Advice on 350 small block chevy swap in a z32

[FoutchZ32]

First of all thanks for offering help. I was curious as to any advice u guys could give me on anything on the swap. Are there any problems i should prepare myself for, any major complications to run in to, what transmission to use, motor mounts, exhaust, any chopping or cutting i should b aware of. Anything will help. Thank you againAND PLEASE DONT ASK Y OR SAY THE FAMOUS "U CAN DO ANYTHING WITH ENOUGH MONEY AND TIME"

[V8NSIDE]

When I was looking for a new motor for my Z32 I was looking at different 350 small blocks. Yea u can go with the old hot rod 350 but they are cast and heavy not good for you’re weight ratio. Not to mention they are carbureted unless u change it over to fuel injection but that will probably cost u more than the motor itself. But no mater what u put on top the old 350 motor u will find that getting it under the hood is not an easy task because not only the old intake design but also because of the oil pickup design (way taller than the VG). Now you could go with a LT1, they are inexpensive these days and have potential. The problem with them is that they lag power from the beginning and they do come with problems. Just as an example; the distributor/coil is mounted in-between the motor and the water pump. Think about how hard it is to change the coil, or wires, not to mention they somehow always get wet and go bad, I wonder why. Now u could change the ignition system to coil on plug and fix that but why not go with a motor that has proven itself to be far superior, both on the track and on the street. I’m not saying it’s the best engine out there but chevy knew what they were doing when they build the LS1. People might be surprised but u can get the ls1 cheap especially with the ls2 out now. U see the nice thing is that its all aluminum so it is very light, lighter than the VG (witch means u going to need new suspension otherwise the car is going to sit a little high in the front). The motor is fuel injected, coil on plug, and the factory computer is programmable. Now if u got the money u could go with something with a little more power like the LS2, LS6, or LS7 (Now that’s money I didn’t have). Anyway, the nice thing is that the motor is in different vehicles so there are a lot of parts for it in all types of different configurations. For example, the LS6 oil pan for the Z06 vette is almost a perfect fit for the Z32. Another good example is that if u take half of the Z06 engine mount and combine it with the other half of a Pontiac ls1 mount u get almost the perfect fit engine mount for the Z32.The transmission I recommend is the T56 6 speed from Borg Warner. There are adaptor plates to make it work with all the motors I have listed. Just for some info, the T56 is used in Camaros, Corvettes, Mustangs, Vipers, Austin Martins, just to list a view. Very durable and forgiving transmission as long as u got a good clutch.Just a heads up, the hardest thing was to modify the firewall and half of the transmission tunnel.Hope this gets some questions answered for now.

[kshiwsankar]

planning on doing an LS1 swap if it seems cost effective. i am ok with my car sitting in a garage while i work on it until its done, if i know the end result will be worth it. If i can find an N/A Z32 for cheap enough then the engine/transmission, and other misc. costs wont be as high, and i can still sell the parts that i dont need from the Z to recover money. As much detail and information you can hand down about your swap would be greatly appreciated. i had a few specific questions...when you do the swap...do you lose things like A/C, ps/pw/pl, etc. if yes: is it possible to regain them?