juans74luvn wrote:
Mannn this monster looks bad ass!!! Good job on it bro. I had a quick question for you. What year of a 4.3 do you recommend. I did read on other post that the late 80s where good. If u dont mind me asken what year and vehicle did yours come out of. Im not a speed demon or anything like that but i would want some power and a daily driver. So can i get ur 2cents on this topic. Thanks.
Mine came out of a 1992 chevy full-size. If you want some good power and do it cheap the best thing to do is get a motor around the same year (92 or older) that doesn't have too many miles on it and stick with the hydraulic camshaft upgrade. Comp makes a good cam and you can home port the heads. You'll have to get 96' heads as the old "swirl port" heads suuuuck. The intake will have to be swapped unless you get the computer for that motor, but once the heads are swapped it screws up the computer and you'll spend more time and money trying to figure it out. Carburetor is better. With mine I had some major oiling issues that I didn't know about until the motor lost all pressure. For mine I swapped in a mechanical cam and mechanical lifters with a high lift. This caused me to ditch the stock lifter retainer and I didn't realize that one of the bolts holding the retainer was not a blind hole and that the cam was such a high lift that the wheel on the lifter exposed the oil galley therefore it didn't build enough pressure. After chasing it down I had the lifter bores bushed and plugged one of the oil through holes on the lifter as well put a bolt in the retainer hole now it build 90 psi. Here is a little run down on cost and what you might do to get a little extra power (200-250 hp)
1. Head swap, home port. These are all over ebay for $100.00 plus $75 for a port kit and $200.00 to have the guides and seats freshened up
2. Intake and carb swap. Intake-$220.00, carb (500 cfm) $400.00
3. Distributor $225-$450 depnding on the model
4. Good engine $600-$900
5. Gaskets $80
6. Hardware $120 (new head bolts, intake bolts and other)
7. Transmission This varies depending on stick or auto. If your not a decent fab guy stick with the auto. The manual requires master and slave cylinder work as well as clutch and pressure plate.
8. At least another $300.00 for all the little thing you might have missed.
There is a lot of fab work that goes into this and yes there are a lot of great articles here to help, but in the end you are the guy doing it and it takes time, money, and PATIENCE. It took me months to get the motor done but only a couple weeks to put it in the truck.
I have a blast when I drive it and everybody loves it. People stare at it everywhere I go and all the "old school" chevy guys are the only ones that know what it is. I was doing a hot lap showing it off to a friend when I rolled by the hobby store on the blvd. I stopped at the light right there and 5 guys came out of the store and begged me to pull over and show it to them. When I popped the hood everyone of them did a double take when they saw a v6 in it. They drooled on it for 30 min before I finally said I had to go. It is like that everywhere I go in it. So the lesson here is that if your looking for a daily driver that your not really going to show off in then the fab work and the motor build is not worth it. Daily drivers are best at gas milage, low profile, and dependability. If you want to show off, impress, or just love watching people break there necks to find out what that was than it's totally worth it. There are some sources out there that you can get the newer g180 that will bolt up to the 4 speed and you can make them run forever and have a great gas saver. I loved driving mine with the old motor in it. The only reason I did the swap was my motor died. You can also change the gears to get a little more top end. In the end you REALLY need to honestly understand what it is you want so when your done your satisfied or else it will never be what you wanted or expected.
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