As some of you may remember a while ago I was looking at putting a 283 into my 1991 s10, long story short, plans fell through, and I ended up having to sell the 283. I got it for free, but put some new performance parts on it. I broke even.

Now I just picked up a excellent running 350 cui, out of a 1982 van. Not a high performer by any means, compared to some 350's out of other vehicles, but hey, in a little s10 it'll go like a rocket. The van was an old district vehicle around here, hardly ever used but extremely well maintained, I talked to it's former mechanic and he said it's one of the best running v8's he's seen in a long time.
Anyways, heres the truck


And the motor/Trans...the boxes in the background are all my 3.4 pushrod parts for my Fiero, but thats a winter project..




I'll be updating this as I go along if anyones interested. Basically it is a stock 1982 350cui mated to an NV3500 5 speed transmission from a 4.3 2wd s10. The only modifictations to the motor are 4bl carb, and headers and custom exhaust. I'll see how that does power wise, and If I find my self craving more, i'll take care of it next summer.

[This message has been edited by Disillusion (edited 06-01-2007).]

cool. how hard of a swap is that? engine mounts? does the tranny need an adapter?

that would make a great "sleeper", run dual pipes down til the last 2 ft of the rear and some good mufflers that would hide the exhaust note.

It's not a very hard swap, ALL the essential swap parts can be ordered from summitracing.com. I've been researching it since I bough the truck last summer, and I have ridden in a buddies s10 Blazer with a 305, and that thing MOVES, so with a 350, and a truck being lighter than a Blazer, it should be quite the little rocket.

I'm sure I will run into snag, but it is about as well documented as Fiero engine swaps, and much simpler. I just need the engine mounts and frame mounts, and custom swap headers to clear the steering rack, all of which I have. I don't need a trans adapter because the NV3500 has a the 4.3/v8 bell housing, and was used on full size (chev/gmc 1500 ) trucks with 305s. Doing all the work myself I'm into it for about 800$ for the trans, complete motor, motor and frame mounts, and headers. The only thing I have left to buy is an adjustable fuel pressure regulator, and a clutch and pressuer plate. So about 2-300$ more and that will be all I will need to get it driving. Everything after that is just fun add ons, which, like I said, I will do later if I feel the need. From what I read now, the transmission will be the weak point, the stock rear end can hold a lot of power apparently(300+ ft lbs)

[This message has been edited by Disillusion (edited 05-31-2007).]

Ok I have never worked on an engine attached to a automatic transmission before. How the fstarck do I unhook the trans from the motor (in this case TH400 trans from a 350V8). I took the bottom shield off that covers the flex plate, and theres 3 bolts I can see holding the flex plate on, but when I try and get them off they are on so tight it just turns the flywheel...man I hate auto trans...

You can pull the trans and leave the torque converter attached to the flex plate.
There are tools that attach to the starter ring gear that will keep it from turning, or you can try a big screw driver.
When you reinstall it dont install it with the torque converter attached you could destroy your front pump in the tranny.

There may be some holes on the flex-plate to jamb a screw driver through to keep the plate from turning.

Thanks guys. I'm returning the auto trans to the guy I got the motor off, he just didn't have time to seperate them before I picked the motor up. I'm going with a 5speed trans once I get this Th400 off..

dont try to just pull it apart, get the 3 flexplate bolts undone. they might be stuck in nice, but just hold the flywheel with a screwdriver wedged somewhere.

They make a tool that holds onto the flexplate, but I doubt you would need it.

Yea, I know not to just pull it off, I just need to get the stupid plate to stop moving..i'm going back to the shop and bringing a big screwdriver and seeing if I can get it to stay in place while I get those nasty bolts undone...I soaked them pretty good with some liquid wrench stuff so hopefully they'll play nice today.

this was my plan when i had my 1991 s-10...BUUUUT....plans changed when i found my fiero and sold the truck to pay for it

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1991 Geo Prizm - daily driver
1986 Pontiac Fiero SE
1991 Chevrolet S-10 - sold

I win!!!..Got the th400 off, and it's sitting on my shop floor waiting for the owner to come pick it up!





Now all I have left to do hook it up to the 5 speed, and put headers on and it's ready to go in!

Once you get it running and want more, think about swapping on a set of Edelbrock heads. Worth a bunch of horsepower over the stock crap heads from that era. I put a set of Performer heads (emissions legal) on a 85 vette engine I rebuilt for a customer and they just completely woke that car up. According to my dyno program they were worth 70 horsepower over the stock heads without changing cams or the stock tpi intake... so they improved the power that drastically under 5500rpm. Car went from being a pretty turd to having power that matched the looks without losing any reliability... even got better gas mileage, apparently he didn't have to put his foot into as much to make it move.

Hmm, i'll keep that in mind, they pop up forsale cheap around here every now and again...Right now I just want it in and running, so I can turn my attention back to the 3.4 pushrod swap I'm doing for my Fiero

gotta love the 4.3 just 2 cylinders from a 350 makes things so nice for swaps.

Years ago I had my 74 Vega Sedan(has a trunk...not the hatchback) that I put a 350ci/300hp sbc in with some LT-1 parts added. TH350 trans with the valvebody reworked to a 8&3/4 inch Chrysler rear with 3.23:1 posi.
That thing ran like stink! It would push you 2 or 3 inches back in the seat until you got off the pedal. And that was on (old school) E-78/14 Bias Ply tires.
It was a ton-o-fun to drive. If you did`nt feather in the secondaries you could play like John Force!

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Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Got my headers/collectors put together and on the motor. Checked for clearance on the plugs and wires..it's a tight fight, but it works...I'm making some new heat shields tommorow, the old ones were pretty brittle, and don't fit with the headers.




What of all this crap on top of the motor can I get rid of, I've seen a lot less hoses/wires on carb'd V8's before. And emissions is 0 conceren here, so anything that is not 100% essential to the engine running good I want to get rid of.
(I have higher res photos if needed)

[This message has been edited by Disillusion (edited 06-05-2007).]

So long time no update, mainly because I have no pictures at the moment cause my camera dissapeared. But the engine and trans and everything's all In and hooked up, the only thing left to do Is figure out what I'm going to do for fuel hoses, and then change the oil, put coolant in it, and cross my fingers and hope it starts!

If anyone reading this has a v8 s10, can you grab me a couple pictures of under the hood, mainly where the fuel lines/rad hoses are hooked up. Just want to make sure mine looks 'normal' before I try and start it and spray gas/coolant everywhere.

Here are some pics to keep ya motivated ! This is my S-10 blazer with a 327.









Now get to wrenching !

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ARCHIES JUNK IS FASTER THAN SHAUNNA'S JUNK

Awesome, Just the motivation I needed. Didn't get any work today, I was racing Hornet cars at the local track, but tommorow will definantly get some wrench time in once I get my fiero back from the alignment shop.

I did one of these conversion years ago. Witha 3.73 non-posi rear end, a 350 under the hood, and an 350TH, I was turning 14.4's in the quarter. It was a heck of a lot of fun to drive. The trick with them is to get traction.

TPI in my 90 S10, been there since the truck had only 100mi on it. backed witha Tremic TKO 5sp and 12 bolt posi w 30 spline axles w 285/18's on the rears... ITFLYZ!

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still plays with cars..

I have a couple questions on the wiring. Mine is carb'd so it's not a lot of wires. I have all the ones wired from the s10 fuse block to the V8 I need to run the gauges, read the temp and check engine and, battery and alternator. Do I need the wires that were on the 350 aside from the ones going from the distributor to the ign coil? And then wire the dist to the fuse block or what? thats the only part I'm stuck on really wiring wise. Because thats the only wire I can see that I'd actually need out of the v8 harness, all the other wires left over were run from the van the motor came out of to it's fuse block, or were for emissions control things.

Also, how do I seperate hydraulic lines. I need a new slave cyl on my trans but can't get the old one seperated from the old slave. On every other car i've done it's been a threaded piece, on this one it's like a little hollow pin holding it on.

* I ask all these questions on the truck forum, but everyone just tells me to search it, and when I search it, it just brings up page upon page of the same question and the people just telling them to search*

[This message has been edited by Disillusion (edited 07-27-2007).]

check this place out. it may help you more than here.

http://www.s10forum.com/forum/index.php?s=

Yea, I am a member there, they aren't nearly as helpful as the Fiero forum lol. Lots of arguments start out because people say one thing someone doesn't agree with or that they did differently and the question hardly ever gets answered. I did start the truck however today, turned over and then stopped, I think it may be my battery..

The only wiring i have in mine is the essencials. Gauge senders, Coil power wire, Starter and alt. wires and electric fans. I do not have A/C so i tried to remove as many wires as i could for the A/C. My blazer originally had the carbed 2.8 so my wiring was minimal to begin with. I'm sure the guy who did the initial 350 swap into it would have left everything because they did a sh!t job. I hardly had to remove any wires when i swaped in the 327. Just replaced the current starter , alternator wires and added a good engine ground. I just welded in an O2 bung and ran the wires for the sender . I'll have an air/fuel ratio gauge hooked up shortly. This will help me tune the carb to get it in the ball park before i take it down to a dyno and run it. I just noticed last night that i broke my poly engine mount. . . . . those damn 1-2 shifts are killer

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ARCHIES JUNK IS FASTER THAN SHAUNNA'S JUNK

Yea, I went back, redid my wiring, still nothing. On a whim I took the battery out of my fiero and tried it again. The truck battery was dead. It fires' up and runs, but I need a new carb, this one leaks a bit of gas near the throttle which is odd...

quote Originally posted by Disillusion: Yea, I am a member there, they aren't nearly as helpful as the Fiero forum lol. Lots of arguments start out because people say one thing someone doesn't agree with or that they did differently and the question hardly ever gets answered. I did start the truck however today, turned over and then stopped, I think it may be my battery..

i don't ever go over there either, I have a friend who put mine together and is truely a SBC Guru and is very good with the S10 swap, There are alot of V8 S-10's out there and not to many of them done right... I have seen a lot of accidents waiting to happen... I'm using an Accel ECM to run the TPI and the Stock one is still in there to taking up space..

This is my first engine swap, and it's an old, but good running motor and trans. I figured I'd rather be 1000$ into a project and have something break than 8000$ with new everything and then have something break. Once I have this all good and running and tuned, i'll see how I like it and then probably go through and make everything look like it came from the factory, fuel injected engine with the ecm from whatever vehicle I get the motor from, a stronger trans and strong posi rear end.

I got it running today like I mentioned, but it shoots flames out the headers(no exhaust on it yet) and the old crappy Rochester carb is leaking gas near the spring on the throttle. I'll be replacing the carb with a more...performance oriented one thats new, and getting the exhaust made up before I try and start it up again.

I still need to hook up the clutch hydraulics, but have no clue how to seperate the lines..I'm at the point where I may just have it towed to a shop and get them to finish up the little odds and ends and do some tuning. my rent term on the garage is coming up shortly, and I don't really want to sign a lease (new owners of the property) for a year when I only need like a month or 2. None of my friends are mechanically inclined, So everything i've done so far has been on my own.

It's frusturating because I'm so close, yet it seems like I have more work ahead of me now than when the old 4cyl was still in the truck.

Well, progress sort of. I am getting the clutch hooked up when I get the exhaust made so thats a big load off the shoulders. All that I have left to do before it goes off to the shop is clean up the wiring, and figure out grounds, right now it's not getting enough juice to turn the radio and headlights on at the same time. If it's not that then my alternator or battery is bad again. I did take some pictures though!

Wiring mess! I'm getting it all running and grounded good, then I will tidy up the wiring


The truck. It's dirty as sin and greasy to boot from sitting for 2 months almost. I did a 2" front 3" rear lowering kit on it, because the old suspension was shot, and a lowering kit was cheaper than stock stuff for some reason


I know the tires have gone a bit flat..er a lot flat. I need some nice wheels to fill out the wheel gap when I recoupe a bit of finances!