Broker-Ron

I bought a car that had a fresh 383 stroker motor with a beautiful tunnel ram on it with a new edelbrock 750 on top. ( It has a reducer on the ram) I will shorten this story much by saying that I was able to hear the story of this car and motor by 3 different sources, who all said the same exact story, even some pics while being built with the dates on the m. My problem is that the guy who built the motor lost all paperwork about the motor due to divorse. The shop owner who built the motor said all info was perged from his computer system about the motor except he was able to find some reciepts that equated to $4300. in labor and parts.
With the cost, the stories all coming together perfectly after 4.5 years, it made sence for me to purchace the motor and a complete 82 Z28 that it was in for $1200. (It was a basket case, torn down, but all parts were there) He had it in the paper for $2800, and I haggled for about 6 days with him. This motor has about 105 miles on it and is supposed to have large horse power.
With all that "Is it possible with the numbers off of the parts I can see to decode them to find out what exactly the parts are?"
I can see there are Roller rockers made by Comp, it is a truck block 4 bolt main, double hump heads. I just need to find out what guts are in it so I can put it in my 89 Iroc with the Tuned port thats in there. Please help, and thank-you in advance for you answers!!!!!!!
PS I am itching to get this into my Iroc!!!!!

RB83L69

It won't produce anywhere near the power with TPI on it that it might have with the tunnel ram and all that. And, most likely, the cam is very extremely wrong for TPI; what you'd want for a tunnel ram is basically the exact opposite of what works best with TPI.

Typical race-built motors have far too much compression to run on pump gas. That's another thing you'd want ot check on before discovering you have something you can't drive.

Some things you can get numbers off of, and figure out what they are. Pistons & cam maybe; the rockers should have a part # stamped on them; get the head casting #s and measure the valve diameters and the valve spring diameters; stuff like that. The cam may be a "retrofit" roller, might even be a solid roller; if it's a solid, you probably don't want to try to get that to work under TPI unless you're really good at adjusting solids.

You'll have the flywheel/flex plate issue to deal with, as the motor almost certainly has a 2-piece rea main seal, and your car has the 1-piece setup.

Don't expect miracles.

Broker-Ron

I parted out the 82 Z28 to make back the $1200 for the whole project. I bought a 89 Iroc for $500 that does not have a trans, but the rest is almost perfect. The 89 has a 305 TPI that runs fine.
Here are my goals: At the least expense possible, I want to drop the 383 stroker in, have a radical weekend street / strip sleeper. I'm not crazy about having the tunnel ram out of the hood, I would like to keep it under hood. Do I go carb ot TPI, I am hearing alot of conflicting ideas. Some say the 383 works great with the TPI setup and is reliable and fast.
I want am willing to put some money into this project to make it radicle, but not that much. Like maybe another $500 to $750. Thanks in advance!!!

RB83L69

A 383 when properly set up for it works well with TPI. Just the mere fact that somebody stuck a 400-stroke crank into a 350 block doesn't guarantee that it will work well with TPI however. There's a little more to it than just that.

Fitting tall things under the hood of one of these cars is about impossible without cutting or replacing the hood. Tall intakes will cause problems. Using a "drop-base" air cleaner dosen't always help; if you imagine that you have an air cleaner lid that's smashed up against the bottom of the hood as far as it will go, and you just continue to raise the carb higher and higher inside of it by using a taller intake, eventually the carb air horn will be up against the breather lid, which pretty much guarantees a poor flowing (no power) setup.

Check the compression ratio, the cam, the valve sizes, etc. as I described; then maybe we can help point you in the right direction to get the most out of what you've got for the least expense. I can't see your motor very well, I think maybe your monitor is turned the wrong way or something, so it's real hard for me or anybody else out here to know what parts of it will work for what you're doing and what else you need to do to it.

89RsPower!

if you choke that engine down with a tpi setup plan on losing ****loads of hp and any sort of top end that it may currently have.. you will probably need a much tamer cam more suited to tpi the whats in it with something that breathes as well as a tunnel ram on it.. basically if you bog it down with a stock tpi sysem dont expect much, on the other hand you could always sell the tunnel ram and buy something like a holley stealth ram or a modified lt1 intake and use some of your existing tpi parts and convert it to a speed density system.. seems to me you should be more then able to afford a swap of that nature by selling most of the tpi system with the ecu and selling the tunnel ram setup..

Broker-Ron

Here are some serial numbers I just found on the Motor in question. Block, in big letters 39 GM. 14010207 Stamped on the front 1224. Heads, (inside) 8998993, C21 73, GM1(middle), T,
conv 4
Comp cam Roller rockers with 1.52# the connecting rods have # WG507795 on them
Brand New Accell Distributer PN A71100E

When I put the motor on the engine stand I will get more numbers from the other components. Thanks for helping me guys!!!

Broker-Ron

Seeing how I am just going to be cruising this on the weekends along with the occasional pass or 2 on the strip, maybe I should consider keeping the tunnel ram on this motor since it was built for it. I just need to get over the big *** object sticking though the hood! I would buy a different hood also.
A tunnel ram stroker motor with a big single Edelbrock should be quite radical like I want. What do you guys think? It would also solve many of the problem with this project that have been messing with my head.
If I go this way what do I need to change in the fuel pump area, etc.?

89RsPower!

well you could simply buy a 3 port fuel pressure regulator to drop the fuel pressure down for a carb to a reasonable 5-8 psi or around there and keep the electric pump or you could remove it put a sump in the tank and run a mechanical pump.. not too much to either option really except you'd havta drop the rear to change the sump to a carb sump... some people have had just a much luck disabling the electric intank pump and just pulling fuel through it with a mech pump on the block.. nothin to it really.. probably the easiest way for you to go and achieve what your looking for would be to leave it setup as is and enjoy it on the weekends.. depending on just how high the tunnel ram sticks out you could always just throw a cowl hood or somethin over it and call it done.. also think about what your gonna do for it as far as a trans.. something strong like a built th-350 or 400 or a t56 or somethin along those lines.. wouldnt run a 700 behind a 400+hp engine..

RB83L69

The block is a typical early 80s 350 block; probably RH dipstick, 2-piece rear main seal, could be 2- or 4-bolt mains, if yours is a 4-bolt it probably came in a truck originally.

The heads are the low-perf 307 & 350 2-barrel heads of the early 70s, up to about 73 (consistent with a casting date of C21 73 which is March 21, 1973). The same casting number is still used for the casting that comes on the super low-perf "Goodwrench 350" that you can buy at the dealer for like $1300 or so. Somebody probably used those for their large chambers, for keeping the compression ratio down to a reasonable level.

If the rockers are roller-tip and ball fulcrum, they're ..... not roller rockers, they're roller-tip ball-fulcrum rockers. Sounds like that's what they are if the ratio is the only markings on them. That would be Comp's part # 1412. If they're roller trunnion, they're either 1301 or 1101; but both of those series usually have the part #s clearly marked on them, on top in plain sight.

The rod # doesn't do anything for me; maybe somebody else will recognize that one.

Major components it would be well to scope out are the pistons and the cam. Pistons usually have their part # stamped on the top, but not always; the cam will have markings on one end or the other, that might be able to be decoded. The pistons, in conjunction with the heads, will determine whether you'll be able to run pump gas in it.

Broker-Ron

When I put the 383 into the place of the 305, will all of the brackets, alternator, and pullies etc. bolt right on? Are there any sites that offer true step by step instructions for this type of swap?

RB83L69

Yes. They all blot right on.

You just visited the site and learned everything there is to know.

Pretty quick, eh?

89RsPower!

only thing you would actually need is the correct flywheel or flexplate for a 2 piece rms engine since your replacing a 1 piece seal sbc with a 2 piece seal sbc.. hell you probably already have one hanging on the back of it anyway if its in a complete car so that really doesnt matter unless your gonna switch from auto to stick or the other way around..