Ok i have a 86 Trans am tpi, with the 700r4 transmission, been having problems with engine overheating and think the headgasket might be blown, well i recently found a rebuilt 350 Big Block that came out of a 1969 firebird, the owner said that it was the orginal motor out of the 1969 but has been rebuilt and has about a 1000 miles on it, My question is will i be able to drop this 350 into my 86 trans am, and if so what mods would i have to do and about how expensive would the mods be???

 

There was no such thing as a 350 "big block". There was a 350 Pontiac that came in '69 'Birds, though.

Check the Pontiac V8 swap sticky in the top section of this forum.

 

thats not entirely true .. there are now days !!! you can get a 454 small block!!!
but i'm sure he is not talking about special built motors

http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/e...ine/index.html

 

no i didn't mean a specialty engine, I just saw that i could get a rebuilt 350 from this 69 firebird and wanted to know could i drop it in my 86 T/A , and i just assumed because of the year of the car that it was Big Block (Kinda New To This Whole Car Thing)..... Just a question is that 350 out of the 69 firebird any stronger or weaker then a 350 TPI???

 

The 350 in the Firebird is a Pontiac engine... the 350 that came in these cars was a Chevy small block. While both engines have the same displacement (350ci, or 5.7L) they are two very different engines and are not interchangeable.

Think of it like this... one is a 600ml Pepsi, one is a 600ml Coke. They are the same size, but what they actually are is totally different. Not the same thing.

 

One day in the near future, the emissions testing enforcement is gonna be in every town in the U.S.A. And when that day comes, you better not still have the Pontiac 350 in an '86. Much cheaper and easier to go Chevy, too! If you can't afford to do it right the first time, you sure can't afford to do it twice.

 

Any engine swap into any vehicle is possible with enough time, money and fabrication skills but for the average person, the swap isn't really worth it.

Dropping a Pontiac, Olds, Buick or Caddy engine into a third gen isn't impossible but it's not an easy direct swap. SBC and BBC are the easiest and cheapest to do.