ModPog84z28

hey all, ive got a 91 firebird (getting the camaro front conversion wrapped up) and im debating on whether i should take the 454/4 spd combo i traded for and drop it in the bird while the body parts are off.

ill actually be getting the drive train from a mid-late 70's 2wd pickup (cant remember the exact year, ill have to get the title back out and look at it.) and it was rebuilt about 3 years ago then parked. im going to disassemble it and go through everything to make sure its all in working order, and if its not ill to as basic a rebuild as i can on it. all i traded for the whole thing was a set of subs and an amp (the kid doesnt know what hes got sitting there)

neway, if neone has some info that would be great, it is a true Chevy BB, not an olds etc. ive read and heard that makes the swaps more tollerable.

im a decent fabricator, so if i get the headers then ill be doing the rest of the exhaust, and the the car will have the minimal creature comforts, so no A/C, smog parts, etc. just power steering and maybe power brakes, depending on if i get the hydro boost setup im considering.

basically i need to know about the engine mounts, the oil pan, and if i should go with an aftermarket rad. i know theyre almost always better, but if i can get by, by fabbing up something for another radiator, then ill do that. ill get a aluminum hi-flow water pump, and probably run the electric fans but may upgrade them. plus im thinking an edelbrock air-gap will do nicely. while i have the engine inbetween vehicles id like to do a cam swap (pref. a roller cam), pushrods, roller rockers, valve springs/retainers, and the intake stuff.

so sorry for the long post, but if anyone has any info of help, hit me up, tell me what you think. and yes ive done several searches and theyve helped some, but id like some app specific knowledge. thanks! ME=

Atilla the Fun

if your '91 came with a V8, you can just use those mounts on the 454. As for the oilpan, it will hit, so plan on a passenger car oilpan, like maybe a '70.5-'72 Camaro 402 pan.

AmorgetRS

iTrader: (6)

You already have power brakes, it isn't too tough to hook the vaccume line up to the booster, so not sure why'd you want to do something like that.

On the plus side, the Camaro front end will have a little more clearance for the air cleaner...

Atilla the Fun

stock 454 valve covers will clear both the stock heater box and the stock power brake booster. You'd need a pretty wild cam to need the hydroboost, and those truck heads are all done by 4500 rpm, even with a big cam.

AlkyIROC

Depends what truck heads. Many have the 781 oval port castings. With some bigger valves and a mild P&P, the heads will perform well.

The truck transmission won't work. It's too big but also depends on the exact model. A Muncie 465 is the truck tranny. It will have L,1,2,3 and R on the shifter. I doubt a pickup truck, even one from the 70's will have a car manual transmission. There's also the problem of the clutch linkage. Non third gen bellhousing have the linkage coming off the side of the bellhousing. This would put it right about where the gas pedal is.

Transmission pan may or may not work. Plan on getting what's normally called a Chevelle pan.

There's a sticky at the top of the engine swap forum explaining what's required to do a BBC swap into a third gen.

ModPog84z28

ok the power brakes i meant to be power steering :S was sleeping on that one. the oilpan is good to know that i can get it, prolly go with moroso. the mounts are good to know, ill prolly replace them with poly's or solids, not sure yet. the hydro boost i may just get to have it, i hear it performs well and then if i up the performance in the future i dont have to worry about vacuum.

the heads i may look into fluffing a bit when i have the engine apart, but im waiting to see what i got exactly. i have yet to check the casting #'s but thats gonna get done soon. i dont know if the truck has the stock running gear, but it looks like it used to be an old cruiser truck, lowered a bit and a nice leather interior. but i dont know if the stuff under the hood is stock or what. if the manual tranny dont fit, ive to a built 700r4, but i really want to keep the manual if i can, i miss shifting

thanks for all the help so far, how bout the rad? when i do the front end swap, im gonna try to open up the front bumper to flow a lil more air to the rad area, but id really like to not have to blow 500 bux or more on a spendy rad. ill see what i can do i guess, and if thats where ive gotta blow money, thats where i gotta do it. better there than on the wheels :P

neway, keep hittin me with advice, ill appreciate it all. thanks!

ModPog84z28

plus, on the engine mounts, ive heard that the engine must be moved forward due to the bigger size of the big blocks, or will it already be in the correct spot with the stock mounts? also, i was thinkin around a 750 DP or the like for a carb, itll be just better than stock for mods prolly. depending on what tranny i use, i may change rear gears or just swap the rear end, or both :S well see. thanks!

noboostnogo

iTrader: (4)

i dont know if i missed this somewhere but whats your goal? what is the car going to be used for?? Daily driver? Street/strip? shows? drag?

Atilla the Fun

I dropped a '94 Suburban's 454 into my '84 Trans Am, using the '84 305 mounts, the stock '94 454 valve covers and oil pan. I took the precaution of removing the wiper motor first. I bolted the 454 to a 700R-4, then eased it into the car.
The oilpan was hard against the K-frame/crossmember, but it all went in. I pulled it, massaged the truck oilpan with a hammer, and reinstalled it. No trouble at all. The thing cleared my stock heater box, (it has a/c) and was well clear of the power brake booster. The 700r-4 pas perfectly lined up with it's mounting. The driveshaft and torque arm went right in. So, I called it a day. Due to the snow, no progress since then, so I'm prepping a truck 5.3L LS to go in there instead.

ModPog84z28

no, noboostnogo, you didnt miss it anywhere, i just forgot to state it. this cars purpose will be my weekend warrior/street-strip/show car. although im not looking for massive amounts of power, the 454 does give me a significant increase over a 305, plus i just like the idea of a BB in a third gen. its not gonna be a daily driver, ive got a pickup for that.

Atilla, thats good to know that your swap was fairly painless, however im concerned with mine going as smoothely cuz my motor is so much older than yours. im sure the 454 design has been refined in later years a bit, but if im wrong let me know and that may help with my confidence! i think im gonna go with an aftermarket oil pan neway, try to get a couple more quarts of oil capacity. valve covers sound good, motor mounts sound good, so i think im pretty well set on most of my info.

also gonna do poly front/rear bushings and end links, along with some new struts/shocks and might looks for some stiffer springs. ive also been considering a launch bag for the rear, for whenever i do take it too the track.

the truck 4 speed thing has me worried, and ive seen a couple members who have t-56's hooked up to their BB's. if this turns out to be a muncie i may have to see if i can trade the tranny or sell it and buy a 6 speed, cus that would help imensely on the gas mileage part, plus i love the idea of shifting through 6 gears while freewaying it to the stip

im pretty sure it wont work, but i was wondering about modifying my front acc. serpentine drive to work with the BB but not sure if ill have the space or if i can even make it work. neone ever tried this? if i can make it work, ill just keep all the acc, even the a/c so i wont have to go through and delete that. finding the a/c delete plate for my 84 was a nightmare, so i ended up making a sheetmetal one.

thanks again all, hit me up with some rad ideas!

Atilla the Fun

The accessory brackets from the 305 are out of the question. as for the oilpan, the truck pan is what I had on hand, not what i'd prefer, but it does hold more oil than the chevelle or '70.5-'72 Camaro pan. As for fit, your valve covers are a different shape, but no taller or wider. The mounting pads never moved, the distance from the bellhousing face to the center of the mount bosses is the same for all '55-up SBC (except LS) and all '65-up BBC, so no worries there. None of the updates GM made to the 454 affect installation into your car.

AlkyIROC

The BBC is a longer block than a SBC (wider bore spacing) but the transmission position doesn't change. The engine mounts are the same distance from the transmission bellhousing on a SBC and BBC. The BBC is longer but the mounts don't change.

If you're not building a huge amount of HP, the factory rad will do but a nice aftermarket aluminum one will help. I ran a factory rad with my first BBC and didn't have any problems.

Get block and head casting numbers before making a purchase.

ModPog84z28

yea i could only hope for so much with the accessory brackets...oh well, ill work that out...good to know that the older block hasnt changed much for the install and that the mounts are standard for them all, something done right! (now if theyd only welded the engine mount nuts on the inside of the front K-member, so we didnt have to take the A-arm off or fish them in!)

i believe the rad thats in the car is stock replacment aluminum one, and right now the car has a 190 thermo and runs very kewl all the time, 180-195 max. so that might be ok with a hi-perf water pump. the fans i think i can wire up to the new engine after i take the whole other drive train out.

ive already "purchased" the whole vehicle. i traded the kid a set of 6 year old subwoofers and a cheap radio shack amp for it (never seen someone so giddy :S) so if this engine isnt ideal, or even if it needs redone, its still not a bad trade in my book. plus my car runs ok, and i have a pickup to drive as well, so im not out on transportation while i do all this.

im prolly gonna end up doing a cage in this car myself to strengthen it up, as ive been reading that the SFC's just dont cut it with a BB. i may do both though, depending on the header situation. i plan on doing a side exhaust (no emissions here in montana, i know im gonna catch flack for it, but my old 84 didnt have any emissions devices on it, and it had a built 360 w/ headers, Y, cat delete, and 3 inch cat-back w/ an 80 series flowmaster running a 750 DP and it passed with flying colors in washington, go figure?) so i dont want them to get in the way of that, so ill be researching that some more.

thanks all! any tips or suggestions will be appreciated!

AlkyIROC

SFC and a cage/rollbar do 2 different things. A cage/rollbar doesn't tie the front and rear subframes together. Always start with SFC even if the car only runs 15 second 1/4 miles.

I had SFC from the first week I owned the car. A 6 point roll bar was installed in the second year when I was knocking on the door of an 11 second pass. The full cage went in as I was getting close to 9's a few years later.

Atilla the Fun

The Hooker 2226 headers will make side exhaust as easy as extending the collectors.

Camaro383ci

Sounds like your on the right path. When are you doing the swap? Were going to need some pics. I'd definitely go with SFC's first, spohn's are awesome. and id swap for the hydroboost without question. I just finished mine and you wouldn't believe the difference, my brakes are badass.

ModPog84z28

k, looks like it will be SFC's for sure, and maybe a cage, we'll see. i planned on going with hookers, so thats probably whats gonna go down. i also so a swap where the patriot headers were used. not big time performance headers, but he had minimal modifications and they seemed to fit really well. plus they were only 175, pretty dogone cheap. plus the hydro boost seemed like an awesome idea to begin with even if i didnt need it. thanks for the encouragment camaro383!

it may not be for a month or two yet, and it will be spread out im sure for a while, but i will get pics as i go and try to get them posted asap. ive gotta haul the truck off the mountain and then get the rest of the front end parts tracked down. plus i start work soon, and ill be gone for 12 days at a time, but at least ill be back for 3-5 days at a time as well. hope noones dissapointed at the time delay, im still doing alot of research for this and trying to track down parts. thanks for all the interest and help though!

Atilla the Fun

Yes, there are the patriot headers, but they're not really an option if you want side pipes.

ModPog84z28

is there a reason why? im gonna assume theres just no room to make a y pipe to cross over to the other side due to oil pain clearances, but i dont know for sure. i wanted to do a single exit on the passenger side right before the rear tire.

Atilla the Fun

Oh. I thought you meant real side pipes. Search through the other posts about bigblocks and you'll find pics showing where the patriots dump and where the Hookers dump. Basically, the patriots dump right against the bellhousing, while the hookers snake outside the subframe kind of like how the stock y-pipe does.

ModPog84z28

ok, so i got the head #'s the other day, despite having to hike 1/2 a mile in 3 feet of snow to get to this truck, and then shoveling 3 feet of snow off of it (montana winters suck...). the head #'s are 336781, which come out on mortec.com as: 73-85 head w/ 118cc open chambers, oval port, and 256/114cc int/exh ports, originally off of a 454. so these should be some pretty good street heads so my research tells me. with a bit of fluffing on the ports, bowls and chambers, they should be pretty dang good. the inside of the heads looked really clean and in pretty good shape, which boosts my confidence that the engine was rebuilt. the lifter valley also looked good, aside from a very small amount of surface rust being faught off by the residual engine oil. the lifters and pushrods all looked to be in really good condition as well.

unfortunately thats all the more info i could get, cuz i cant get under the thing right now to check the tranny, and the block # has this convenient lil firewall piece that hangs right over it. poop...also, there is no A/C on the engine, so ill either retro-fit what ive got, or delete it, no big.

on another plus note, i discovered that the truck is a trailer hauler edition with a stock GVW of 10,000 pounds, so all the drivetrain should be able to handle a good amount of power, kinda kewl :P. also, it already has a hydro-boost setup on it, which i plan on scavenging off of it to put on my bird when i do this swap .

i can only hope when i get this thing off the mountain (prolly not gonna be for a couple months yet, till the snow melts) and take it apart, the rest of the engine looks as good as the heads did, and that whatever parts i cant use, i can sell/trade for the parts i do want or need.

neway, ill try to get more info as soon as i can. does anyone have a good recommendation for a good street/strip roller cam?

Atilla the Fun

As a matter of fact, one caught my eye as being perfect for a daily driver, I was looking through the new CompetitionProducts catalog. Solid roller, 282 duration, 0.570" lift. Says 2000-6000 rpm, fair idle, street and mild performance usage, 9:1+ $270. there are hundreds of solid rollers for BBCs, but ya gotta start somewhere, right? I found another block for my own 454 third-gen. This is the cam I'm gonna start with.

ModPog84z28

ah kewl. im pretty fond of comp cams myself, so ill have to look through their stuff, but ill check on that one you mentioned as well! the other thing is i want to go with a hydraulic roller. i know its a bit of performance lost, but id really enjoy driving the car and not adjusting the valves constantly. guess ill see what i can do!

Atilla the Fun

My gripe with COMP is their current line of Xtreme energy retrofit hydraulic roller cams for the BBC all stop at like 0.510" lift, for no good reason. The solution: order one with older lobes. They claim they're good for big-inch marine, which means they're stable at sustained high rpm. For example, lobe number 3122 has a duration at 0.050" of 236, yet the lift with stock 1.7:1 rockers is 0.646" instead of the XE lobe's 0.520" BBC heads need lift. Look at the flow numbers for any BBC head. Same 2 lobes as above, duration at 0.200" is 147 for the low-lift, and 160 for the high lift. Those new lobes are giving up cylinder filling. Probably best to ask Billy Godbold himself about this. Me, I'd just order lobe 3122 for both the intake and exhaust. I'm not a big fan of a rough idle, so I'd order mine on a 114 lobe sep.

AlkyIROC

My solid roller race cam has .748 lift. With a 112* LSA, it idles very smooth at 1200 rpm. No lumpy idle. Without the race mufflers, the exhaust noise is deafening even at an idle.

ModPog84z28

ok well thats good to know about Comp, Atilla, ill have to check when i get to ordering parts. im not a fan of a ruff idle either, i want as smooth as i can get while not killing my performance side. ill have to call whoever i order the cam from and chit-chat a bit to get the right one for me. im starting work in 2 weeks, so ill be on the road alot, but about midway through the summer is when i may start working on it.

im thinkin of going with a mechanical holley fuel pump, the last one i got worked really well on my SB, and if i got a bigger one i think itd work pretty good on this BB as well. ill have to work out a parts list for everyone to pick apart and make suggestions.

im guessing ill want to get as close to .600" lift or better for decent performance in a BB, not really familiar with them, but ive been reading and researching what i can. Stephen, how often do you have to re-adjust with your solid lifters? mine would be a 3/7 day driver at the most probably with more track trips than nething, so would a hydro-roller be better if i dont always wanna fool with adjustments and lash?