Cascade Crew

[alloy]

Ok, the little “05” is getting pretty tired. I’ve been looking at rebuilding it, or replacing it with the 350 I have out of a 91 caprice cop car. Has the truck block, oil cooler provision, and 4 bolt mains. I drove the car home before pulling it apart.

Since I have the 305 in my car now I’ve been doing a lot of reading on TGO and other places about swapping in a 350. Seems everyone that has a 3rd gen has got an opinion on what to do when converting from a 305 to a 350. And from all the inconsistencies it seems the opinions are like rear ends, everyone that has a 3rd gen has one……..if you catch my drift.

I’ve read you can just turn up the fuel pressure, others say use 22lb. injectors and switch to a 350 chip for your year of car, and use the 350 knock sensors. Well, problem is 350’s never came in front of a T5, so no off the shelf chip is available. Then, there is the cam question. Should I use my 87 TPI peanut cam, or go with the cam in the 350, or……..swap cams completely. Everyone there seems to be out for the most power, and yes I agree power is good, but so is the 21.5 mpg city/highway I’m getting now. I kinda like that with the $3 price per gallon of gas. I was also considering vortec heads, but seems they benefit higher rpm power instead of low end grunt. I like good low end, and if I get the new job that’s been offered to me, I’ll have weekends off to get back to autocrossing and track days.

My kid is thinking of buying another pickup (a chevy…..I’m sooooo proud of him ) and if he does I’ll have his old S10 to run around in while my car is down. So this gives me time to pocket port the heads, clean the flashing off the block, paint the inside of it.......and son on. I’d love the 50 extra cubes the 350 will give me, but I’ve tried working on chip programming before and it’s not my bag at all.

So…….crewbies…….talk to me. What are my options? Can I get around the chip programming problem somehow so I can go with the 350……or should I say a "355" after the bore job?

[Twilightoptics]

Lots of people, like Tony, swap a T5 for the old 700R4 on the 350 cars with no problems.

For a 350 you SHOULD use 22lb/hr injectors. You CAN buy a $70 AFPR and crank the pressure up to around IIRC 55+PSI, which will decrease the lifespan of your pump. Plus you really have to guess with the pressure to get it "just right."

I may have an '87 Camaro 350 chip.

You'll need a 350 Knock sensor.

The rest is the same.

As far as cam's go... I might think about trying to find someone with a stock L98 Cam. I wonder if Mike still has his from when he put the Hot Cam in? If so he might consider selling it.



The easiest way to do things is go stock for stock with the 350. You could do vortec heads, but you'll need some pretty major tuning. Same with any other cam.

[alloy]

I already have a Holley AFPR, and the knock sensors off the 350 also. I also have a fuel pump out of a Syclone in my car already. So I'm guessing it's a little better than the standard pump.

And yes Mike if you have the L98 cam I'd be interested. Was actually thinking along those lines even if I kept the 305.

And if you have the 350 chip Paul, what would be involved in changing it for a manual trans? Or just run it as is like Tony did as you mentioned. This is my daily and I don't want to have a problem child on my hands especially if I get my new job.

If I can go with the 350, I'd like that a lot better for a number of reasons, one of which is less down time. An S10 is ok to drive, but it's not an IROC by any means. (I'm spoiled I guess.....old guys get like that after awhile) Pull the 305 out and have the 350 in and running in a day or two since the 350 would be completely done except for swapping intakes and accessories over.

I've not done any research on heads yet either I hate to admit. I'd bet the 305 has smaller valves and probably combustion chambers that the 350 heads, so more than likely best to stick with the heads off the 350 I'm assuming.

Edit: I just found these on Ebay. I'm leaving for work soon, so don't have time to see if they fit my application or not, but if they do it's a hell of a deal. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Used-set-of-8-Delphi-22-Lb-Hr-fuel-injectors_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ33554QQihZ007QQitemZ170139050131QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

I also got this yesterday. No cables with it, but I have those

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=320145925959&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=011

[Sellmanb]

Cost and downtime it'd be cheaper to swap a 350 in there. You may want to take the 350 you have now, send it to a machine shop and have the rod and main and cam bearings replaced while the motor is out (you can have them put the new cam in for you since they'd be taking the cam bearings out anyways). And just do a general inspection on the engine. That way you know the motor going into your car is in better shape than the one being taken out of it lol.

A stock L98 cam would do good for what you want it for. I think that Ian has/had an LT1 or HotCam in his car, i think he brought it to a dyno one year, and it wasnt tuned or anything and made some pretty respectable numbers and idled real nice, I couldnt even tell it was cammed until someone said something.

Just my 2 cents

[rjmcgee]

If you go with the 350 then you should find a set of the 113 aluminum Vette L98 heads. You could shave an honest 40 - 50 lbs off of the nose right there.

[aaron_sK]

[Twilightoptics]

[alloy]

[Twilightoptics]

305 vs 350 timing curves are different. Also the 350 sucks in more air at idle and IIRC the maf tables end up being a bit different because of it. I'm sure there are other changes, otherwise GM would have used the same chip 'cause they're cheap!

[alloy]

[alloy]

Ok, been checking on some 113 aluminum vette heads, and found out they don't have the exhaust crossover port in them. As I recall vettes used an external EGR valve somehow. I still have to pass DEQ, so might just stay with the iron heads unless there is an easy way to rig up the egr setup.

[Twilightoptics]

You can run an external EGR. I looked into doing this at one point. I can't remember how. Brain fart! In a nut shell they ran a tube off the exhaust manifold to the EGR. Then a tube to the intake. Would be a pretty easy fab job. Weld a small pipe to a header port, up to a remote mount EGR flange, from the same flange the pipe that would go to the intake.

I assume you're still in Clark County. EGR controls the NOx Emission and Clark doesn't test for it. Just HC and CO at idle/cruise. Might cost you half a mpg I've heard if you take it off. Something we can turn off in the chip really easily.

Yeah I've got the chip somewhere, I may even have a bin of it pulled off already.

[alloy]

I've had problems with the EGR before, took a lot of work to make it work right and not throw codes. Depending on what heads I go with, deleting it may be an option for me.

I was thinking about the 350 chip verses the 305 chip, and since the 305 has 19lb injectors, and a 350 has 22lb ones, wouldn't the 350 chip have a problem supplying the proper amount of fuel with injectors that it's not set up for??

[Twilightoptics]

When you bump the fuel pressure up, essentially you have 22lb/hr injectors.

Now with that in mind, one could change the injector constant to 19lb/hr in the chip. The problem with that, is some of the pump shot stuff may or may not use the constant. AND you can run into problems in the upper rpms with lack of fuel delivery because the pressure ends up being too low, and the computer makes no compensation at WOT.

Checkout that calculator I posted up. You put in the factory fuel pressure. Injector size, and then bump the new pressure up until you have a flow of 22 lbs/hr. It's around 58 with a stock pressure of 42ish
.

[alloy]

I did play with the calculator. It was very interesting to me. I had no idea that was anything out there like that.

So..........can I do this successfully with the 19 pound injectors???

Honestly, the more we dig into this and the more complicated it gets, the more I'm thinking rebuilding the 305 might be the best option. Throw an L98 cam in it, do some port work and call it good.

[rjmcgee]

If both the 350 or the 305 have to have full rebuilds the 350 just makes more sense. Either one will cost about the same to rebuild (350 pistons might even be cheaper than 305 pistons), but when your done the 350 will have another 30 - 40 hp for the same money. I understand this is your driver and your not looking for a drag car here, but that extra low end torque will be fun on the auto cross track. Fuel economy also shouldn't be diminished since the new 350 will work less to pull it down the road.

[rjmcgee]

[alloy]

I agree the 350 makes more sense and probably cheaper. That's if I can use my 19 pound injectors. But running out of fuel on the upper end doesn't sound good. And 22 lb injectors are around $80 each. I've done some looking and haven't found any used ones around so far. I remember reading that f*rd injectors are cheaper and are designed to run at a lower pressure and would work. I'll have to look into that when I get a chance. I'm in the planning stage now, that's why I have all these questions.

The L98 cam from looking at the specs isn't much bigger than the peanut cam I have now. So hopefully with the adaptability I've read about in the MAF system over SD I'd hope it woudn't matter much.

[Twilightoptics]

19lb/ers wont run out of fuel, at the higher pressure. it's possible they might if you just change the constant in the chip.

Roll the 350.

[alloy]