Sorry to bring this up again but I need a lot of info or personal advice. My iroc has a 5.0tpi and it's on its last leg. I've always hated this motor and I'm sad to see it go, but I'm glad to watch it leave. I'm definitely looking for some different setups. But not sure what I should do. At first I was thinking about buying a vortech 350 from a suburban or something because a friend of mine got one super cheap and with less than 1,000 invested made a pretty good little street runner. But what about a bbc? I've seen people say it's just as easy as swapping a regular sbc and some that say it's like pulling teeth. My budget is around 1200 not counting the stuff I could sell off of the motor now. Anyone have any suggestions or good links? Any help would be great appreciated.

 

I don't think a reliable BBC swap could be done for $1200. A good small block swap costs nearly that.

 

And that's AFTER you already have the "good small block".

And THEN, figure on another $2000 - 2500 in exhaust, drive train, transmission, and suspension upgrades, BARE MINIMUM.

A big block will run up more cost than that, if for no other reason, it will tear stuff up even faster.

If all you've got is $1200, I'd advise that you keep your money in your pocket, and save up until you have about 3 times that much. Then you MIGHT be ready to talk about a big block swap, assuming you can get the big block itself FOR FREE.

 

I agree

 

IMHO, I would buy a L05(88-95 truck) 350 shortblock, freshen it up and just swap your stuff onto that. You can pick one of them up for a few 100.00 bucks, 4-500 to freshen it up, then a few 100.00 for misc stuff. That should keep you with in your budget, give you a little power boost and not hack the car up.

 

Agreed. But if you still dont get it, look at it this way, even if Santa dropped-off a 572"Deluxe" Crate motor by accident, or on purpose, you still have to exhaust it, fuel it, cool it, and then what, hope everything else behind it survives? Cant do all of that under your budget.

 

Well, in reality, you could install a basic junkyard BBC under the hood with nothing more than some aftermarket headers so solve the exhaust issue but performance wise, it would be less than a mild SBC. Considering the required headers alone are around $700, that doesn't leave much in a budget for anything else.

For a proper complete BBC swap, you need a budget closer to $5000 or more to get everything done that should be required for the swap to be done properly.