Drewmeyes88

Ok I think I'm putting this in the right forum. I have a couple questions.

First off i have a 88 firebird 350 tpi. I'm wanting to swap a 283 that is pretty built and is from my dads 74 nova. The way it sits it has about 400hp. So will all my same bracketsount up? Like power steering and I'm removing the ac and already don't have smog.

So another question is can my car handle this? I have a 96 ss camaro rear with 342 gears.

watajob

iTrader: (29)

You'll need a new flexplate as the 283 is a 2pc RMS and your 700R4 requires the 1pc RMS type on your current engine. If the heads are new enough, they'll have the holes for your serp. set up. But, if your really do have a 400HP 283, I gotta' believe it's gonna' need, like, 4.88's and a really loose stall to get it to move decently and that's a PITA on the street. It's probably a torqueless/highly strung race motor. There's a reason a DZ 302 is so rare. It was a great race motor straight from the factory but was annoying on the street. Hence, a jillion 69 Z28's w/the "newly introduced" 350. Personally, I'd sell it to some old schooler and use the proceeds to "hot up"/replace your current 350.

vetteoz

iTrader: (13)

Not much more to say unless you want a strip only car

1gary

times 3

Drewmeyes88

Thanks for the response guys. Well it has pretty good torque I'm pretty sure. I'll have to ask him. I'm putting aluminum heads on it so they should have the holes for everything. Or what is a good flowing head to use? And I have a 350 turbo transmission and I also bought 4:10 gears to put in it. I already don't drive on the highway because of the 3 speed I just want a cruiser.

vetteoz

iTrader: (13)

You don't understand
To get your claimed 400Hp from a little 283 you give up any ability to make bottom end torque.
Pure physics
motor idles @ 1500 rpm
No power until 4000 ,then kick **** until 8000

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

What are you wanting to do with the car?? Sounds like you want a strip only car to me.
You may want to do this swap with the thought of swapping the TPI 350 back in when you find out how the 283 really is. (Don't butcher the car to make swaping back easier) Im pretty sure you'll want the 350 back.
If you want a fun cruiser, just put the aluminum heads/ cam, headers and a mini ram on the 350. Maybe put the 700r4 back in it but rebuild it with a nice converter.
If you want a drag car buy a shell and put the 283 in that.

Drewmeyes88

Ok I also thought I should mention the engines camshafts power range is 1800-7200 and I have a 2200 stall. My dad used to have this engine on his street rod.

Drewmeyes88

From what I can remember it doesn't idle at 1500. It has a really lopey cam in it and just sounds amazing.

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

You can do that with the TPI motor also and have more power and torque.

Here is a link to a crappy vid of my car thru long tubes and a SLP cat back. Granted its bigger than a 400 but its about the same sound its always had. This is a friends cell vid soo the sound isn't the greatest.. thats a very slight tap of the throttle at the end. She idles at 550 rpm.
http://s894.photobucket.com/albums/a...t=IMG_0266.mp4

Drewmeyes88

So u have a built motor with tpi? I want to go carb either way because I think there is something wrong with my set up anyways. I'll find out more specs on the 283 and tell u guys.

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Its a lil built I have a mini ram on it, waaay better than a carb IMO

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Huh???
You will need to use a 2-piece rear main seal flexplate, but that doesn't have anything to do with the TH700. Most likely you'd have to use a 168-tooth flexplate in order to get a starter that would mount to the block and engage the flexplate.

Okay, let's take this from the top.

The 283 is short stroke, small bore, and this one has a 1800-7200 RPM powerband cam - all add up to "no torque". A carb may help the powerband, but it'll still be a dog, especially with 2200 stall - it would feel like you were dragging an anchor from a dead stop.

If it has old-school heads on it, your accessories won't bolt up. Hopefully it has had hardened exhaust valves & seats installed for unleaded gas, but I wouldn't assume anything.

This is a poor choice for an engine swap. I don't care what it ran like in some other car, it would not be straight-forward to install, and would be a royal pain to drive. Change your plans before you waste any time or money on this project.

Drewmeyes88

So now matter what u guys think it's a bad choice? I mean I'm gettih different heads for it and I will be pitting 4:10 gears in it. I dot understand why if it is mean in my dads 74 nova why it wouldn't be good in mine. I know he has 5:86 gears but hid is a 1/8 mile car. He didn't always have those gears.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

It's not that it's a "bad" motor; in fact, up til '63, people were ripping their 265s out of their 55s and 56s and putting "THE BIG" 283s in instead. It was the best small block that Chevy had to offer. Then it became painfully obvious that against 50 MORE CID, it stood NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER. Dollar for dollar, part for part, effort for effort, the bigger motor would STOMP on it, EVERY TIME, no questions asked, no other outcome possible, take it to the bank.

Then in 67, a motor with 23 more inches than THAT was introduced, and in 69, started becoming commonplace and affordable my the mid 70s; and those of us who were building motors at the time quit building even 327s altogether, for the same reason. If we spent $500 building a 327, somebody else would spend the same $500 on the same parts and put it on a 350 and MOP UP THE PAVEMENT with our butts. Didn't take very many times before the lesson sank in. Then in the mid - late 70s the 400 started becoming widely available. I remember the first one of those I had extensive experience with... my GF (now YF) bought a 74 MC with one in about 78, and I put a set of double-hump (69-70) heads on it; that thing ROMPED. Haven't built a 350 for myself since.

So, bottom line is, if all we had to work with was the 283, it'd be perfectly fine; but WE HAVE MORE. And those who use more, GET MORE. Which is ultimately what's wrong with the 283: it's simply obsolete. Doesn't matter what you do to it, somebody else that spends the same amount of time, effort, attention, money, and whatever all else, on a larger motor, will BEAT IT. Every time. Just like YOU will find out if you put that in your car... sure it'll "run" "good" maybe, but .... you'll still get your a$$ handed to you on a silver platter at every stop light by people who have LESS money in their motor and LESS trouble with theirs from not spinning it so high all the time and likely get BETTER gas mileage. Just because somebody ran something at the strip, doesn't automatically make it a good choice for YOUR street ride.

Drewmeyes88

Alright I'm not trying to argue and I really appreciate all if the input. But the guy that builds my dads engines loves small engines. Like in my dads other nova which is a 72 he goes down the 1/8 mile track in 6.50 at 102 miles an hour and it's a 327 with a mild built lower end and really good heads on it. Jerry the guy that builds them has a 283 in hid race car and runs a 1/8 at mid 4s at 155 mph. So I just don't know what to do about it all. The 283 I can get has double hump heads that I'm gonna change out and Jerry said he will pick the heads out for me and it'll run great.

vetteoz

iTrader: (13)

Change the cam to something more street friendly and you will have a perfect engine.
Just won't make 400Hp any more and you will probably be wasted by 305's


Note your important word
RACE CAR

Drewmeyes88

So you guys recommend finding a 350 to build?

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Dont you have one in your car now??
If its in good shape just start there and play the bolt on game while you look for/build a short block.
get some nice heads, cam, Dyno Dons headers/Ypipe and either a mini ram, HSR or???
If your a auto Make sure its ready to handle some power. Id go with a 700r4 from Dana @ probuilt. (you have a 3sp now?)
Start with a good set of subframe connectors...

Drewmeyes88

Well I don't have the money for the mini ram ...I was just going to go to carb. So dyno dons headers go right kn with no problems? I found a short block 355 with Keith black domed pistons a scat crank and it needs 64 cc heads to have 11;1 compression and is balanced for 500

Drewmeyes88

And yes I was going to get subframe connectors

RSCAMAROGUY91

As the old saying goes "There's no replacement for displacement". This is the reason you had engines like the 454, 427, and 396 back in the hay day of the muscle car era. I'll agree that 283's are good engines, but as everyone else has said, you can spend money the same money and get more out of a bigger CID engine. This is the reason I didn't build my 305 that came in my '91 RS, it just didn't make sense to spend money on it when I could get a 350, and spend the same money and get a much better engine. Good luck no matter what you choose to do.

chefman45887

I had a 283 in my camaro here is video, i put 500 miles on it , pulled it out and currently building a 383 stroker, 283 are great for older cars but if your going strictly track beef up a 350 or go LS. This site here helped me ALOT to get the 283 running and were a great help! video-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbyxg...59AUAAAAAAAAAA

Seafarer12

Ever since 327's came out people jerked out 283's to put bigger engines in their cars. I have to agree with everyone else no reason to mess with a 283 unless you own a 62 impala and want to do a stock resto on it. I mean you would be dropping over one liter of displacement. That is a lot even if it is a strong runner.

InfernalVortex

iTrader: (4)

The 283 isnt a bad engine, it's just a bad street car engine. For a race engine it's fine, although you could put all those top end parts into a 383 and make 150 more hp... so then really how good is it?

Regardless, no one here doubts that your uncle's grandpa's 283 is fast, we know it is. But as has been mentioned, the laws of physics put a limit on how much torque an engine can make. To make horsepower you have to spin the engine faster and faster, sicne horsepower is an abstract concept, computed by, basically, multiplying the torque times the RPM. Formula 1 2.4 liter v8's make something like 800+ hp, but only 200 ft/lbs of torque. That's because that's all the torque those tiny v8's can make, and they have to spin them to 18,000+ RPM's to get that kind of horsepower out of them.

That cam may have a published 1800-7000 RPM power band (sounds like a solid flat tappet cam? Another race-car special thing you probably dont want the hassle of), but those published power bands are generally for 350ci engines. For a 283 you'd have to up those numbers a lot to get a real world approximation.

Now you could bolt aluminum heads to it, and put a smaller cam in it that would make it a lot more drivable on the street, but you'd lose all that horsepower it made, due to the physics involved that I mentioned earlier. It would suddenly only make 200hp instead of 400. The heads and cam are what make power (carbs and intakes play a part too, but the idea is that they're not restrictions to airflow). If you're gonna buy a fast engine ,and then yank the heads and cam, you're yanking what actually made the engine fast. If anything you'd want to put those heads and cam on your 350 or even a 305. But as has been mentioned, technology has come a LONG way. You dont need giant mechanical flat tappet cams and old school heads to make power today. You can do it in a car taht's easily street drivable. If you want to be different, get a 400, not a 283.

Also, another factor, those tiny, high revving v8's are a lot more expensive to build and a lot less reliable. It's a lot cheaper and safer to build a low revving 400 and you'll make the same power. Beyond that, those high revving v8's have power bands starting relaly high in the RPM range which make them not very fun to drive around town. Driving a car as light as a little Nova offsets this disadvantage. The engine's lack of torque low in the RPM range (ie the accelerating from a traffic light range) isn't as big of a deal because the car is so light and so well geared that it can make it work. But your car is a LOT heavier than that Nova. It will be WAAAAY worse in your car than even the Nova is for daily driving or even street racing.

Its just not a good idea. You'd be way ahead if you put heads/cam/intake on your 350.