Before i waste my money i would like to know if i could take out my 350 and swap it for a 496 CI Big Block main question it i know i will have to reinforce my fram but will i have to move or get more space in the engine compartmenthttp://www.promarperformanceengines....12&cat=_racing

 

No but you will need special headers which are like $800. It's a fairly simple swap, I took one motor mount off, sat the motor down in, bolted the other motor mount in and then tossed the other motor mount back on.

Edit:
You might need to take out the windshield motor, depends on the heads you get.
I ran a vacuum distributor and put a dent in my firewall, never checked to see if it would clear without denting the firewall. So you can check, dent it, or run a mechanical distributor.

 

How to do a BBC swap is in the sticky at the top of the forum
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/engi...swap-info.html

All short deck BBC engines are the same from a 396 to a 540. When you get into tall deck block, the swap becomes a little more difficult with clearances. Yes, headers for the swap are very expensive and there's no easy cheap way to get around it unless you build your own. Very few factory manifolds will work and the ones that do sort of work are about the same price as headers.

 

Alky whats the deal with the distributor? Is their any clearance problem from the firewall with a vacuum distributor?

 

I never had any issues with the distributor and the firewall when I put the 454 in my car. The distrubutor is higher up with the BBC, so I had to install the lower half first to get it into the motor, then install the cap and rotor once it was in (wouldn't clear the cowl overhang to install it when all assembled) but thats not a big deal. No issues after that.

 

Oh alright. I read up on it before I put the big block in my car and they said they dimpled the firewall so I went ahead and did that before I even bothered checking clearance... thank god for the internet, eh?

 

That could *possibly* be true with a big HEI distributor, I'm not sure. I have an MSD distributor in mine, so the cap is considerably smaller than an HEI. But still seems to have plenty of clearance?

 

alright thanks gonna need to go get me some headers now the mounts and stuff are all the same?

 

I left the mounts on the car alone and used the clamshells off my small block on the big block. Dropped right in just fine.

 

now another question lol now that my car will have a dragster engine in it would it be steet legal knowing that im pusin out 800+ hp and 700+ ft/lbs tq

 

With my first BBC, I used a large cap HEI with no issues.

Legality of having a high HP engine in your car depends on you local smog check rules. Some states say you can't change the engine to anything other than what's in the car. Others just do a sniffer test while some also do a visual check.

I've never heard or seen any law stating how much HP you can have in a car. There are 1500hp turbo cars driving around on the street with no problems.

As for driving something like that on the street, just how much HP do you really need? Many people especially with a SBC want 500 HP on the street but they've never driven a 500 HP street car. Most people will be quite happy to just have 400 HP in a street car. That's more than enough to have fun, keep it safe and keep maintenance costs to a minimal.

My engine puts out roughly 850 calculated HP based on race weight and MPH in the 1/4 mile. My car is far from street legal but even if it was, my engine is nowhere near being a street engine. As a race engine, it's still pretty low maintenance even for a NA engine. I check the valve lash and change the oil once a year. My camshaft isn't the best grind for my combination of parts but it doesn't hammer out the valve springs either. The engine is not designed for high mileage or long duration operation like a street engine would be. I could do a few changes and shoot for 1000 HP but it will probably be harder on parts as well.

You don't even want to know my fuel mileage I run alcohol so I use about twice as much fuel than if I was running race gas. I have a 4 gallon fuel cell up front. When I leave my pit, do a 1/4 mile pass then follow the road course track back to the pit, I've traveled 2 miles. Only 1/4 mile is at WOT. In 2 miles, I've burnt about 1 to 1-1/2 gallons of fuel. Depending how long I idle in the staging lanes trying to build engine heat, I've also burnt over 2 gallons in a pass. If I hot lap, I could make 2 passes before needing to refuel.

Big displacement engines and high HP are not very fuel efficient. Even with gasoline, you're not going to get great fuel mileage. You need to burn fuel to make HP, the more HP you make, the more fuel needs to burn. The only way you can claim good fuel mileage and high HP is with a power adder engine such as NOS or turbo. When the NOS isn't used or the turbo isn't building boost, HP levels are very low. NA and blower engines don't have this luxury. Power is on all the time.