Im thinkin of buying a 1996 vortec 350 with new valves,springs,seals,and push rods. I was told it has a bad wrist pin or a spun bearing. I can get the whole motor for 250. the heads are "906" cast. I currently have an 87 305 tpi and will be swapping the two but keeping the tpi system and buying a used lower intake for it. I have a cam out of a 1989 350 L98 , could I switch out the cam and lifters to make it a roller setup, would it make any more power than the stock truck cam? Also does anyone know what kinda power the vortec 350 put out in 1996, I came out of a denali or yukon cant remeber which. Thanks

 

Vortec truck motors used roller cam setups very similar to 87-up TPI engines so if you're talking about reusing the 350 truck block (with a rebuild to fix whater's wrong down below) then yes, you can shove a different roller cam into it and keep using the roller lifters that are already in the engine (or the roller lifters out of your 305).

The Vortec truck cam is bigger than the stock "peanut cam" that came in all 1987 305/automatic trans TPI engines. The L98 cam is bigger than either of them, however, and would probably be the best choice out of the 3 if those are your only choices.

 

those vortec engines are roller cam equipped from the factory, so its already got the setup, but the factory truck cam does suck really bad, a cam upgrade would definately be nice.

 

Ive heard the vortec truck motors had hyd non roller cams, is that true? If not I know I could switch to a roller set up but my lifters have 141k on them and the l98 cam has @ 100k. Im not sure how long the roller lifters are supposed to be good for (wont know the cond of mine till I tear out the 305 and then its to late). A new roller setup is out of my price range. If I go with a new hyd non roller cam, can I expect any good power with heads only good for .450 lift. I would like to keep the heads stock for my budget. I have a rebuilt 700r4 w/ 2400 stall Im going to put in with the 350, any idea what the best cam for this setup would be.( weekend driver) thanks for any input.

 

IVe got two vortec 350s one 96 and one 99 and both have roller cam setups from the factory. And you can buy a kit on ebay i can find the listing if you want, that will clear the vortecs for up to about 530 lift, its only 65 bucks. COmes with the spring and valve seals, i used it on my vortec heads and it works great. I would get a cam that has more exhaust duration than intake to make up for the vortecs lack of flow on the exhaust side.
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