As some of you may know, the motor in my 94 ist kaput. I am looking to replace it. I have several options but not an unlimited budget. Ideally I would like to find a stroked LT1 short block and pick out some heads to put on it and go from there. I cannot salvage the heads from my current motor, but I can pull the cam and other items (alternator, water pump, optispark). I have found a stock LT1 short block and LT4 head package, but I would really like to build up the bottom end, forged crank, pistons etc. Throwing an additional wrinkle in the works is the fact that I cannot use my old block (don't ask, trust me I can't use it). On top of all of this I am somewhat pressed for time and space to do this, so ideally I would have someone build out the short block for me and ship it to me. I could then pick up some heads etc and throw it all together in a weekend or so.

Any ideas, suggestions or warnings before I dive in? I am especially interested in anyones experiences with local engine builders etc.

Feel free to e-mail me off line if you wish.....

Thanks!

 

Find a good machine shop in your area to do the short block. The correct one will be one that does this kind of stuff all the time and knows how to do all the machine work. Having a complete motor shipped is very costly and a good performance shop should be able to put the motor together as good as anybody including LPE. Make sure they balance the engine will all of your parts including the flywheel, converter/clutch, and harmonic balancer. Have them check the heads you buy to make sure they are okay. A lot of aftermarket heads (most) are not being put together that well any more.

You can use a cast crank for the bottom end. I like forged pistions but hypereutic ones will work if your not using NOS or a blower/turbo. Put some good forged rods in the motor. They are the weakest part in the engine. GM has a good perfromance timing chain for the LT1 but you'll have to put on the 95 and up timing cover, special waterpump drive gear and vented opti.

The 94 ecm is MAF so it will actually work with a 383 if you use the same size injectors and stock cam. I don't recommend this however because there is some tuning that can be done to the spark curve and WOT fuel air ratio to get more power out of the engine. Also the speed density backup will work better if the size of the engine is reprogrammed into the ecm. Finally, 30# injectors are just about mandatory for safe long term reliabiltiy. A bigger cam will require a reprogram change to increase the idle and idle spark advance.