Sorry if I've posted this in the wrong section. I've currently got a truck for sale for $4300 and just had a guy call and offer me an 83 Z28 that he is in the process of of doing a 454 swap into. The car runs and the engine was mildly built, but its missing any exhaust and a shifter. Before I started seriously considering picking this thing up and finishing it, I thought I'd ask some people that know more about these cars/engines than i do. Thanks in advance for any advice. Here's a link to his craigslist ad.
http://roswell.craigslist.org/cto/3246389328.html

 

you could get one in better shape than that for less than $4300, but not with a 454 in it. i guess it also depends if it is going to be a daily driver or not, bc if so expect paying a good bit on gas haha. shifters, headers, and a paint job will cost you anywhere from 2-5 grand, but it should be good after that

 

It wouldn't be a daily driver. Just a toy to tinker around with. He called me back a few minutes ago and told me that he had forgotten to mention that it was going to need a fuel pump as well. Which isn't a big deal. He also gave me a few more details about the car. The motor is out of a 79 pickup. I know some 454s are more desireable than others but not sure about which ones. Intake, carb, and breather are all new. Everything else with the motor was done by its previous owner, sounds like just a cam. Its got a turbo 400 in it and an aluminium driveshaft with the stock rear end.

He also said that he would throw in a built 98 ZX900R that he laid down a couple years ago and never got around to fixing. Plastics are shot and it has some electrical issues but it still starts. New plastics would be around $300, electrical stuff who knows. but fixed should be about a $3k bike.

Still on the fence about the trade. Just seems like everything needs a little bit of everything.

 

It sounds to me that he's getting rid of a pain in the a$$ project thats going to be an unreliable clunker that your constantly going to be working on all the time. These cars are meant for smallblocks, not a big block, as for the 79' 454, its a smog motor. You can find better deals out there.

 

as for the bike, you'll be lucky to find someone to give you $3k for it if they know its been laid down, those $300 plastics your talking about are china cheapies. There not worth buying, I would pass on the whole deal.

 

Yeah. I'm kinda feeling the same way about it. I was considering it more before he offered to throw in the bike. That kinda made me feel like he was just trying to unload the non-running crap that he had laying around.

 

Problem is big block swap headers are expensive. alternative is to pull the motor and run the g-body big block headers (need to massage the floor pans and unless you have a lift IDK if you can do it with the motor in it).

 

Small blocks only and not BBC??.Aaaaaa nope!!!!. Not true.

 

Not that I think he has a good deal here.But if you afraid of only one issue(headers) in a swap,maybe you shouldn't be swapping in the first place.A bit bunt,but right to the point.

Look-the truck 454's,many had peanut heads that isn't worth their wt. Where the expense come into play on BBC's is the overheads,cam and kit.But dollar/HP returns is by far greater.

 

Not to be negative... But This^
I would find another deal.

 

For generations we have been shoe horning engines into cars that everyone says it couldn't be done.Well,I guess until now!!!. It's too hard!!!!. Come guys,give me a break.You can get a BBC to out perform a SBC and have a BBC be less radical than a SBC trying get to the same power output.

Yeah,I know this isn't about a question of BBC swaps,but when you start saying a car isn't meant for a BBC swap,that just isn't close to the truth.

 

Unless you factor in how much you'll have to modify the suspension and the brakes to handle the extra weight. The stock struts and shocks were never designed for that weight, they'll be the first major problems he has when he hits a pothole and winds up dragging his oilpan and transmission down the freeway at 70mph.

 

The concept of "engine swapping" is the core of this section as I see it.Overcoming obstacles for the overall increased performance comes along with swapping engines.Modding the front end suspension to gain all a BBC has to offer is part of the deal. The brake part of it plays out like this.It would be a really,really,dumb move to run a 10 bolt behind this.Sooooo,a 9 bolt has 11" drums on it or you could opp'ed to run discs.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love big blocks too. My dream drag car is a 68 vette or 69 camaro with a blown 454.

But when I saw how much power my brother got out of building an LS1 into a 427 and supercharging it, (960 at the wheels) I was forever converted. And he doesn't have to worry about having the majority of the weight in his car disproportionately in the front of the car at the track (Porsche figured that one out decades ago) You may get it to work, and it will look impressive, but it will never perform the way a car with a high output small block will when it's time to make a turn.

If I went with a big block and suspension mods, It would be in a 1970 or older steel car, not an 80's plastic one with limited frame strength.

Just my .02.

 

I live near Watkins Glen and have seen a number of road race BBC Camaros make many turns..................

 

No doubt. I just said they wouldn't perform as well as a lighter car and cost less in the process.

If you have enough money there's all kinds of things you can do. We both know that. If you have a hard on for a big block and you don't mind forking over an extra five to ten grand to reinforce the frame (Which SUCKS in these cars) and upgrade the suspension, steering, and brakes, (All of which adds more weight unevenly) well ALRIGHTY then...

If you want decent performance gains on a modest budget, then it's one thing to add power under the hood, it's another to add weight and change the weight distribution. You change the weight distribution and it causes all kinds of other issues that are extremely expensive to straighten out.

Unless you don't mind rednecking it (Like the guy who was building THIS particular car) and wrecking your car at the track when you suddenly realize your car has a tendancy to get light in the a** in tight turns.

More power and bigger engines isn't always the answer to faster track times. That's why GM finally pulled their heads out of their a** and mounted transmissions in the C6 corvette at the rear of the car instead of the middle to more evenly distribute the drivetrain weight. As a result, the C6 Z06 was the first chevy to beat the 911 on a road course, and it did it with a modest 500 Hp. Even though the vette was heavier, the higher HP and even weight distribution edged out the Porsche.

Like I said, Porsche figured that one out decades ago. My old man's GT3 is insanely fast on the track, and only has like 375 Hp pushin' it. You can always add more power, but how much of that torque can you transfer to the pavement, prevent wheelspin, and still keep the car moving in a straight line? That's all in the suspension and weight distribution.

If you can get over 1,000 horses out of a small block and not screw too much with the weight distribution in the process, then what would be the advantage to dropping in a big block in with the same relative power output and have the added expenses of upgrading the suspension, steering, and brakes to compensate for the weight changes?

I mean besides the wow factor of showing off what big shiny ***** you have just before getting your a** handed to you at the road course or the drag strip by a guy like my little brother?

lol

 

Not a 454 though.. If you are talking about larger than 454's CID. $$$ for $$$ a well built SBC can walk a BBC to the line. I don't think this that good of a deal.. That car needs a ton of TLC.

 

Back-hafting a car with a adjustable 4 link can change the I/C as much as 10 feet in front of the car. I know because we have done it many times before.Soooooo for drag racing that negates any wt bias.And it will 60' a SBC.
We have run SBC's in 9.90 cars for yrs because of a foul taste in our mouths from a bad experience we had from one car and a number of BBC's that had valve train issues that got us to set out for two yrs.The races we won from the SBC's was because we would mph the BBC's by spinning them up to the moon.But make no mistake about it the BBC's would 60' us on a regular basis.

We have since returned to BBC's and are better for it.

Note the thread about a member putting in a 427.There is two members(the O/P and another member)contributing to the thread that is the corner stone of what engine swapping is all about...........

 

First you mentioned turning on a road course, now we're talkin drag.

Make up your mind dude...lol

 

Aaaa-see you got my point.It fits both types of racing don't it??.LOL

 

Not at all.

On a drag strip it doesn't matter. (Doesn't even need to be street legal)

 

Part of the fun is the swap.You are either on that train of thought or not.Really is that simple.

 

you can build a bbc for dang near the same amount as a sbc. dont believe me compare prices of bbc/sbc rotating assemblies, aftermarket blocks, intakes, cams, etc.... heads are more expensive than the sbc heads, but the flow #'s are typically MUCH more on the bbc heads. with all those extra cubes, you will need less cylinder pressure to produce the same amount of power, or less rpms to produce the same power as the sbc.
the block is beefier, along with most everything else. more room for a good rod/stroke ratio, more room to put the rings where you want them on custom pistons.
bbc is heavier, but typically, its less of an issue than all the extra power/reliability.

if you want big power, the bbc will still whip a ls engine as well, when you consider how much the lsx stuff will cost comparitively. and used bbc parts are abundant.

 

Not true, the corvette went to the transaxle in 1997 with the C5

 

I am with pre-1970 steel cars, just like I said. From what I have seen on the street and at the track, it's not too bright dropping one into a 1980's plastic car with a weakly designed frame.

But hey, if that's what floats your boat, so be it.

 

Good catch. I owned a C4 for 11 years and have done work on several C6's recently, but never worked on a C5 and wasn't aware of that. The C5 Z06 was still underpowered though.

 

With 405HP, how is that "underpowered" ???

Also, you seem to be quite confused about reinforcing a thirdgen unibody.

Two sets of subframe connectors that would essentially build a complete tubular frame under the car can be had for under $500

 

I meant it wasn't quite enough to edge out the 911 on a road course.

And yes I know, but not everyone can get under the car and weld one in themselves, nor does the car wind up as balanced with the same potential as the sport cars rolling off the assembly line today.

I'm ditching my C4, and plan on starting over with a C6 or C7 as soon as I finish off a few things on my house and garage. I bought my thirdgen because it is the same car I had when I was 21, and it's nice to have a little muscle under the hood when I have to take the family along.

I would never pretend that I could ever build it into anything that would run well against my brother's C6, or the cars he runs with at the track. I may play with it a little, for show, but I never intended it to be my track car. It just doesn't have the same potential I can get out of a lighter, better designed car.

 

Fabrication with imagination= low cost mods.We have bought at a good price(not like the O/P's deal) incomplete race car projects for yrs and finished them to race for a yr.Then sold them at a good profit.

From your ref's I think I am on solid grounds to say you are not a engine swapper.

But hang around me longer and I will corrupt you.LOL.

 

Oh, I am absolutely. There are damn few cars with stock engines I am happy with.

I'm just a nut when it comes to driving a track with the right suspension setup. I'm very particular about handling at high speed through the turns. It comes from a few years of playing with Audi's and Porsche's on road courses with my Dad, but I always drift back to Chevy when it's time to hand over cash. There's just so much more you can do with so much less money. I've done things in some of those cars that I wouldn't dare attempt in a thirdgen, let alone a thirdgen with a heavy nose and a possibly inadequete suspension setup. The wall is unforgiving at 140, and mods and welds are not unknown to fail when a car that wasn't designed to do what you are doing with it is forced to do so. I've seen it happen, and the drivers didn't walk away.

I know I can setup a C6 to run with or outrun those kind of cars, (With a greater safety margn) and keep it street legal in the process (I live in the people's republik of Kahlifoania with the emissions gestapo) which is why I gravitate toward SBC with forced induction when I get competitive. It's also glorious to see a cocky GT2 driver who made millions in IT get slaughtered by a Chevy driven by a jarhead that cost half as much...

But I'll always be a late 60's big block fanatic at the drag strip. Who cares if you win or lose? It's just a blast goin down the track...

 

So true... That state is broke finacially and they are still worried about their emissions...

 

You keep wanting to find wiggle room.There is none!. The FACTS are there are and have been very successful road course BBC F-bodies.Period.Gezzzz.

 

lmao at the stock corvette racecar guy.... stop talking, you are the guy comparing stock cars at the track while everyone else at the track has modded cars blowing your doors off. there are third gen fbodys with a stock style suspension stomping mudholes in stock c6's... im sure those guys arent complaining about how much better the c6 weight distribution is or the technology in their suspensions.

 

I never said anything about stock C6's Diggler. There is nothing stock about the C6 we built. I just said the platform was preferable TO ME for starting off a build and I gave my reasons.

Perhaps you should improve your reading comprehension before you step in and tell someone else to stop talking.

 

To some degree they may have. Not too many people aroound here build them the way you guys do, and I explained that there are issues with getting them to pass emissions here. Most of us like to drive our cars home from the track instead of towing it on a trailer.

But your entire arguement seems to hinge on the idea that there are no other types and classes of cars that can get around a road course faster than a third generation F-body.

That is ludicrous.

I politely explained where I was coming from, and why I chose not to use a thirdgen as my track car. I apologize if I am not as big a fan of F-bodies as you are.

 

It's not just emmissions. They're nailing everyone with Cellphones now, that's their big revenue maker. Window tint and missing front license plates are others. If I didn't have such a good career, and there weren't so many different things nearby that I like to do, I would move.

Most Chevy guys around here know enough to keep our cars looking clean and remove the badging, and stay off the gas when the cops are around so we don't get too much attention from CHP, and let the import racers get all the negative attention with their big wings and fartcans.

 

The Camaro in the pic needs interior, paint, and mechanical. For 4500 it is to high considering. I also feel that throwing the bike in is a way to get rid of major headaches and get something that runs. I say no way. Don't do it.
I would like to have a big block F body but not that one at that price.

 

Might I suggest you lay off the personal attacks(reading comprehension??) and stick to the facts.

Naw better yet.Mod's I am as equally guilty as anyone for the reason why this thread is way,way,off topic.The O/P is likely gone now that the thread fell off the tracks. Please and thank you.

 

if you want to build a c6 vette for road racing that's great. but it has nothing to do with what the op was asking.
this is what really gets me...
how much do you think a bbc actually weighs? i'll tell you this, there would be more of a difference in vehicle weight if an adult hopped in the passenger seat. the struts won't fail, the car won't go careening out of control. you won't have to modify a thing on the suspension unless you really want to.

 

this seems like quite a heated debate but it has gone way off track of what the OP was asking. The post was "Is it worth It?" not "Is a BBC better than a SBC in a thirdgen". For me, regardless of what engine is in the car for 4300$ I would expect a perfect running vehicle. Something that needs parts/can't run is just asking for a can of worms to be opened. How do you know that the engine is good? How do you know the trans doesn't slip. For that much loot you are taking a big chance on that car and personally I would not do it. Like some other posters have said "looks like this guy is trying to unload all his unmoving projects" Just my 2 cents hopefully getting the thread back on track.

 

Take a look at that car again. It's not a lightly used car with 100K miles.

It's a rustbucket (That's probably seen it's share of accidents) with a BBC dropped in. If it wasn't necessary to reinforce these cars no one would be doing it.

And that was where my initial comment came from. The other guy was the one who initiated the "technical" discussion, best case scenario.

And pay close attention to the "rednecking" remark, cause that's what it means to add power and weight to a BEATER without any reinforcement. Will it work? I already said yes. Will it be safe, will it stand up to repeated runs and abuse within a good safety margin? Not likely.

 

I did.

I wasn't the one who stepped in and got rude. I even replied politely when you two got critical.

Maybe you're defending the honor of thirdgens or something. I love em too, just not for racing.

I enjoy drag but my driving world does not revolve around it, I like doing different kinds of track driving, with different kinds of cars. It's not my problem if you have convinced yourself that there is only one platform out there that does it great. Mustangs drag well, so do Mopars and even some imports. But you can't judge a car only by how fast it can go in a straight line for a quarter mile. So when you come at me telling me all the wonderful things a thirdgen with a BBC can do in the quarter, my thoughts are "Well whoopty do, what else can they do great?"

And then you two get ALL butthurt, and I'm forced to admit to myself that I'm probably dealing with NASCAR junkies.

You see, the difference between us is, I can concede that some of the cars I like to drive aren't the most suitable for the strip. You just can't concede that thirdgens aren't the greatest cars for other kinds of racing.

So stick to whatever floats your boat, and don't worry about the rest of us who are more into racing itself than doing it in a particular type of car.

 

you do not need to reinforce a car to put a 100lb heavier engine in it, and the op's car isnt going to be a road course racecar. have you ever worked on anything before?

i hate nascar, but love their used engine parts.

 

Yes, I have. From M1A1 Abrams Tanks to newer German race cars, all far more complicated than your 30 year old firebird, turbocharged or not. I'm not here to establish some kind of pretend internet cred like you two seem to be.

but I mentioned potholes, not racing. I mentioned it cause the beater is rusted out and that particular car needs a bit more than a set of shocks to make it safe. I wasn't the one to make racing the cornerstone of the discussion.

 

Your precious C6 sucks for a build.

You should disregard C6's altogether, people are putting LS1's in porsches now, AWD porsches.




You sound stupid, thirdgens have been proven to handle well, not everyone is out to acquire all the local auto-x pat yourself on the back "cred" as you want to call it.

Welcome to thirdgen.org, engine swap section, where we discuss swapping other engines into thirdgens, not how much better a factory C6 handles.

 

You kind of tick me off some and then for the most part it is laughable.I am 65 yrs old and have spent most of my life in mechanics and racing of all sorts.For over 15 yrs I have been on forums like this one.For you to once again post defensive rude creditability attacks is very telling about your background.

 

sounds like you need to go find yourself a more sophisticated car so you can get rid of your 30 year old 3rd gen rust bucket before it falls apart in the middle of the road.

 

I know, I have seen a few. They get great gains. I just don't have the 90 grand I would need to do it with the model I would want to start off with, nor do I care to pay for Porsche parts in general to fix anything that breaks (Look up how much a center console costs to replace, it's ridiculous)

But corvettes are almost as cheap as Camaro's to repair and modify. Gotta love that GM parts price advantage...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Z28ricer

Welcome to thirdgen.org, engine swap section, where we discuss swapping other engines into thirdgens, not how much better a factory C6 handles

Well next time I'll think of a gentler way to respond to you sensitive "racers" when my criticism of a rustbucket turns into an "I can do anything with a thirdgen, you don't know what you are talking about" comment from the thirdgen engine swapping Gestapo.

You can't always expect to walk away feeling like you've won an arguement just because you (or your buddy) started it. Sorry I hit a nerve there, tough guy. Didn't mean to encroach on your internet "territory".

 

So wait, you dont want to spend the 90K on a porsche to build, yet this guy should spend the 20-40 for a C6 because you say so ?

You should also take a look at your posts, or gain some reading comprehension, as your "criticism of a rustbucket" was very generalized as you were making claims that didnt even make sense, illustrating your lack of knowledge/ability.

As to your "I can do anything to a thirdgen" comment, thats true, the difference here is that I can, and apparently you cannot.

This one is my favorite:

Originally Posted by Marine_Marauder
Unless you factor in how much you'll have to modify the suspension and the brakes to handle the extra weight. The stock struts and shocks were never designed for that weight, they'll be the first major problems he has when he hits a pothole and winds up dragging his oilpan and transmission down the freeway at 70mph.


The struts and shocks dont have a single thing to do with it. the springs are what hold it up, maybe you should learn what each suspension component does, before you go determining what needs upgrading ?

"

 

I can respect that.

Really. How insightful.

All you know about me is what I choose to let you know. Obviously I served time in the Marine Corps, and for a part of it as a Tank Crewman. You know I enjoy racing, but I'm not as loyal to a particular car as I am to the sport itself. (You don't even know if that's my only hobby)

That's it. That's all you know. Yet you will pass judgement on someone (After first provoking them) just because they won't agree ith you. I wonder what you think that makes YOUR background look like?

I remind you who started being rude (Which was before my very first post in this thread)