Alright so my original idea was (after i had my motor bored out and the cylinder walls hoaned and the block dipped and all that good stuff) To buy some vortec heads, get a vortec intake and have the correct holes drilled and get a TBI adaptor plate, and throw in my Lt4 cam i got. Custom grind and everything. I have the Lo5 Roller block from 93. Well come to find out everything is a lot more expensive than i imagined. 500 just for the block, average of 300 for heads without being magnafluxed, another few hundred for the WS6 blue Springs for the heads, the intake before the machining about 200. Then my compression would be 10:1 which i dont want so i would need some dished pistons, Not to mention everything else involved. heres the deal, Im 18 years old and work at pizza hut. Im a Senior in high school. I average about 130 a paycheck, after gas for my back up car it leaves me with about 50 extra dollars. So theres no possible way. SO then i just thought" why not just do what i can to throw the cam in, and get my heads magnafluxed and ported and do all that i can to get as much power as i can. But my dad who has researched this whole problem since day one said that i cant put that cam in that motor with those heads. What can i do? Im really torn and i need to get my car back on the road. Incase youre wondering why the motor is getting rebuilt, Kerosene accidentally entered the car. causing my aluminum pistons to warp. So i had oil coming out of the air breather and any other hole it could find. And i had massive blow by. I had about a 3rd of the power i had before. Please just give me some advice. Im to the point of just saving up for a whole vortec and just paying to have the cam put in. I attached pics of the cam info

 

If you have Vortec heads and a Vortec intake you shouldn't need any holes drilled. I believe for lift in the range of .480 you need different springs but no actual machine work done to the Vortecs, on a limited budget I wouldn't bother with having those heads ported and magnafluxed. If you got things hot enough to damage pistons there's no way around rebuilding the short block.

 

Either it needs to be machined or he can use beehive springs. They use a much smaller (shorter is what applies here) retainer which gives a lot more retainer/guide clearance. I probably still wouldnt want to go higher than .525 lift though.

And I've been recommeding this a lot lately, but no one agrees with me. Keep that in mind...

but you can get an LT1 longblock with ECM for less than $1000 easy. You just need a serpentine system, a new fuel pump (and regulator maybe?) capable of the LT1's required fuel pressure (TBI pump isnt enough), a TV cable setup for the trans from a 93 LT1 car, and a new power steering line to go from the LT1 power steering pump to our steering box.

That's 280hp to start with. A cheap LT4 hotcam and some valve springs later you can have 350hp. A more modern aggressive roller cam can get you 400hp with stock LT1 heads and intake.

Remember the LT1 heads and vortec heads are VERY similar, so power levels are similar. The difference is the LT1 has a great EFI system with a problematic distributor and the Vortec 350's are going to be running MUCH lower compression levels than the LT1's. The LT1's run crazy high compression (thanks to their reverse cooling setup)and thats why they respond to aggressive cams so well.

So for $1500 you can outrun a Vortec 350 with a moderate cam. If you need to rebuild it, you can do it with all stock parts and be just fine. Reuse your LT1 rods, heads, intake, crank, etc. It's a lot cheaper and easier to rebuild something that has decent parts to start with.

There are drawbacks to doing this, the optispark is the big one, but you can convert to a carb intake and try to run TBI on it if you wanted to be really interesting...

http://indianapolis.craigslist.org/pts/3622721874.html

Strangely im having a real hard time finding cheap LT1's up there, so that may not be an option. Theyre all over the place down here...

 

Thanks for all the advice guys, But i was talking to my dad and i guess another option i could do which i never thought of is to go carbed... That way i wouldnt have to worry about messing up the computer and all that, I could do my cam and do a whole bunch of other crap to the motor. I have no idea im all scatter brained. Thoughts>?

 

Honestly, what do you have to spend on this car today? As you've seen motor work isn't going to be a cheap. Let alone performance oriented stuff. Figure on spending about $1000-1500 for a stock rebuild plus any performance parts you want to add onto that. If that doesn't sound very attractive I think you may want to reconsider.

You could just pick up a used 5.0 TBI motor that will just drop in and get you back on the road. You could probably find one for $500 depending on your location. Not to mention junk yards typically have some sort of warranty. Run that motor into the ground and hopefully by then you'll be in a better position to do something a little more interesting.

I know it's not very exciting, and I know it's a real shame to miss such a beautiful opportunity to do some upgrades, but from your description it just doesn't sound like it's a practical thing for you right now. But it's your call. Either way, you should take pride in the fact you are doing your homework before jumping into a project like this.

 

well im to a point where im 99 percent sure im going to sell. The reason being that we took it to the machine shop and after it was checked over to see what was needed, the shop said 1200 dollars to do it. Im not going to list off what it needs because im not in the mood right now. I love my car to death, it means everything to me..But after thinking. The car has 8 grand into it and ive had it for 3 years. Ive only put 8000 miles on it and its only been functional for 6 months out of those years.Ive had this 500 dollar Marquis with 300,000 miles for 4 months,have put NO money into it,and have driven 6 thousand. So my assumption: thirdgens are all, And i mean this in the most thoughtful way, pieces of ****. I feel theres not much need to look for another motor.After thats in, then its the tranny, the rear end(Broken gear) all new tires, a new master cylinder, a new heater core, The list goes forever. SO im to a screw off point. Im 18 years old and make 120 on a paycheck. Screw this AWESOME FAST CAR SPORTS CAR YEAH thing. Sorry guys.