lucky3

I'm new to this and spent 3hrs looking at all the info on here and theres so much here. I've got a 5.3 for my 68 chevelle and a th350 trans. I was going to use new 2011 camaro manifolds for it and going with a carb intake. I was wondering which pan and motor adapter to use. I want to try and stay some what low buck.
thanks

oldgoat69

I guess the first questions are how complete is the 5.3, wiring, pcm and whatnot? Choose a path that has been taken before using all proven parts that play well together. If you have all of the FI components I don't think you will save any money converting to Carb.

lucky3

I just like the look of the carb on a older car. I also don't like all the wiring in the engine compartment. I have a complete 5.3 with harness and pcm.

LS1 pwrd NOVA

iTrader: (2)

Oil pan wise, the fbody between $2-250 and ctsv $175 new will work for low buck. Well the truck pan fits just hangs low and is the cheapest pan as ur 5.3 should have it.
Engine mounts, the cheapest is to make your own, just metal n time. Easy to make in one day with mocking up the engine quite a few times.
Your truck manifolds should work with a little work to them if i remember correctly.
Id keep it fuel injected, carbed is done with todays gas prices.
Also you will need a spacer for your th350 to work but thats around $75

oldgoat69

Do it the way you want, but I think you will find that EFI is going to cost less, and get you more. Maybe even consider going 4L60E. This will save a few MPG if you plan to put any miles on it. If you work at it you can actually hide a great deal of the wiring. Just to put all of this in context, the best economy I ever saw with a pretty much stock 400 was 13 mpg. I see 23 mpg with a supercharged 6.0 making easily 200 hp more. All of the truck brackets and accessories will fit, you may need to swap a PS pulley.

LS1 pwrd NOVA

iTrader: (2)

If you do go Carb, keep all the fuel injection stuff incase you want to go fuel injected. Yes u can sell that stuff to help with paying for the Carb setup but I say keep it. Its a pain looking for stuff after you have sold it and usually you will pay more for it than u sold it for.

lucky3

Thanks i haven't decided what i'm going to do yet. I have a friend thats did a bunch of swaps and he does a good job of hiding the wires.

hoboy

I put a complete drivetrain out of a 98 Z28 auto trans into a buds 69 Chevelle. Stock f body oil pan, just notched the crossmember a little and re-boxed it. Factory manifolds and cats. Flowmaster exhaust and K&N filter,no retune of any kind it tuenrd 285 hp and 302 torque at the wheels with 3,42 gear and knocks down 24 mpg highway at 80 mph all day long. I used the WHOLE 98 F body wire harness in the Chevelle, just plug and play. EFI on the cheap

chuckd71

iTrader: (23)

Other than messing with boxing the frame (I can't weld) that sounds like the way I would go if I were to do it again, except with a newer Z. Seems almost foolproof, but of course hindsight is 20/20.