someone said that and engine that is from 58-97 will bolt into my caprice...I want to keep my tbi setup that I have. now does it matter what type of engine that it is..for example can I put an engine that uses a carb in my car with its tb injection or would i have to use a carb, and does it have to be any engine with a hydraulic roller cam?? or can it be anything??

 

your best bet is to use a 305-350 engine from 87 to now that is a roller cam engine.It will be a easy bolt in for you and less headaches.

 

There's no real problem using a non-roller motor, the cam will of course be slightly different, and the center 4 intake bolts will be on a slightly different angle that will require you to slot the holes and use washers.

Other than that they bolt right in, the only problem you may run into is that the older motor will have different heads and cam specifications that will alter the way the motor runs, this could cause problems with the stock tune, but if you keep the motor relatively stock it should run decently. The real fix would be to learn how to tune your own chips and then you could do any mods you wanted and take full advantage of them.

 

What motor did you originally have and what year? What sort of budget do you have? I'd go with a stock or very near stock replacement if you don't want to learn to tune.

 

I have a caprice with a 305 its a 1991...I was looking for more power...I know a good cam and heads would help but I dont have the experience to do something like that and I figured that the amount of money that I would spend to get a shop to put those mods in i could just get a better engine and pay the 500 for the install...however the problem is where do I find a roller cam engine...I checked with gm and the all have crate engines that have vortech heads and they cant work with the stock manifold which i must keep for the distributor to fit, and there tbi 350 isnt really worth it. anyone know of any other sources where I could get a engine that would be able to use a stock tbi manifold...??
or should i just do the cam and head job are those mods really that hard as iam making it seem to install.?

 

Who told you that a TBI 350 was not worth the swap? I have one in a nearly stock 1991 G20 Van that weighs 5,600 lbs. With exhaust, Open Element, TBI spacer, Prom Tune, and slightly raised shift points(too high @ 5,500), it ran a best of 11.41 @ 59.93 in the 1/8 mile. It only has 3.08s in the back with 29" tall P235/75/R15 tires.



https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tbi/...350-track.html

 

A very easy yet more expensive approach is get a kit "Torque Daddy" Crate motor

 

the motor that was just mentioned is for how much gm is trying to sell a stock replacement 350 tbi engine...thats why the gm tbi 350 is not worth it.