Alright well I finally have the money to get my car back on the road, I found this motor: http://www.jegs.com/i/Chevrolet-Perf...0284K/10002/-1 and this transmission: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-700700/overview/ and then the intake manifold: https://sdparts.com/details/scoggin-..._item_id=28396. Will I be able to install the rest of the parts off my old 305 TPI and just swap it in? Is the motor and trans any good for just a stock replacement? I know I will have to change the tail housing on the trans but that is fine. Should I put a different cam in the 305? or just leave the one that is in it? It seems kind of small, is an LT1 cam bigger? I have roughly 4k for the motor/trans. The rear end needs work but it is fine for now. I am wanting to keep it a 305 for now, eventually I wanna go LS, but right now is just not the time. I would love to do a 350, but I like the gas mileage from the 305, and it has plenty of power for what I need (daily driver). I dont professionally race the car or anything, just play around with friends. Thanks

 

In real world usage, the TPI 350 gets the same fuel economy as the TPI 305. If a 305 is really what you're after, a stock rebuild or a stock replacement motor would be a more affordable solution than messing with the L30. The L30's heads do not share the same qualities as the L31 heads that makes them so sought after, yet still requires the Vortec-unique manifold.

But, if you're hell-bent on using an L30 in your car, my Vortec TPI swap thread will give you more info than you ever wanted to know about doing the swap:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/engi...tpi-build.html

The short story is that the intake, intake bolts, and gaskets is more or less all you'll need.

Oh, and if you retain the coolant diverter valve thingie that blocks coolant from going through your heater core, you'll need a way to ensure that you get constant coolant flow through the heads. It seems that the Vortec heads require some constant coolant flow in order to stay cool.

 

So would it just be better to rebuild my stock bottom end and heads and put a slightly bigger cam in? Would the Ram Jet 350 cam be a good choice? I havent found any info on the swap yet. I'm not hell-bent on the L30, and open to all suggestions, I just saw it and figured it would be a good replacement motor

 

Are the L30 heads better or worse than factory 305 TPI heads?

 

They are better than factory tpi heads

 

The Ram Jet would be a far better choice than an L30. An L31 and a stealth ram may be a more economical, but very similar setup too.

Rather than speculate on different motors, let's back up a little bit and figure out what your goals are first. Why upgrade at all? Is the factory motor worn out? What do you want from the new motor? Same horsepower, more horsepower? How important is fuel economy? How often will you use the car, and what will you use it for? Getting groceries, drag racing, cruising, autocross? Let's figure out what you actually want before we throw around a million useless ideas.

 

Alright car is a stock 1988 Trans Am with a 305 TPI/700r4. Motor and trans has 250,xxx miles on it, all original. Transmission is shot, Motor is alright sort of. I just want a fun reliable daily driver. I have a friend wanting to buy my 305 and trans from me so that will help some (he is wanting to build a 305 carb motor for and 89 S10) i want to get a little more power out of it, but not go ridiculous. Fuel economy is important. I will drive the car everyday, going to school and work, groceries, cruising, and anything else. Never been on a drag strip, never will with a 305 (nothing against the motor itself, dont want to tear anything up). As much asI want a 350, I already have one in my truck (91 C1500 SC/SB 106,xxx miles, silverado trim pacake), and it has alot more power than my 305 did, but i figured with a few upgrades it would have just as much if not more power and would like to keep the motor a 305 as it was the car came with from the factory. I was also wanting a brand new crate motor rather than re-building a 250,xxx motor with the hope of getting another 200-250,000 miles out of it

 

Also, which is better, the edelbrock vortec or scoggin dickey vortec tpi baseplate? I like the look of the scoggin dickey one because it looks factory (thats the main thing for me), does it have the same port sizes and flow characteristics of the edelbrock?

 

The thing with a 305, especially that L30, is it costs just as much if not more than similar 350s that will make more power and the same fuel economy with less crap to buy. Another option would be to find your local machine shop and talk to them about building you a motor. Often that's the best way to get exactly what you want/need and to do it in a cost effective way.

If you do decide to go with the L30 (or anything else that uses Vortec heads... hint, the L31 is only a couple hundred bucks more), I would stick with the SDPC intake. The SDPC and edelbrock are exactly the same intake, except that one says Edelbrock and one doesn't. Edelbrock manufactures them both from the same mold. The intake isn't perfect... it has it's quirks, but it's a very usable intake.

 

Another reason I want to stick with 305 is dont have to swap computer/chip and tune it as long as I stay with a small cam. I don't really know of a good machine shop around here and I have had horrible luck with shops rebuilding stuff (have had the transmission rebuilt twice and it is already shot). And with new crate motor it has a warranty and I can have Solomon Chevrolet do the swap and everything fairly cheap because my friends dad used to work there (me and dad will probably do the swap though). I already have new 19ld injectors, Summit cap & rotor and spark plug wires, ac delco spark plugs, summit 52 mm throttle body & 1.5 full roller rockers. So basically its just a matter of swapping everything over to the new motor. I have everything for a new motor expect the motor and trans itself. Thats good to know on the intake though! Need to get that ordered next. Does anybody know of a good machine around Dothan? I'd love to talk with them about getting my motor rebuilt

 

Another question, as long as my crank and rods are fine, can I re-use them and just put new pistons plus all new bearings? Do i need to change the rod bolts, main caps, or main cap bolts? There was really nothing wrong with the bottem end, Just alot of miles. I'm sure the piston rings are pretty bad. This is the kit I am talking about: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/fe...a000/overview/. Would this be a better option than the L30?

 

If you bought the 350, just find a stock tpi chip here in the classifieds. They are cheap for maf cars. Map cars its harder to get one so you'd have to have one made more than likely. Could reuse the 19 lb injectors just buy an afpr and crank pressure up til the 19's flow like 22's

 

Honestly, even with a mild 350, the stock 19lb injectors and stock tune will be adequate. Not ideal, but adequate. Absolutely everything else you mentioned (cap, rotor, wires, rockers, blah blah blah) will work perfectly on any SBC, 305, 350, whatever.

Your crank and rods could certainly be reused in a rebuild. Depending on whether the cylinders need a bore or just a hone, you could probably reuse your pistons too. The rod bolts could probably be reused in a low horsepower application like a stock-ish 305 rebuild, but I'm not a fan of reusing them (although as far as I remember, I reused the stock rod bolts when I rebuilt my 350 a million years ago). Rod bolts are the most stressed fasteners in an engine, and I like to see new stuff used on a rebuild. I like ARP, but again, for the 200-ish horsepower (and more importantly, the sub-5k redline), new stock rod bolts are all you would ever need.

 

So just to swap the 350 in, I need injectors and chip pretty much? I think there actually is a 350 TPI at work, IIRC it should be out of an 88 or 89 vette so it has aluminum heads, May have to check into that. Will the 350 run good on the stock tune or will it have issues? I'm sure I could find a stock 350 TPI computer at work, I'll have to look. Would ARP 8740 or whatever be a good upgrade from stock? Or should I stick with new stock rod bolts or go ahead and get ARP 2000 rod bolts? I'm working 3 jobs right now, so its not a big deal to get new injectors

 

An L98 (350 TPI Corvette motor) would be a great upgrade. The beauty of that is, there is plenty of opportunity to have a new chip burned that uses the stock Corvette ECU programming.

Though not ideal, as long as you keep the stock 19lb injectors, the stock 305 tune will do a reasonably good job of controlling a mild 350. It would be best to get a new chip made, but that's neither difficult nor prohibitively expensive. A forum search will turn up a few options for TPI mail-order tunes, or if you're feeling ambitious, you could always dive into the world of DIY PROM tuning.

Like I mentioned before, ARP rod bolts would be fantastic, but in a mild build, I think they're completely unnecessary, and could actually cause problems unless you got the rod ends resized. ARP rod bolts generally get tightened to a higher torque value than the stock bolts, and in doing so can distort the rod end a bit. It's generally advised that if you go with aftermarket rod bolts, that you get the rod-ends resized with the new rod bolts torqued to spec. In your case, the stock replacements would probably be the most sensible choice.

 

The motor we have has the wiring and computer plus complete motor. He said the only problem was the bottem end was knocking. Would that be just the bearings?

I am not computer talented so a mail order tune would probably be the best thing.

Who carries stock replacement bolts? I didn't see any from Summit but I will check again.

 

I wouldn't recommend that you use the Corvette harness and computer. There are other aspects of the installation that require a different harness and different computer. Your best approach would be to use the Corvette long block, the Corvette intake base, & injectors, and then use everything else (including fuel rail, plenum, runners, etc) from your 305. Depending on the year of the Corvette motor, you could possibly use the Corvette runners & plenum too, but EGR, cold start injector, and other minor things changed from year to year and may not be a perfect match for your particular application. Rather than speculate, those minor decisions are best left for after you know which parts are at your disposal.

Rod bolts should be available right from the GM parts counter. Any aftermarket rod bolt that tightens to the same torque would suffice.

 

What about vette chip?

The whole intake assembly off the 305 will bolt to the 113 heads correct?

Alright cool, will have to check.

What about this cam for the 350? http://www.summitracing.com/parts/hr...make/chevrolet

Its close to the 88-89 trans am cam with 1.6 rockers and 112 lobe seperation
207/213.415/.430.443/.459117deg88-89 350,305 (this should be my current cam)

.05 lift is the same, with 1.6 rockers on stock cam the new one has .007/.006 more lift. And 112 lobe seperation instead of 117

Computer should be able to work with this, right (even on a 305)? I'm only going to use 1.5 roller rockers.

 

The Corvettes had an oil temp sensor that the f-body cars didn't use, so if you use the Corvette chip, you'll get an SES code because it'll be looking for that temp sensor input.

That said, it won't cost a lot to get a mail order tune that is based on the Corvette tune, but with the specific details (like that temp sensor input) modified to work in your car. To be honest, with a new cam, you'll probably want to have a custom tune done anyway.

Speaking of cams, that one you selected is pretty mild... too mild to really offer any appreciable benefit compared to the stock cam, although the tighter LSA is going to still result in enough overlap to probably benefit from a custom tune. The tighter LSA and the slightly higher lift will provide a little more power, especially in the midrange. I would probably gravitate toward a cam with more duration, say a 214/224 or 218/228, although doing so will make it more necessary for a custom tune. Once you start getting into a cam with more overlap, the stock tune won't allow it to idle as well.

 

Alright Thanks for that info.

TPIS does mail order tune, Are they any good? If so I'll look for higher duration cam.

Would that cam be to small in a 305? Dad doesn't really want to change to a 350, so I'll probably be stuck with a 305. I don't really want a big cam, just a small improvement over stock. This motor is probably just going to be temporary (just want to a budget rebuild, the machine shop told me 200$ for all the machine work and polish the crank, Me and dad will be building the motor) until I have the time, space & money to do a LS1 swap.

 

The cam you linked to would probably be decent in a mild 305.

TPIS has a good reputation, though there are some other mail order tune options that are likely to be just as good and cost less. Search the forum for "mail order tune" or similar strings and you should get some good info.

 

Alright will do. I think I will probably to a mild rebuild on the 305 and get a mail order tune.