Hey I wanted to try to clarify something about the 4.3 a friend of mine told me its basically a 350 minus the 2 cyl, is this true and if so can you use 350 pistons in it, Ihave a friend with an S-10 who wants to "supe" it up and I thought Id check on this for him.
thanks
Jack

 

Monte,

Your friend is about 3/4 correct. The 262 V-6 shares the same case design, rods, rings, pistons, head and chamber design, valve train, timing set, and a lot of other parts with the 350 and many other SBC engines. It has the same bore and stroke as a 350 SBC. It has two fewer cylinders, but instead of the front two or rear two being cast off, it looks more like #5 and #6 were left out if you inspect the crankshaft and lower case design.

The crankshaft has offset rod journals to accomodate the 120° firing sequence in a 90° 'V' case casting. Later models have balance shafts to counteract some of the vibration induced by the inherently less smooth firing of the V-6. There are some other special design features of the 262, but it is in essence, 3/4 of a 350 by basic design.

I'm sure I left out several important details, and a really thorough description can be offered up by Ede. He has some experience with building these engines for better performance.

Your friend with the S-10 can easily squeeze more performance from his 262 by following the example of GM in the Cyclone trucks. Comp Cams offers several camshaft replacements for these engines, and many other performance parts from blowers and intakes to heads to exhausts are available to build up these engines. Internal engine parts other than the crank and cam are cloned from the 350 SBC, so the sky is the limit for aftermarket performance parts.