I have had an 87 coupe for about 3 years now and since I've got it, I have been wanting to do an engine swap. I currently am a sophomore in college studying Automotive Engineering and I figure that I would like to learn/practice what I am studying by doing a swap, and I also am surrounded by lots of people who have skills and knowledge that I may need to borrow, so I figure that now is a good time to do it. It could also help on a resume.
Recently, I have located one of Archie's economy manual transmission v8 kits at a classic car dealership that a friend of mine works at. Since his boss offered it to me for less than half of what Archie charges for it, I am temped to buy it and start accumulating pieces for an engine swap. Also, my car is an automatic and I would want to switch it over to a manual. Since the f23 is newer (less miles hopefully), claims to be stronger, and is more plentiful that the getrags in fieros; I'm thinking of using this tranny. If I go through with the swap, I would ideally want to have 350 with aluminum heads because I want to keep as much weight out of this swap, as it is a heavy motor to begin with, and I want tpi because I would rather become familiar with a more modern setup than a carburetor. I haven't decided if I want to fully build the engine to what I want it to be and suspend the swap because of the money it takes to build a nice 350, or get a running used motor and put it in so I can enjoy it sooner and then once I can buy the parts I really want for the motor pull it and build it up then.
Basically, before I start buying things, I want to know what exactly I am getting myself into. What I am most nervous about is the custom fabrication parts and the transmission swap. I know I would need to put a different ring gear on the flywheel which would mean machining it down, would I have to make sure that it is balanced in any way after that process is done? since the ring gear is smaller I would then need a different starter mounting block. Does anyone know of any issues that may arise from that or even how I would go about getting one made? Are the benefits of the f23 enough to go through the headache of the starter and flywheel or would I be better off buying a parts car and swapping over everything off that. Also, I have sentimental value to the car so I would be reluctant to sell the car and buy a stick fiero. Just any input to things I need to consider before starting is greatly appreciated. thanks!
[This message has been edited by tim55445 (edited 01-21-2015).]
I don't think the F23 matches the power band of the SBC very well, especially if you use the stock gear set in the transmission with the proper bell housing.
After you turn the flywheel down to accept the 142 tooth ring gear, you should get it balanced. If the Archie SBC kit is for an 86+ 1 piece rear main seal engine, then you must get it rebalanced as portions of the balance holes will be removed.
You will need to fabricate a new starter block and pay very close attention to the oil bypass plate... there is very little room for both of these components to fit with the 142 tooth flywheel. I would also encourage adding dowel pins to the starter block so you can reinstall it later w/o any alignment issues.
Thanks for the responses. I thought that a sbc with aluminum heads is about the same weight as a 3800sc, and the 3800 is what I was thinking of going with until I found the v8 kit. Also by balance you are referring to weight distribution right? couldn't I just have springs, shocks, sway bars, and tire widths that are set up for a more rear biased weight distribution that the stock set up and the balance would be fine, or is it more difficult than that?
if you're studying automotive engineering, why take on a swap with a kit? use the school your going to and make something a little different. Maybe a direct injection 3.6 or something of the like.
------------------ "I am not what you so glibly call to be a civilized man. I have broken with society for reasons which I alone am able to appreciate. I am therefore not subject to it's stupid laws, and I ask you to never allude to them in my presence again."
SBC/Getrag is about the same weight as a 3800SC/4T65e-hd.
I would assume that stat would be with iron heads. So still an aluminum headed sbc would weigh the same as a a 3800sc? Also exploring a new swap like a 3.6 seems like it would take a lot of trial and error which translates into money and I think that the machine shop on campus doesn't like people working on their own projects. My senior year I have to come up with a project to do an if I might do something fun like a new swap, redesigning the suspension, or carbon fiber something with the fiero, but I'm not sure yet.
Do you want to run a built up sbc ( for more revs/power) or a TPI? Tpi runs out of air @4500. None of the mantrans have a 1st gear that is good with a V8. It is not just the engine weight. you will have more exhaust, bigger brakes, bigger rims/tires with the 3800/sbc. The kit is just a small part of what it takes.
How would the tbi run out at 4500 rpm? When using the right injectors enough fuel wouldn't be an issue. Are there not a lot of intakes for tbi that are set up for high rpm? I'd be surprised if that was the case. Also, I got tires covered, suspension and brakes hopefully will be coming before summer. I will be building everything up to support the added power, but still theoretically a fiero with any engine should be "balanced" when the suspension is tuned correctly right?
Tpi is hardly modern tech. The last tpi(tuned port injection) was made around 1992.
If you want something modern, build it with a modern engine platform. If you just want a faster car there are cheaper routes for a college student.
If you want a v8, go for it. I have most of the parts to do a 3800. But I want an ls4, so that's what I bought. It's been sitting in my garage for a year now. I go fishing too much.
If you want to build a SBC to pull strong to 6K RPM and beyond to better match the available gear ratios in the manual transmissions, then stay away from the TPI. You could convert a 4 barrel carb intake to fuel injection (like the edelbrock Pro-Flo setup), modify an LT1/LT4 intake, run the HSR intake, TPIS Miniram, RamJet PFI intake, an aftermarket hilborn setup, or a Pro-Flow XT.
If this is for an engineering type class, you might want to do a manual transmission LS4 swap as there are a lot more packaging/engineering solutions you have to work through than basically bolting a swap together. N*/manual transmission would be another good one.
Edelbrock Pro-Flo 4 barrel PFI intake
Holley Stealth Ram (modified to flip the plenum and run coil per plug with LS1 ecm/24X)
Sorry, I accidentally wrote tbi instead of tpi. If I did an older sbc, I would want fuel injection in general and I guess thats what I'm trying to say when I say I want tpi because I thought that was GM's way of saying a fuel injectors in the runners of the intake. How much money would I have to put into a ls4/f40 swap. This is probably what I would want most, but I feel like it is also very expensive because its an ls motor and a transmission that there seems to be not a lot of.
[This message has been edited by tim55445 (edited 01-24-2015).]
Originally posted by tim55445: How much money would I have to put into a ls4/f40 swap. This is probably what I would want most, but I feel like it is also very expensive because its an ls motor and a transmission that there seems to be not a lot of.
The cost of the LS4/F40 swap depends on how much you pay for the engine, how complete it is, how many performance upgrades you do to the engine, and how much of the custom parts needed for the swap you can make yourself.
The LS4 is the stepchild of the LS family and they are comparably priced to the 5.3L truck engine, but are all aluminum. Excluding the performance upgrade parts my LS4/F40 swap cost me about $4100 including the price of the LS4 engine ($1K) and F40 transmission, but that does not include all my fabrication time to make the needed parts (like flywheel, starter mount, engine/transmission mounts, accessory drive, custom intermediate shaft and tripod, etc.). With all the performance and cosmetic upgrades and HP tuners, I have over $8K in the swap.
Originally posted by fieroguru: If this is for an engineering type class, you might want to do a manual transmission LS4 swap as there are a lot more packaging/engineering solutions you have to work through than basically bolting a swap together. N*/manual transmission would be another good one.
I couldn't agree more, if you're buying a kit, you're not really engineering much. there are also swaps like the LZ4 or LZ9 3500/3900 engines. these are the final eveolution of the 60V6 that came in the fiero stock, but with updates like better heads, VVT, and DBW throttle. you could use a stock transmission, or an F40 if you want to go 6 speed. this route would be a bit simpler than the LS4 or N* because it's a smaller package that fits a bit better, but still let you design mounting solutions and possibly accessory drive configurations,
the 3900 produced as much power as a L67, and almost as much as an L32 (3800sc series II and III).
------------------ "I am not what you so glibly call to be a civilized man. I have broken with society for reasons which I alone am able to appreciate. I am therefore not subject to it's stupid laws, and I ask you to never allude to them in my presence again."
The whole point of the kit was to start small and get my foot into the door of engine swaps and work on my practice skills and knowledge of working on and customizing cars. However, I am starting to like the ls4 f40 swap but I have no background in custom fabrication except for a project in a class making a "piston pen holder" using a lathe and mill and doing one 3 inch bead of welding. How much skill would it require to custom fabricate the parts it looks like I will need to make like the flywheel and axles for ls4 swap?
Originally posted by tim55445: I have no background in custom fabrication except for a project in a class making a "piston pen holder" using a lathe and mill and doing one 3 inch bead of welding. How much skill would it require to custom fabricate the parts it looks like I will need to make like the flywheel and axles for ls4 swap?
Without the ability to do A LOT of machining and other custom fabrication (cutting steel and welding up brackets), the LS4/F40 swap becomes much more expensive. It takes a lot of custom work. It is not an easy swap and only 2 LS4/F40 swaps have been completed at this point + one LS4/NSX 5 speed swap.
Given your background and skills, I would suggest doing a 3400, 3500 or 3900 swap using a stock fiero manual transmission. Keeping the stock Fiero transmission, greatly simplifies the swap down to just the engine side of things and swapping in a much newer 60 degree V6 would keep the custom parts at a minimum, but the technical challenge would keep keeping it OBD2 to maximize the fuel economy benefits. There would still be a little fabrication in the engine mounts, dogbone and exhaust, but you should be able to get them done.
Dang, you got my kind hooked on the ls4/f40 now haha. So id need custom built axles, flywheel, and brackets for the engine mounts and accessories? Axles seem complicated and would need to be balanced? Are these not good things to learn on and how difficult is making an axle that can withstand an ls4
Dang, you got my kind hooked on the ls4/f40 now haha. So id need custom built axles, flywheel, and brackets for the engine mounts and accessories? Axles seem complicated and would need to be balanced? Are these not good things to learn on and how difficult is making an axle that can withstand an ls4
I don't really see axles as a big deal, get the right joints, measure the length you'll need for the shaft, and have moser or any other axle maker put the right splines on a shaft to accommodate the joints.
------------------ "I am not what you so glibly call to be a civilized man. I have broken with society for reasons which I alone am able to appreciate. I am therefore not subject to it's stupid laws, and I ask you to never allude to them in my presence again."
Option 1: Get some stock G6/F40 axles, swap the outer CV ends to Fiero, measure for the needed shaft lengths, call up any number of places and have new inner shafts made. You will likely have about $400 in the axles using this method time.
Option 2: I used a 96 Corsica axle and made a custom tripod housing (from parts of a Fiero tripod housing and an F40 tripod for the splined shaft) for the DS and extended the intermediate shaft on the PS so I could use a stock G6/F40 axle shaft. My method required more machining/welding, but my axle shafts are stock GM parts, so are easy to replace if I snap one 500 miles from home.
Other parts that will need fabricating: 1 Alternator bracket Rework accessory drive (idlers and tensioner) for new alternator placement 2 Engine mounts 2 Transmission mounts 1 Flywheel with matching clutch for proper spline engagement and HTOB range of motion 1 Starter Mount (and clearance machining to the transmission) 1 Shifter bracket (and reverse lockout, if using the 5 speed shifter, or modify a 4 speed shifter) 1 Connector for the clutch hydraulics 1 Intermediate bearing support Cradle crossmember modification for oil filter Mods to the coolant fill on the water pump, or run a remote thermostat and electric water pump Exhaust
Then you get to the fuel/coolant plumbing and wiring...
What about the Cadillac 4.9 v8? I'd want something with at least 300 crank hp if not more and that motor isn't close to that so could I then make a custom intake and intake or whatever the limiting factor for power is on those motors and have my own engineering project that is an easier and cheaper swap than an ls4 and it would weigh about the same.
What about the Cadillac 4.9 v8? I'd want something with at least 300 crank hp if not more and that motor isn't close to that so could I then make a custom intake and intake or whatever the limiting factor for power is on those motors and have my own engineering project that is an easier and cheaper swap than an ls4 and it would weigh about the same.
I would stay away from the 4.9 in any kind of performance build.
------------------ "I am not what you so glibly call to be a civilized man. I have broken with society for reasons which I alone am able to appreciate. I am therefore not subject to it's stupid laws, and I ask you to never allude to them in my presence again."
What about the Cadillac 4.9 v8? I'd want something with at least 300 crank hp if not more and that motor isn't close to that so could I then make a custom intake and intake or whatever the limiting factor for power is on those motors and have my own engineering project that is an easier and cheaper swap than an ls4 and it would weigh about the same.
3800sc 3800sc 3800sc 3800sc
You seem hung up on this v8 thing but what you say you want out of a swap seems to match the 3800sc with mild mods.
I know the 3800 checks all the boxes, but I like v8s. This also started out as a topic on what I should know before I purchase a really cheap Archie v8 kit and before that I was considering the 3800sc because it is the most economical at the levels of performance it produces. In a perfect world I would want a v8 because there is something sexy about v8s, but it may not end up being the right choice for me.
I know the 3800 checks all the boxes, but I like v8s. This also started out as a topic on what I should know before I purchase a really cheap Archie v8 kit and before that I was considering the 3800sc because it is the most economical at the levels of performance it produces. In a perfect world I would want a v8 because there is something sexy about v8s, but it may not end up being the right choice for me.
Build what you want. There is a lot of really great advice form members here, but there are some very strong and opinionated people who will pretty much badger you into seeing it their way. Often they don't realize that your budget or skill may not match theirs, or that you just might have a completely different idea about what you want. Often respect for the simple desires of the builder or question-asker are over-shadowed by opinions on "what's best" in theirs. I have to emphasize that there's some great info to be had, but you just sort of have to sift through all the info. I started a thread about my own SBC build and was inundated with opinions assertions and insistence. I took some of the advice and discarded the rest. I'm appreciative for the info and advice, and am glad I made some of the choices I did based on much of that advice, but in the end, you have to drive what you build, not anyone else, it needs to make YOU happy. As for the build, it will largely depend on what's in the kit you're buying. I actually bought a drop-out assembly that had everything I needed. It's not that I couldn't do the fabrication work, I just wanted to focus on building the engine and not have to worry about engineering a bunch of stuff. At the risk of sounding cliche, use the search feature to scour the forum for SBC build threads, there's a hundred of them. By the time you finish reading through them you should be able to formulate for yourself what you want to build and how to approach it. my personal preference was a simple high performance carb setup, 383 torque monster. One piece of advice I took was to look at a vortec roller block. I did resist as I wasn't too familiar with them, but after doing some research I went that route. but the rest I stuck to my guns and built it the way I wanted. You should do the same.
Thanks for all the replies. I started wondering what I should know before I buy a sbc kit and now Im debating all sorts of swaps again haha. I guess I'll just research some more and figure out what I really want to do.
