It can be maddeningly difficult to find out exactly what you can and cannot do here. Rummaging through official web sites and publications is a trip down the rabbit hole. You generally wind up making awkward arrangements to speak with a Referee Supervisor over the phone, and even then details can slip through the cracks, and you're back at it anytime a new issue confronts you. And there seems to be an endless supply of issues.
I've hit the phone on other issues, but not this one. Others say they have, and according to them, I've been laboring under a misconception for several years. I thought it was strictly forbidden here to swap any kind of truck engine into a car. These guys report that it's perfectly legal to take the engine from a 1/2 ton or 3/4 ton pickup and put it in a car.
You still have to get it past a Referee, it still has to be same or later model year, it still has to be factory stock with all emissions (or have CARB numbers for aftermarket parts), and you still have smogcheck every other year.
However, you can swap that Gen I 350 with TBI, or that iron block 5.3L LS. Theoretically, you could even swap that 454. I'm not sure the 454 would actually fit in a G-body with factory manifolds (or CARB-legal headers you can afford), but theoretically you could, if it fits and you're crazy enough.
Not exactly the G-body swapping millennium, but hey, every little bit helps.
(What gets me is -- If I could find one, I could drop one of those godawful 350 Olds diesels in there and I wouldn't even need to see a Referee, just turn up at smogcheck and they wave me through .... if they can see me through the soot.)
I've hit the phone on other issues, but not this one. Others say they have, and according to them, I've been laboring under a misconception for several years. I thought it was strictly forbidden here to swap any kind of truck engine into a car. These guys report that it's perfectly legal to take the engine from a 1/2 ton or 3/4 ton pickup and put it in a car.
You still have to get it past a Referee, it still has to be same or later model year, it still has to be factory stock with all emissions (or have CARB numbers for aftermarket parts), and you still have smogcheck every other year.
However, you can swap that Gen I 350 with TBI, or that iron block 5.3L LS. Theoretically, you could even swap that 454. I'm not sure the 454 would actually fit in a G-body with factory manifolds (or CARB-legal headers you can afford), but theoretically you could, if it fits and you're crazy enough.
Not exactly the G-body swapping millennium, but hey, every little bit helps.
(What gets me is -- If I could find one, I could drop one of those godawful 350 Olds diesels in there and I wouldn't even need to see a Referee, just turn up at smogcheck and they wave me through .... if they can see me through the soot.)
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