In my '89 ive got what i call the 'lil brother' 350, its the original motor and not even Vortec, besides the Vortec heads and intake, and TPI injection (now has TBI), and a 3" cutout which i am getting soon, and a throttle body spacer, and chip, which i already have do yall know of any cheap mods to satisfy my go fast need while i come up w/the cash to pickup on my LS1+? build??? any info is greatly appreciated!

 

Well, the best mods I had on my truck was headers, high flow cat, 14x4 open air filter, electric fans, 3.73 gears, and Jacobs ignition system and ultra coil. The only ones that will work with the ls1 is the fans, 3.73s, adn the cat if you keep it.

 

thanx, what kind of gains can i expect from say wires, plugs, coil, and ignition box?

 

Are you sure it has tpi, my 89 350 was throttle body. I would say go with the ign, wire ect.. like they have said for cheaper mods. Dunno the power gains but it should be a better seat of the pants feel anyway.

 

You're really never going to get serious power out of those engines. Your best bet it is just to spend money on nitrous.

 

it has the tpi but i just bought i turd 3rd gen camaro donor car for $50 bucks for the tpi, 3.73's and possibly the bucket seats.

as far as nitrous goes, the internals arent gonna hold up to more than abt a 50 shot are they????

 

I have TPI on my truck right now...look at the sigs for mods...I have about 425-450hp right now coming out of mine.

 

Why do you want to put an LS1 in your truck? There are about 100-1,000 times more parts for the old 350, depends on what company you look at. Since you have TPI instead of TBI, replace the computer with a FAST unit, or some other kind. A distributor, coil, wires, cam, piston, rod, crank, heads, blower or NOS, or a crate engine, are some mods that would help out a lot and are fairly cheap, but that depends on where you get them. You can build a really respectably small block with little money.

I got a friend that purchased almost an entire engine from a sprint car owner for about $1500, everything except for the block and heads. Machine work cost about $800, head $1000, and did I mention it was fast, really f**king fast. The first weekend it was in, he went through a set of rear tires, no traction at all.

 

there just isnt the programming available for the older style 350's and by the time you buy all the stand alone computer stuff youve couldve bought an ls1 and did a cam and heads upgrade. My plan is to build the ls1 as cash permits, swap it out w/my 'lil brother' 350, sell it as a factory replacement to someone who blew theirs, use that cash to buy a 6.0 block and then build it as cash permits, then continue this proccess of upgrades till i hit the best available by that time. big dreams? of course!

 

there's plenty of programming....u have to know where to look....lots of info on the www.thirdgen.org forum.