new project for the truck!

[swampthing]

Its been a good 5-6 years since my truck has received any attention from me, but a recent opportunity has presented me with the chance to breathe a little life into it. A friend of mine recently totaled his 97 Silverado in a front end collision. I asked him to find out about a buy back option, he let me know on Friday and my folks decided to help me get a hold of it. I will be pulling anything I can use in my truck now, selling anything I don't want and scrapping whatever is left.

The bad the entire front clip is toast, grill, hood, fenders, lights, radiator etc
The motor is an unknown, it was a good running vortec 350 but I do not know if there is any damage from the crash
The good
The body is good from the cab back, the wheels are chrome and have new tires
The interior is probably in very good shape
Assuming the engine isn't damaged I will have a lower mileage higher power engine to swap into the truck.
I have two plans for the engine, I haven't decided which way to go, plan one is simple, get the vortec to TBI intake manifold, some decent headers and drop it in as is. Plan two involves the same as plan one but adding buying a cam to match the specs of the 350 H.O gmpp crate engine, getting a higher cfm throttle body and higher pressure fuel pump and a new prom burned to run it all. The expense may limit me to option one, however if I can swing option two that will give me 330ish horsepower in a fairly light 2wd truck

[sandrock]

Use that whole Vortec block if you can. While the block itself is the same, the internals are better, the heads are MUCH better too. I'm not a fan of TBI just because to me it's nothing more than a glorified carb, but the CFI system the Vortec uses also ranks up there with "WTF!!"...so, without further adeu, my planned Vortec 350 build when I get to it....

1) Vortec engine (obviously)
2) The latest 4.3 timing cover (it's aluminum instead of that god awful plastic)
3) Redrilled TPI manifold (not the LT1, the one before it. LT1/LT4 intakes have no dizzy provision)
4) 2001 Chevy Express Van PCM to run the *dang* thing.

Tuneability with HPT, provision for PCM controlled radiator fan(s), will run worlds better than the TBI and even the CFI, and no hardcoded 6k rev limiter. And an easy 330 hp

[swampthing]

Yeah the entire vortec long block will be used, I know TBI isn't the greatest but I have zero desire to deal with swapping over the sequential stuff. There's a guy over on tbichips.com who has done a bunch of TBI performance builds with pretty good results I will probably hit him up for ideas when I actually get to the engine build part

[00Beast]

Might want/need 454 injectors as well.

[PLAGUE PHANTOM]

454 injectors are a definite. My 383 Tbi runs these and the engine runs problem free.

[swampthing]

Better injectors will probably only be needed if I go with option two.

I will have a few decisions I have to make regardless of which option I choose. The vortex egr setup is different, I have to decide if I want to keep it or disable it. If I keep it then I have to buy vortex specific headers which cost more, if I disable the egr I can buy TBI headers which are dirt cheap. Either way this will be a long ordeal since I am in the middle of moving right now. Hopefully I will have some updates about the truck today

[PLAGUE PHANTOM]

My egr is blocked off at the moment. Dealership I bought it from said it was disabled by the first owner when it was bought new. It still has the egr attached....just a block off plate under it. Thank god I don't have emissions where I live...cause the cat was also removed as well. Explains the throaty exhaust.

If you have a limited budget and don't have to worry about emissions then I would get an egr delete.

[swampthing]

I have been researching different options today. If I use a carbed intake with and adapter I lose egr, which I don't care about. Plus then I can use TBI headers which are obscenely cheap. This presents a few issues as far as I can tell. One the tuning will be more involved, I just emailed tbichips.com to ask for some suggestions for what is simplest. Two if I use a vortec carb manifold I it will not have a coolant passage under the throttle body, which apparently can cause fuel mix issues and again more tuning.

The truck will be delivered within the next few days and I plan to start stripping and selling what I do not need. If anybody needs anything off a 97 Silverado let me know, I won't be using several nice items such as the throttle body and injectors and of course the pcm

[swampthing]

Also as I do this research I find myself valuing our forum more and more. It is extremely difficult to find decent informative threads on these truck forums. And half the people are talking out of their butts the entire time

Currently I am trying to find out if I have to mess with the distributor on the vortec, so far all I known is that I have to use the gear because its a roller cam and it has to be a melanized steel gear.

I want to just be able to get the intake manifold and headers and then simply move all the stuff from the current motor over to the vortec. But I can't find all the info I need yet.

[PLAGUE PHANTOM]

I'm going to have to agree with you swampthing. It amazing the knowledge that members have regarding vehicles. The guy at tbichips knows his stuff. He emailed me a detailed walkthrough on the vortec head swap. Since I already have an egr delete...it makes the swap a tad bit easier.

[swampthing]

well i talked to brian at tbi chips today, he said that i need the vortec fuel pump and an adjustable regulator. looking at his budget vortec build on his site, he used a bored tbi and stock injectors running 18psi on a vortec pump and had pretty decent power.

he also said that all post-87 distributors were made to work with either a flat tappet (tbi) or roller (vortec) cam so i should be good to use mine

[PLAGUE PHANTOM]

That's similar to what he sent me. I'm going with a Street Warrior "Street Fire" performance HEI distributor. It comes with parts that allow easy hookup of msd ignition parts. Throttle body space is also a must as it will increase hp, torque, and mpg. You can get them at advanced auto for $40. It comes with everything you need.

[swampthing]

Got my special deilvery yesterday. I went and started by pulling the wheels and brand spanking new michelins off, one tire was damaged and will be replaced.

I did a little research on comp nine and determined that it has a 3.73 limited slip differential. I will be dropping the entire axle and putting it on my truck as well.

Here's a few pics of the truck. This is after I took its wheels, after I clean up my truck I will post some of it wearing its new shoes

[PLAGUE PHANTOM]

Wow...looked like a decent sized impact to the truck. Hope everyone was ok. Looking forward to this project. Are those mirrors electric? My truck cane with aftermarket mirrors and am having a hard time finding decent used power mirrors.

[swampthing]

Yeah he was fine, the guy in the van he hit broke his pelvis.

I think the mirrors are power according to my vin decode, I may have a buyer for the whole doors but I'm not sure yet.

No progress today besides dropping the damaged tire off to the old owner so he can get a prorated replacement

I put it on craigslist and I am already getting parts requests in. I imagine I will easily be able to make most of my money back even though I am keeping several high dollar items

[sandrock]

Check to see if the dashboard has cracks at the mount points. If not, that's a goldmine in itself.

The LSD I believe is RPO G60. It's a funky design, but it works pretty good.

[swampthing]

The two codes I have are axle rear 3.73 ratio GT4 and axle rear posi traction G80

[sandrock]

Yeah, G80 is it. Same axle codes I have. Good for towing!

[swampthing]

Well yesterday I spent some time pulling off the Reese hitch for a guy to buy, but he said it wasn't then size he wanted so I decided to go ahead and pull the rear bumper too and go ahead and swap them onto my truck, this week I want to pull the seats because I have somebody coming to buy them, then I want to get all the crap off the front of the truck and see if I can get it to crank or even just turn over to make sure the engine survived the crash. After that I want to pull the tranny and hopefully sell it and then take everything from the driveshaft back and put under my truck, I am going to buy some new shocks and spring shackles for the rear end. The shackles will lower the rear 2" which will make it sit level.

I have to either find another 1991 Chevy gauge cluster out of a truck that came with a 3.73 or I have to modify mine using these instructions

http://www.chevytalk.org/fusionbb/showt ... id/258562/

Soldering isn't my strong suit but my dad is pretty good, I am just terrified of screwing up my cluster.

[swampthing]

Another small update, I got all the broken stuff off the front of the truck, and I pulled off the belt which was broken along with the radiator fan. I hooked up my jumper cables and tested the power door locks and windows as well as the power seat all of which work perfect. Afterwards I decided to see if it would crank at all and much to my surprise and relieve it cranked right away and idled. I couldn't leave it running very long since there weren't any accessories attached. but it ran fine and held good oil pressure as well. The tranny also shifted into all ranges without issue.

Next on the agenda will be removing the seats since I have a buyer. And pulling the rear axle and springs.

I intend to buy the lowering shackles from summit to lower the rear of my truck 2'' to make it sit level

Anybody know if I can adapt the keyless entry system into my truck?