Engine swap. How would you do it?

[jlcustomz]

Olds engines can be good engines, but most you will find were pretty weak from the factory & cost more for performance parts than the chevy stuff. Still not a bad choice if you can build one up right, but you'd need the mounts, manifolds or headers, accessory drive, possibly trans if your 200 is not a bop multi-pattern.

The hotter trend these days is to swap in the ls stuff . A 5.3 or 4.8 truck engine with trans can sometimes be purchased for pretty low prices, but it takes a lot of work to keep the swap costs down.

 

[jetsetw31]

Olds engines can be good engines, but most you will find were pretty weak from the factory & cost more for performance parts than the chevy stuff. Still not a bad choice if you can build one up right, but you'd need the mounts, manifolds or headers, accessory drive, possibly trans if your 200 is not a bop multi-pattern.

The hotter trend these days is to swap in the ls stuff . A 5.3 or 4.8 truck engine with trans can sometimes be purchased for pretty low prices, but it takes a lot of work to keep the swap costs down.

Your only right about the 403. they were very weak from the factory. The architecture of the 403 is far superior to the sbc 400 and the 330 in factory form regular and high performance were similar to the sbc 327 and 350. (Except the sbc LT1 350 of that era. The W-31 350 was close in performance to that LT1).

He only wanted to choose between the 3 engines he had. The transmission is a 200R4.

 

[Clone TIE Pilot]

I would go with the 400 since it would be a direct bolt in. Swap Vortec heads on to update the 400, and have the old 305 Qjet rebuilt to the 400's specs, then you would have a great cruiser.