My brother has an 84 chevy truck with a 350 and manual fan, he wants to ditch his v-belt set up for an entire set up. I was wondering if he couldnt go to the JY and find an 88 or newer camaro and use that serp set up. What all does he need to make all his accessories turn? He does run AC, and he did mention something about it being a Long AC belt. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Why the setup from a Camaro, specifically? That's the hardest car to find the whole thing off of, and will cost him the most, and won't be any different from any other.

If he wants that, he should get it off a truck. They're the most common by far.

He'll have to do something about alternator wiring, because it's on the other side (driver's side instead of pass side where it is now). Same for the A/C wiring and refrigerant lines. It switches sides too.

He'll also need a reverse rotation water pump and fan. Or, an electric fan setup. He'll have to swap his smog pump and P/S pump pulleys.

Seems like a whole lot of maze with no cheese at the end.

 

Just rob the setup off of a 1992-1995 fullsize van. It has the better DA6 compressor on the driverside, a 105-130 amp alternator on the passenger side, reverse rotation water pump, typically a 5 or 7 bladed clutch fan with a heavier duty fan clutch, etc. Astro/Safari minivans have the same setup (pictured). The only issue is that you will need 2 more holes in the front of the passenger side head. (machine shops can add them to earlier heads in most cases or a simple head swap will remedy it. (Perfect time for some vortecs or some swirl ports).

 

I know my bro. looked up a kit on the internet and it was like $1k, so we were trying to find something cheaper and somewhat bolt on, a question I have is since gen 1 blocks are the same, wouldnt it bolt directly on if you use the brackets and everything? But this is some good feed back, especially fast's van idea, I like it. But I dont know what gains can be had by switching to a serp. set up.

 

Basically, there are no gains. Not in HP or the like, anyway; maybe he'd get some accessories with less wear on them, that's about it. The accessories themselves are the same: the same A/C compressor, for example. The alt might be different, but not "superior" in any particular way.

SBCs have accumulated more bracket mounting bolt holes over the years. They have been added to the heads. THe first ones appeared in around 69; the next batch were added to support the bracket design for the serpentine system, in the late 80s.

Again, a whole lot of maze, very little (if any) cheese at the end.

I SURE AS HELL wouldn't put swirl-port heads on it. Or on anything else. They are arguably the worst possible heads to use in any application intended as "performance". It's possible that late 70s smoogers like 882 or 624 would be worse, but it would come down to what you considered "inferior": low flow (swirlies), or low compression (70s smoggers).

Vortecs would be an excellent choice however. In fact, if he's really serious about this for whatever reason, he just needs to find a 96-99 truck and strip the heads and accessories off of it.

 

so if he could find a 5.7 vortec and just take all the serp. set up and heads everything should practically bolt on other than wiring and plumbing. But I always thought that the vortec heads wouldnt bolt on an older style motor, but if they'll bolt on his truck I bet he'd be up for it. Would he need a different intake? And I hate to ask because I didnt search, but are the vortec heads off the 5.7 the same vortec heads that some members throw on their tpi motors?