miller92 said:
With gas prices going up and up im afraid to finish my regal because in the end it may sit more than it sees the road with the 355 under the hood. Ive been getting ideas of swapping in something that may be more fuel efficient and came up with the idea of a 4.3 vortec with a manual transmission behind it. I had the engine in a 96 blazer and never really had any issues with it other than the transmission thats why i was thinking a manual behind it. My question is, is it really worth it to drop one in a gbody? I know they use alot of similar parts as a 350 so i can always build the internals and possibly turbo it. The biggest thing im curious about is swapping a modern engine into an older car, never done it before. Is it easy? Or not really worth it? Im not really worried about the whole horsepower thing anymore die to gas prices but just something I can cruise in and take to the locale car shows and it would be different if its worth doing. So any help would be nice before I blow cash on doing this and messing things up lol, how would I go about swapping in a modern engine?
Aboslutely not, terrible idea. For one, if you don't have money for gas a G-body car is not for you. If your G body is a "pleasure" vehicle, sell it. If its a daily driver, get someting else. Second if you have it up and running with a 355 why would you go to a 4.3? Thats the lamest move of all time. The 4.3 was literally a 350 with 2 cylinders lopped off. Gm created it as a gas saving option for consumers and a cost savings parts for themselves since the same pistons, rings, and other internals would be used. On paper it sounded like a great idea, but it never really translated to a great engine. They ALL burned oil and had blow by after not many miles. They were and unbalanced engine that never ran that smooth, never sounded that good with exhaust, never produced a ton of tourqe or horsepower (except turbo models in the Syclone/typhoon models) and has mileage was also never great. Even with the later Votrec model that featured balance shafts, vortec heads and MPFI the engine still could be problematic with all the oil burning. Fouling plugs, sensors and just generally having to watch oil comsumption.
As far as ease it wouldn't be miserable. If you wanted the fuel injection yon you would need the Blazer harness and that would be very time consuming. Otherwise theres prolly an intake out there where your could throw a carb on. Again, fuel economy wont be great. I would only think this would be a cool project if the car come with the old school 4.3 and you swapped to that more modern vortec one. I have my old 85 4.3 if you would be interested. 54k origional miles and burned the least amount of oil of any 4.3 I ever dealt with. I know because I've owned a few of these and had many in the family over the years.