i can get a motor from a 79 trans am and its transsmission and its a great deal....i can afford this right away just so you know i am not kidding. the motor is a 6.6ltr 403 olds that came in the 79 TA. I know the weaknesses of this motor...heads, intake, and headers and it should be pretty sweet. what i want to know is....is the 403 classified as a BBC or SBC. and how hard of a swap is this going to be? lets say the motor and tranny cost me $280 then how much am i lookin at for the complete change? also i plan on doing a complete rebuild on the 403 and soup the crap outta it...all new internals etc. how much will the cost be minus the build up. BTW; i can do most of the labour myself.

 

just a general estimate....and rate the difficultness from a scale of 1-10

 

The 6.6 is neither a smallblock nor big block. Chevy is the only one that designates the engines that way due to differences. The motor you are speaking of is different from a chevy engine. Maybe someone else can correct me but as I understand it the engines of buick olds and pontiac (B.O.P.) are the same. Meaning that a 403 can just as easily be a 455 with an overbore and a longer stroke same with pontiacs and buicks. They are quite different in size compared to a chevy motor and might be a p.i.t.a. to install in a 3rd gen(but it has been done). Exhaust will be a major problem as well as oil pan and filter location. If you are skilled in the trade(knowing the tolerances and differences of the engine family and have been working on them a while) i would say a 4. To me it would be cost prohibitive. Just search the classifieds and junk yards for a BB chevy to rebuild it'll prolly save you a bunch and not be that complicated...