i thinking about buying a 454 to put in my 87 camaro, the motor is a core motor it was in a truck so i know the oil pan will need to b changed, but i dont want to do it if i have to move the firewall back, and the motor need the pulls and header or watever, but dose have the rest.

do u think it would b worth it to put a bb in it cause i was thinkin a 350 till i found this 454 for $300 and 350 are $150. and ik i will get more hp out of a bb

 

and it goin to b a carb 454. casue the car already had a 305 carb in it

 

Read the threads by

chev496
booboosean
TheDevastator

Practicaly everything is covered between them.

Exhaust will be the toughest to work with, but CAN be done with patience!!

 

Is it worth it to do it tho cause I want around 600 hp

 

Only you can decide if it is "worth it".

A truck 454 engine will have to have different heads to make 600 HP w/o power adder. Assume a rebuild. Exhaust will be expensive. You don't have to "move the firewall back", (the distance between the engine mounts and the bellhousing mounts is identical between SBC & BBC), but you will have to use short water pump and a cowl hood.

On the other hand, you could get a 6.0 LS-type engine from a truck, put 4th gen f-body accessories, oil pan, and intake on it, do heads & cam, make 600 HP, weigh less, no cowl hood needed, and get better fuel economy. Exhaust will still be expensive, but the fit is better than it is with BBC.

The fact that the car was originally carb is pretty much irrelevant. Both of my LS swap cars were carb from the factory.

 

Ain't ls motors tbi

 

Far from it. They have a throttle body but not throttle body injected.

 

doing a big block isn't all that hard. Gm made one for testing way back when in a 84 or 86 something like that. the only thing i remember about the car and the article was it was a 454 h.o. it used a chevelle oil pan. ? some kind of low rise intake still had a/c stock hood and the goodyear gator backs it ran low 12's and the article stated if they would have put some cheater slicks (e.t. streets) it would have been in the 11's with a/c and the article gave all the part numbers to do the swap to. where it was was hot rod or car craft one of the two. and i want to say it was early 90's. that article was what made me want to put a big block in a camaro. finally 15+ years later i did it. my motor is a 73 passenger car block with 7 quart winged oil pan it fits fine. i use a short water pump electric fans removed teh stock electric pump and went to a holley blue pump. used the mallory fuel regulator Headers i used are the patriots can't remember the #'s but ther eis a sticky with that info. I bought the Dynomax Performance 89009 exhaust and custom cut and modified the pipes to work with the patriot headers also didn't use mufflers. I also have had the 700r4 trans /th 350 trans and a t-5 all behind it and all worked. the t-5 needed a scattershield and also went with a 11 inch clutch. the th350 is in it now . because i didn't want all the wires in the engine bay i cleaned that up. which left me with no wires for the gauges , a/c, heat. which i first planned on a race car which wasn't needed. same with wipers. so for gauges i bought all autometer gauges wired them up and for the autometer speedo i used the speedo cable from a 71 monte carlo cruise control to trans it has screw in ends on both ends and is alot cheaper than the autometer cable 21 bucks Radiator is stock v8 radiator. motor mounst are the stock 305 mounts. crossmember was the stock member for the 700r4 and the t-5 but the th350 i have a UMI unit. my cast iron big block weighs more than the 305/350 but my car being a iroc I can't tell that the added weight is there in the little i have driven it. but i keep haveing motor parts failures due to my motor sitting for so long (15 years) I have now had to replace the oil pump the pick up the rockers timing chain lifters to find out the cam was bad. changed the intake had the carb rebuilt. total at this point i have close to 10 grand into the car thats includes teh purchase of the car and the purchase of the motor. and all teh different swaps i have done changing directions. that also includes painting the car twice. and changing the interior color. so what i am trying to say is this yes it can be done is it straight forward yes and no tgo has alot of help if you search for it. is a ls motor better swap depends on what you want. if i had it to do all over again i would have left it stock and been driving years ago. but thats why i own 2 a 91 z28 for tooling around and this one for making a loud entrance at a car show. now if i could just get the 91 painted so i could drive it

 

A 6 liter LS truck motor will make close to 600 horse with some good tuning and bolt ons.

For the truck 454 to get close to 600hp you will likely need a different cam, heads, and pistons to raise the compression. A big block swap is simpler and cheaper stock vs stock, but I think Naturally aspirated the LS will make more horsepower.

After doing more research and weighing your options (LS VS Big Block) if you decide to swap to a big block read these threads

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/engi...-454-swap.html

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/engi...swap-pics.html

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/engi...ap-header.html

 

The oil pan that came with my 454 fit right in it. The donor vehicle was a 90 truck