Thread: 350-for-350 motor swap.

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Hi.
I have a 1986 Camaro that I have been working on for the past few years. It was my first car, and when I got it, I knew next to nothing about motors, or cars in general. This car pretty much got me into the automotive scene, and taught me an enormous amount. The motor was tired when I bought the car, and has slowly been deteriorating to the point of being undrivable.

A few months ago, a friend of my Dad's sold me a 2-bolt 350 with 882 heads, an Edelbrock Streetmaster Intake, Accell blueprint distributor, and an Acell superstack coil, all of which have been sitting covered in my garage ever since.

I am ready to drop in the new motor, but don't know where to start. The motor that is on the stand doesn't have a dampner or crank pulley on it, and needs to be thrown together first.

Also in my garage are some Banks longtube headers, a Stage III TH350 transmission, and a 3.23 Posi that I pulled out of another 3rd gen camaro. Would you reccomend putting in the motor and transmission together?

Any tips would be nice. This looks like a rather difficult project, and I could use all the help I could get.

Thanks alot,
Rob

[edit]
On a side note, the current motor is a computer controlled 4bbl 350. All the emissions equipment is in place, and I was planning on removing all of it for the swap. Would this make things easier? Thanks again.

Originally posted by SBC Maro
Hi.
I have a 1986 Camaro that I have been working on for the past few years. It was my first car, and when I got it, I knew next to nothing about motors, or cars in general. This car pretty much got me into the automotive scene, and taught me an enormous amount. The motor was tired when I bought the car, and has slowly been deteriorating to the point of being undrivable.

A few months ago, a friend of my Dad's sold me a 2-bolt 350 with 882 heads, an Edelbrock Streetmaster Intake, Accell blueprint distributor, and an Acell superstack coil, all of which have been sitting covered in my garage ever since.

I am ready to drop in the new motor, but don't know where to start. The motor that is on the stand doesn't have a dampner or crank pulley on it, and needs to be thrown together first.

Also in my garage are some Banks longtube headers, a Stage III TH350 transmission, and a 3.23 Posi that I pulled out of another 3rd gen camaro. Would you reccomend putting in the motor and transmission together?

Any tips would be nice. This looks like a rather difficult project, and I could use all the help I could get.

Thanks alot,
Rob

[edit]
On a side note, the current motor is a computer controlled 4bbl 350. All the emissions equipment is in place, and I was planning on removing all of it for the swap. Would this make things easier? I'd love to open the hood and just see motor. none of this vacuum
spaghetti. Thanks again.

oops, meant to edit, not quote. If an admin could delete this..

first was the car carburated or fuelinjected?

next does the car have a cable driving speedo?


I have done a swap exactly like you . except I didnt install headers, but now I wished I had, because the factory manifold have the A.I.R. fittings on them that I pluged up and they leak and sound like crap.

if you can pull both engine and trans together, and install the new engine and trans together, it will save you some back pain and trouble. because before you can pull the engine the rear track bar and cross member, drive shaft will have to be removed so you can unbolt the bellhousing and torque converter bolts.


first get someone to help you, sometimes 2 hands are not enough, if you plan on going with a 350th trans you will need a kit for the track bar to mount to. jegs has it as well as summit. remember you will need a new driveshaft to.

dont go hacking away at the wiring on the car. if you think you dont need it anymore, carefully disconnect what parts of wiring you dont need. and sell me the wiring harness, because I had hacked up mine.

go to the bone yard for the ballancer and pulley.


are you going to run a bigger cam?

because the factory cam in any 350 wont need the stage 3 trans and its high stall converter.

if your car was EFI then you can either use the electric fuel pump in the car and use an adjustable regulator with a return fuel line to work. or go with a mechanicle pump. but you will need to remove the tank pump, because it will have to much pressure for a carburator.

also you will want to remove the trans with the engine because there s not much room at all behind there to get a hand and wrench to get to the top bellhousing bolts.

take some pictures as you take things off the car , and put bolts in zip bags and mark what they are for on the bag.


you will need help in removeing the hood. and it would be great to have someone help remove things like hoses and wire's in case you forgot something they may catch and prevent any unwanted damage to the engine or car.


drain all fluids, and remove battery from car before attempting to remove other parts from car. keep things organized and it will go back together much easy. its time wasted looking for tools and mia bolts. so get a bucket , a box, or zip bags and mark everything that is removed from the engine and car.

start by removing radiator, fan, belts and remove power stearing pump, and tie out of way. disconnect all wiring harnesses from engine and tie back, remember to mark what they are for. next disconnect throttle cable, and cruze cable, tie them out of the way. disconnect both starter and altinator wires and tie them back.

then start on the drive shaft, and track bar.

next disconnect VSS wires or the speedo cable wich ever it has. then the shifter cable , you will need to remove it from the arm and the bracket on the trans.

you may want to remove the distributer from the engine. because if the transmission tailshaft is lowerd much it will cause the distributor to hit the fire wall, and possibly break it.

you can use a jack or a stand to support the tail of the trans , then drop the rear cross member, while you are under the car, you can cut the exhaust pipes at the Y pipe if you are going to use headers, the Y pipe on these cars are very restrictive and need to be replaced with an after market version, for better flow .

next remove the 2 motor mount bolts , 1 on each side.
look around to make sure that nothing is attached to the trans and that everything is out of the way, so that the trans dont snag on something on its way out.

back to the engine look maround to make sure all wires and engine ground strap is removed from engine.

while the engine is out this is perfect to go over wiring that is usually hiden behind the engine and clean and repair and wire and connectors, also would be great time to paint the fire wall, and inner fenders.

when droping new engine in car. start by just getting the motor mount bolts in, I use a screwdriver to help line the bolt holes while a friend uses a pry bar to shift the engine as needed.

then reinstall trans cross member and track bar, but if you are going to go with the 350th trans. you will need to measure to make a new member and mounting holes. the 350th is shorter. and you will need to measure for a new driveshaft .

.
this is a few things I didnt do when I had the chance with my engine out, that you may want to do.

repaint engine bay, get some braded stainless steel hydro hoses for trans cooling lines. and power stearing hoses.
get a new adjustable trackbar , and kit from jegs see below pictures.

Thanks, thats alot of great advice, exactly what I was looking for. This should deffinately help out, I appreciate it.

I'll probably get the heads back on the motor tomorrow, and start the pull process on the old motor. BTW - Computer Controlled Carburetor on the old one, mech. fuel pump.

On a side note:

When I was pulling the heads off of the new motor to inspect the cylinders, two of the rocker arm studs were stripped. Should I install new head studs all the way around? If so, how would I go about doing that?

I was considering retrofitting the heads with new studs and perhaps some roller rockers, is this a good idea? I am still rather naive to valvetrain work.

If i put in a hot cam, that means new valve springs, I dont know what pushrod length to use, or which rocker arms. I can do some searching for that though.

There is a prety good book you can get from summit it is called How to rebuild chevy engines by Tom Wilson by HP Books.There is alot of useful info in the books on how to remove and install engins. also on casting numbers on the blocks and heads. And how to run test on engines. Any book would help you learn and understand. Its how I started and taught myself. Good luck to you on your project. I hope to have mine done before spring.

I think that I might just get that book, I may be needing it further down the road as well.

I looked on summit, and was able to find a book of the same title by Dave Vizard, and the same publisher ( HPB-HP1029 )

Anyhow, any other tips?

replace all head studs, with ARP studs. and try to use there bolts and studs everywhere if you can afford to. they are among the best in the industry.

you can also get a Comp Cams Pushrod Length Checker.

and you can get a Stud Removal Tool . both tools are worth the money if you build more engines in the future.

it is a great idea to get the engine building book . they mention tools and how to use them in building an engine. lots of good usefull information.

Cool, Ordered the book, and some studs. Will probably order a Cam kit within the week.