MORREALE5

hey,so i drove my 87 iroc to the beach this weekend and my old lb9 finally bit the dust,i have been driving this thing for years with no issues LOVE THAT ENGINE.anyway all the threads i have read say a good replacement is a 350 vortec but all the 350 vortec engines i see are truck motors?is this the correct motor,i thought truck motors would not be very good in this application??also I'm wanting to keep my tip setup...thanks

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

The '96-'99 light truck 350 "Vortec" engine had arguably the best factory heads GM ever produced. They only put them in trucks, never passenger cars.

So, yes, it is a good foundation for a build. You'll need a Vortec base for the TPI.

MORREALE5

THANKS five7kid for reply..ok sounds good.have been looking at prices not to bad.as far as my factory ecm for my lb9 will it be ok for the 350 or will i need to get a tune??will i need to get bigger injectors??thanks again

johng1

iTrader: (1)

You likely will need a tune and bigger injectors too. Look up fastchip.com and give them a call they can tell you what size injectors you will need and burn you a new chip. The 305 lb9 has 19 lb injectors and you will probably need 22 lbs for the 350

jharrison5

This is the exact setup I'm running in my '87 IROC. My engine came out of a '98 Tahoe and the only issue I've run into was that the oil pressure sender stalk that comes out of the china rail is too tall and hits the runner on the driver's side. Read through my build thread listed in my signature for the pics.

johng1

iTrader: (1)

I started off going with a vortec 350 But, got to looking around and found GM performance makes a vortec 383 create motor that is a direct replacement for the L31 engine. So I thought why not and went with the HT383E. It makes a bunch of torque so if your going to swap engines it might be an option too.

MoJoe

iTrader: (5)

The HT383E uses Vortec heads, so you will need the Vortec-TPI intake base either way.

dwrestle

I plan on putting a vortec crate motor in my 3/4ton tbi truck(using tbi) later on down the road. I thought about the HT383, but it doesn't seem like that great of a deal. The power is not much more than a stock vortec 350, and maybe not even as much as a stock LS 6.0 truck engine. I have nothing against the engine I just don't feel like it's worth two thousand more than the vortec 350 crate motor, but it does come with an intake that helps some.