Motor Upgrade?

[92rado]

My truck is a Factory 350 5speed and i was wanting some opinions on motor swaps or upgrades.

[nbscanuck]

Lots of aftermarket parts for 350s give them mo' powa. Get a different block, gitter built up and then its just a straight drop in and go.

[kuhl_530]

It really all depends. If you have a vortec 350 (96 and newer) I would really only look into upgrades like performance ignition, fuel, and filter upgrades, or possibly a supercharger if you feel like getting wild.

 

If you have a throttle body injected 350, your best bet is a powertrain swap. A vortec 350 will bolt right in, and provide more of a performance increase than upgrades to the stock engine.

 

If your walled is padded, I would look into putting an LT-1 in it. The LT-1 is almost identical to the standard small block 350's. The most obvious differences being the reverse flow water pump and compression ratios. The LT-1 was stock on 95 corvettes.

 

Putting in an LS-series engine will provide more power than an LT-1, at the cost of clearance issues. It may OR may not require some fabrication to install it.

[mcreyaufmiller]

Really depends on what you want to get out of it. You can go the custom route like I did for big power, The Vortec is a nice stock system, but there are aftermarket heads out there that are big power adders. be careful and do your research. Talk to motor guys that do this every day and listen to them. The mistake I made was having my vortecs reworked, they flow nice and are much better than stock, but I should have gone with the alumnium racing heads. Now I am building a set of cnc ported and polished racing heads to go with the custom wilson manifold. Do your homework before you make a decision.

[2COR517]

Probably one of the simplest power improvers on your engine would be a set of Vortec heads, and a custom tune. You need a special intake to run your TBI. Performance/economy is about the same as the 96 up vortecs. If you want to get even more fun, put a 400 crank in for a 383. Great torque, keep the simplicity of the factory TBI. I heard you need to put cop car injectors in to get the most from the 383.

[mcreyaufmiller]

Probably one of the simplest power improvers on your engine would be a set of Vortec heads, and a custom tune. You need a special intake to run your TBI. Performance/economy is about the same as the 96 up vortecs. If you want to get even more fun, put a 400 crank in for a 383. Great torque, keep the simplicity of the factory TBI. I heard you need to put cop car injectors in to get the most from the 383.

 

I am currently running stock injectors and putting 400hp to the ground. We are getting ready to install 50lb. mustang cobra injectors with an estimated 200 hp increase. The manifold is the biggest restrictor for power, it sucks. However, the vortec heads have a straight down bolt pattern to attach the intake to the heads, the older ones have the traditional angled bolts.