Hello everyone. I live in Chandler, az and have an 82 trans am that has a 305 in it which happens to have all the emissions stuff in it. This engine is starting to leak everywhere so I thought that instead of rebuilding it I'd go ahead and get a 350 in the car. I haven't bought the engine yet.

I talked to a mechanic and he said that if I do this, the new engine needs to have the emissions crap on it or it will be failed during testing. Is this true? I'm not looking to have a car with 400hp, I just want something mild like somewhere in the 250 or 300 hp range.

So is that mechanic correct? what can I do?

Thanks for any help.

Chris

 

He is in fact telling the truth. You have two issues here. First issues is that Federal law states that any car that originally had an emissions device on it, that emissions device can not be taken off. $10,000 penalty or something like that.

But the bigger problem will be the state laws. Here in Phoenix you will need to pass an emissions test. The test is both sniffer and visual. Although the visual one is very basic. If you remove any of the emissions devices you probably will not pass.

Your best bet is to leave all of the emissions stuff on the new engine. It may be a bit ugly, but the power loss from all that stuff is actually very small. Certainly the gains are not worth have your car listed as "Tampered with" in state emissions paper work. That will show up on a Carfax report for all potential buyers to see.

Leave it on. It's not worth it.

 

I believe the rule of thumb is always that you can replace the engine with an engine that is newer than the vehicle, as long as the emissions control for the newer engine remain on the engine.

Example, your 82 305 could be replaced with an 87 350 motor, as long as all of the emissions control from the 87 350 was on it. What you would not be able to do is get a 73 truck motor and slide that in and expect it to pass Arizona's tests.

This is why some folks have done the LT1/LS1 install on their 3rd gen.

 

Thanks for the reply guys. Lt1 is what I would like to eventually put in my car. The reason I was asking is because my 305 has 63000 original miles on it, it runs pretty good but I've noticed that it is starting to leak oil almost everywhere. So it is rebuild time. But I wanted to upgrade. I've seen some LT1s online but they are way too expensive. I'm not sure where to start looking around here in Chandler.
A friend said to call a junkyard because sometimes they have good engines but I don't know if that's what I want to do.

Thanks

Chris

 

My 305 leaked for the last 6 years. I sold it 2 weeks ago with 178,000 on th odometer, and it still ran very strong. I had to really watch the oil, tranny and rear end fluid levels, but other than putting a cardboard down underneath it, I drove it every day to work.

The leak is an inconvenience sometimes, but no reason to throw the motor out. There are places that will replace the rear main or if you are leaking from somewhere else, like the valve covers etc. they are very easy to do yourself.

 

Thanks cg that's actually comforting to know. It looks like it is starting to leak from the heads though. So i'm going to keep running that sucker till it dies. Between my dad and I we changed valve covers and gaskets and put an edelbrok intake manifold, this was a couple of years back. It's got a wire with a connector on one side that I have no idea where it connects to.

Thanks for the help.

Chris

 

Thanks cg that's actually comforting to know. It looks like it is starting to leak from the heads though. So i'm going to keep running that sucker till it dies. Between my dad and I we changed valve covers and gaskets and put an edelbrok intake manifold, this was a couple of years back. It's got a wire with a connector on one side that I have no idea where it connects to.

Thanks for the help.

Chris

 

You mean people run emissions equipment more than one day a year?

 

Just a "crazy" question as I'm not really ready to do this. Where do you guys think i could find a decent LT1 that I could maybe rebuild or what advice you guys have on this.

Synapsis, you don't have any emissions equipment for the rest of the year?

Thanks

Chris

 

Nope.

 

Another question guys.

I'm thinking about getting an lt1. What year and car would you guys recomend getting one out of?

Thanks for the help

Chris

 

I think I read on the boards somewhere that '95 had the best cam.

 

Thank you azvolfan, I just did a search and found that too.

Chris

 

Here goes another question. Hope I'm not bugging the heck out of you guys.

I've been searching the boards to see who's done an lt1 swap into an 82trans am but I can't find anything.

I was wondering what all needs to be changed and or modified. Like would I need a new fuel tank, exhaust system. I wanna have an automatic, right now I have a 700r4 would that work. What about the dashboard do would I need to change anything.

I know this has been explained before but I haven't been able to find anything a bit more specific for that particular year trans am.

Thanks for any help.

Chris