Real Fiero Tech

picked up an old pickup for a beater driver. currently has a 327 or 350 (SPID says 350, block casting says 327), turns out it's burning oil on #6, runs ok still, but I'm not a fan of riding on 7 good cylinders and one bad... long term I'm going to swap a vortec 4200 I6 and a 4L65E into it. I'm going to start the wiring asap, and install a 40 Gal suburban tank under the bed.

ericjon262 wrote:picked up an old pickup for a beater driver. currently has a 327 or 350 (SPID says 350, block casting says 327), turns out it's burning oil on #6, runs ok still, but I'm not a fan of riding on 7 good cylinders and one bad... long term I'm going to swap a vortec 4200 I6 and a 4L65E into it. I'm going to start the wiring asap, and install a 40 Gal suburban tank under the bed.

Looks clean and straight.

Going for the 4200 for uniqueness?

The Dark Side of Will wrote:

ericjon262 wrote:picked up an old pickup for a beater driver. currently has a 327 or 350 (SPID says 350, block casting says 327), turns out it's burning oil on #6, runs ok still, but I'm not a fan of riding on 7 good cylinders and one bad... long term I'm going to swap a vortec 4200 I6 and a 4L65E into it. I'm going to start the wiring asap, and install a 40 Gal suburban tank under the bed.

Looks clean and straight.

Going for the 4200 for uniqueness?

more or less. it'll get better gas mileage then the current mill, make more power, and be more reliable. only thing I really don't like about the 4200 is that I will have to convert to DBW throttle. I'm not worried about the truck being the fastest one on 4 wheels, more just a cool daily driver.

Why not go 5.3? I would think that there are far more of them available and probably cheaper, plus you then have the whole LS-based aftermarket to work with.

Good luck with whatever way you go. I like seeing modern powerplants in classic pickups.

we'll just say I like taking the path less traveled. like I said, not worried about the truck hauling ass, more just having a fun, unique, daily driver.

I have to agree with the 5.3. There is something to be said about doing it different, but when there is a cheap easy option that makes the truck sound as good as it looks I'd go that route. You can build a fuel efficient 5.3 that has plenty of power for cheap.

Hell, even the 4.8 would be a cool option.

The atlas makes good power and torque, and should get decent economy, and be more unique, it's what I intend to use in the truck. I sometimes like doing things people tell me not to do.

I'd like to see the 4200 in there, I personally like the motor though I admittedly have very little practical experience with it.

Good looking truck. Can't tell if its a nice truck, or you've gone all VW vortex and taken nice photos of a pile of shit.

ericjon262 wrote:The atlas makes good power and torque, and should get decent economy, and be more unique, it's what I intend to use in the truck. I sometimes like doing things people tell me not to do.

I wasn't saying 'not' to do it, I made my post more as an informational type of post as I didn't know whether you had considered a V8. Are you going to go with the 275hp or 291 hp version?

CincinnatiFiero wrote:I'd like to see the 4200 in there, I personally like the motor though I admittedly have very little practical experience with it.

Good looking truck. Can't tell if its a nice truck, or you've gone all VW vortex and taken nice photos of a pile of shit.

lol, we'll say that the truck is solid, but has the typical 67-72 spots... rockers and cab corners. both of which I have replacements for already. I've started fixing alot of the PO's fun wiring, and am going to get a patch panel to fix where the dash was cut out of a modern radio. the truck needs it's fair share of work, but it was less than $2500, and is over 40 years old. cost/condition, I think I got a deal, back in Pensacola, this truck would have been an easy $3500-$4000 truck.

I'm going to try to pick up a harness at the J/y this weekend so I can start laying everything out nice and neat.

AkursedX wrote:

ericjon262 wrote:The atlas makes good power and torque, and should get decent economy, and be more unique, it's what I intend to use in the truck. I sometimes like doing things people tell me not to do.

I wasn't saying 'not' to do it, I made my post more as an informational type of post as I didn't know whether you had considered a V8. Are you going to go with the 275hp or 291 hp version?

Yeah, I'd considered an LSx/LTx, too many parts available for the swap!

I would just like to do something a bit more off the beaten path though. the only real hard part to me looks like the oil pan. as the 4.2 has a weird front sump that I'll have to fight, but where there's a will there's a way.

I'd like to go with the 291 hp model, and try and set it up flex fuel.

You already have one "off the beaten path" project... Did you sell the Fiero?

I do still have it, and I've got a new HTOB for it, and am waiting for a chance to go home and install it so I can drive it up here. no reason to not have another neat swap though!

I do a lot of work on a friend's Trailblazer 4200. Motor runs good enough, never any problems with it (Although the SUV at a whole goes though brakes at an alarming rate). Wide torque curve. The engine is gigantic however, considering its relatively small displacement. I think its length might be a bit of an issue in the pickup, unless you move the radiator and maybe go to a "push" cooling fan.

If you're going to go to all the trouble of putting an OBD II engine in that truck, it would be crazy to not just throw an LS in. Same amount of work, better fit, easy as balls swap, much better output, cheap... Who gives a fuck if someone doesn't think you're "special". Utility and reliability over what anyone anywhere thinks.

I like the truck though. Goodluck either way.

Emc209i wrote:If you're going to go to all the trouble of putting an OBD II engine in that truck, it would be crazy to not just throw an LS in. Same amount of work, better fit, easy as balls swap, much better output, cheap... Who gives a fuck if someone doesn't think you're "special". Utility and reliability over what anyone anywhere thinks.

I like the truck though. Goodluck either way.

Lol, me? crazy?

I'm going to attempt to mount a envoy fuel sending unit in a 31 or 40 gal suburban gas tank under the bed for the fuel system, use a swap crossmember to mount the 4L65e, and the build engine mounts from there. because the 4200 is narrower then the old SBC, the plan is to make adapter mounts that go from the block to the SBC engine mounts on the frame.

Super accurate to scale model of what I mean by that:



instead of the engine mounts bolting directly to the block, they would bolt to extensions bolted to the block(green area) hopefully the mounts are close to the same distance from the bellhousing.

the other major hurdle is the oil pan, the oil pan on the 4200 is a front sump pan, whereas almost everything else GM (including my truck) was designed for a rear sump. for this, I'll just weld up a new pan out of steel and use the vortec 3500(I5 in the colorado/canyon) oil pump pickup. the block is a deep skirt block, and the oil pan rail is flat all the way around, so it shouldn't be too terribly hard to pull off.

That's basically the way BMW does their engines... They have "mount arms" that bolt to the block and sit on top of the engine mounts. BMW usually uses vertical engine mounts, though. Would it be hard to set yours up with the bolts vertical to make installation easier?

The Dark Side of Will wrote:That's basically the way BMW does their engines... They have "mount arms" that bolt to the block and sit on top of the engine mounts. BMW usually uses vertical engine mounts, though. Would it be hard to set yours up with the bolts vertical to make installation easier?

very possible, in fact, that's how GM did it too. I'll take a closer look at the mounts when I have an engine in my hands. the big factor right now though, is how far away the mount bosses are from the bellhousing, if it's not close to the SBC distance I'll have to get a little bit more creative.

well, put about 600 miles on the truck this week, I ended up managing about 16 MPG hwy out of it! the downside, I'm burning oil alot worse then I thought, 7+quarts over 600 miles... I'm going to try and see if I can pick up a fresh short block to swap out, until I can get the atlas swap started because I'd rather not take my current DD off the road for a swap without a backup.