http://www.babcox.com/editorial/cm/cm99828.htm http://www.babcox.com/editorial/us/uhs89734.htm http://epics.aps.anl.gov/asd/me/FilmPressureDrop.html http://www.pix.za/manex/lube.htm http://www.mr2.com/TEXT/synth_oil.txt http://theengineshop.com/content/tech2.pdf http://www.cfivevette.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2683 http://www.cfivevette.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2809 http://www.chevytalk.org/forums/Forum64/HTML/012480.html but heres some places to buy engine parts at reasonable costs http://www.procylinderheads.com/ http://www.enginekits.com/ http://www.racepartsstore.com/proaction.html http://www.dirttrackthunder.com/ http://www.schwankeshortblocks.com/id117.htm http://www.sdpc2000.com/cart.asp?action=catalog_start&catid=120

PLEASE TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES AND MEASUREMENTS don,t start doing the swap untill you have figured out everything that you can ahead of time, there will be plenty of things you forget to check that keep you buzy even then

will a 500 caddy fit in the vette? HELL YES, I dropped a big block chevy into my vette to test fit it last time I had the 383 out doing a rebuild, the big block chevy is a bolt in deal, the accessories and exhaust would be very tight but the engine drops in and bolts up just fine, the 500 caddy is slightly smaller and quite a bit lighter than a bbc engine so with custom motor mounts and a B.O.P trans it too would bolt in with slightly more room (about 3/4") the only real reason I don,t drop in the caddy is the resale value of the car would drop about 70% but the bbc is slowly getting built to drop in when and if the sbc ever blows

Kevin Shasteen you could be correct about the lube system on the olds engines being the weak point, after building several (yes I talked to mr mondelo (or at least the guy that said he was mr mondelo), a few times when ordering parts in the early 80s)I gave up on olds engines. now I build 500 caddys,and 400-455 pontiacs regularly and 455 buicks occasionally so Im not against NON-CHEVYS in any way, and those buicks also have the 3" mains but Ive yet to have problems with them. Ive often seriously though about swapping a 500 caddy into my 1985 vette btw

LoneInAZ after a huge amount of custom cutting and welding he got the crossfire intake to flow increase from 150cfm stock to 200cfm after the mods now as Ive said before, the formula for potential hp from the airflow is (airflow x .257 x #cylinders =hp) the stock crosfire engine makes about 210hp, with that extensive mods hes POTENTIALLY up to 411hp(his own chart shows less hp) now any performer RPM intake flows enough air to make 420hp for a lot less work and money, WHY BOTHER... the steath ram, SY-1 or super vic intakes all flow enough air UNTOUCHED,OUT OF THE BOX, STOCK, to make 475-600hp with little or no effort and more ported, like I said the crossfire intakes a waste of time and money

Kevin Shasteen heres web sites that gives lots of olds info http://my.en.com/~thall/olds/ofind.htm http://www.mondellotwister.com/engine_blueprint.html look closely at the main caps olds engines have two bolt main caps, on this picture notice that the caps are milled and strengthening straps are used, this is common on olds engine builds when the engine is expected to build good power as the stock maincaps tend to be weaker than the chevy 4 bolt mains and most olds blocks don,t have 4 bolt maincaps,in fact a cap support system (like this) is used if over 600hp is planned . now to be fair both the pontiac and olds engines can be modded to produce over 600hp but the pontiac will weigh less, cost less to build and has far more parts available for it.pick up any performance catalog and the first thing youll notice is that the parts for olds engines are rare, and expensive, in fact if your not building a chevy, ford or mopar that lack of parts and higher cost is to some extent true of most other V-8 engines. now Ive built several 442 (455 engines)over the years and they have massive mid range torque, but in each case the rod bearings gave problems when a good shot (250hp) of nitrous was used,the same EXACT system was swapped onto and used on a 455 and 467 pontiac engine with no problems

the PONTIAC 455 is a FAR BETTER,STRONGER,AND CHEAPER ENGINE to build not even mentioning LIGHTER and smaller than that oldsmobile boat anchor (in case you have not got the answer yet) olds engines are weak,onless the bottom end is modified,(expensive to do) heavy,wide,expensive, and harder to get parts for Olds V-8s weigh 620lbs- 760lbs pontiac 428,455 640lbs

the main point on modifying the crossfire intake is why bother, youll spend more money, time and effort and get far less results than youll get by swapping to a SY1 with a modifyed lid or a STEATH RAM. if you got into the 11s with a modifyed cross ram intake think of how much faster you would have been with a modifyed SY1 or steath ram that flows better to start than a fully modifyed crossram ever would.

if you want to get laughed off the site I can let you propose those ideas to the guys that drive those cars, they might laugh themselfs sick though. look here,this is the inside of the stock crossfire intake , this is the edelbrock SY1 intake they are all wanting to swap too because the stock intake runs out of air at 4000rpm as its designed to work at 1000-3000rpm the stock intake has a very hard time getting to 360hp. the unported SY1 can suport 475-500hp just add an 850 holley btw the correct matching cam for the SY1 is, http://dab7.cranecams.com/SpecCard/DisplayCatalogCard.asp?PN=114681&B1=Display+Card heres one,with the top on. they are out of production but are available on EBAY for $350-$450 depending on condithion this style (like a super victor by edelbrock also work ok. now keep in mind these are intakes designed for max hp and not truely ideal for a daily driver (performance is less than ideal below 3500rpm)

http://www.built4speed.com/html_docs/383_options_list.htm http://www.built4speed.com/html_docs/350_stroked_to_383.htm

http://www.racingengines.com/public/sales/salegp/mfggp/dart/Iron%20Eagle%20sb%20block .jpg http://www.racepartsstore.com/rotating.html[/img] yeah I know its expensive but at least its top quality forged parts far stronger than 30 plus year old chevy parts with 30 plus years of stress and internal corrosion. youll be way ahead in the long run. the main reason Im suggesting you go this way is most of the 400 blocks Ive checked recently have internally rusted to the point that cylinder wall thickness at some points is minimal at best, remember most 400s were cast in the early 70s and are not nearly as strong as the DART BLOCK and the cranks were also weak castings by todays standards yes life suck$ sometimes $$$$ but you will be better off with this block btw speed-o-motives quality on machine work and parts varies WILDLY

the EFI converted super victor intake I used on my vette for awhile made better hp than the mini-ram at all rpm ranges and about the same as the steath ram over most of the rpm range, in fact it made about 5hp more hp than the steath ram above 6800rpm and about 15 less hp in the 4000-6200rpm range, the only reason I swapped to the steath ram was to pick up low and mid range torque (which the steath ram did do) but over-all the EFI converted super victor intake proved to be a good choice(just be sure the injector bungs dont stick into and partly block airflow in the runners when you have the conversion done) btw heres a guy that does that conversion [ tell him (GRUMPYVETTE sent you) if you want a factory efi intake http://www.holley.com/HiOctn/ProdLine/Products/AMS/AMSM/9901-101-1.html this intake requires minor porting to smooth and open the area near the injector bungs as they stick into the runners if over 480 hp is needed, but it does have the advantage that its cheaper than converting a super victor if your buying one (super victor )new plus the converion costs,the holley is a direct bolt-on and fuel rails,throttle bodies etc are readily available from holley BTW youll need one of these if your running a M.A.F. EFI system http://www.ramairbox.com/parts.html