I am sure you have all answered and heard the dumb newbie questions, but I am one of them so here goes.........

I have a 63 Bel Air wagon and a 5.3 from a pickup truck. I am looking for advice/ideas as to what to do with this install. It will mainly be driven by my wife. Not afraid of adding fuel injection, or going carbed. 700R4 or later computer oriented automatic.

Please bounce some ideas of off me, I need some help/inspiration!e

Thanks in advance!!!

 

I would do the 4l60 or 4l80 transmission with fuel injection. Way easier to drive. Just get in, start up and go. I found that driving a carb'd car was a little more of a hassle than driving my boosted saturn. Fuel injection is better in my eyes. We are swapping a 6.0 into my wife's '62 impala.

James

 

James, thanks for input. Any pics or tips that you ran into on the X-Frame car would be appreciated. I have no problem going fuel injected, just actually wanted to know which one was easier and to get some ideas.

 

Fuel injection is definitely worth the little extra in parts cost and work involved, that's for sure! Just flip the key and go, no matter what temperature etc... In addition, the mileage is better and the car pollutes less.

 

Been helping a.buddy put a 5.3 in a 59 wagon. He used block hugger headers because they're about the only thing that fit. Also used an F-body oil pan so it doesn't hang down too much (has air ride).
Also the truck intake clears the hood, but the jury is still out on whether or not the vortec cover is going to fit.

 

Thanks for the info ls1nova71!

 

Sorry, I just remembered about this thread. We haven't gotten the car to the house yet, so no attempts at fitting the motor have been made yet. We just got the motor back together and will be getting the car this weekend. Hopefully the swap will start pretty soon. We will have to see though. I don't know what stuff we are going to try to use as far as the exhaust goes. Not sure what is going to fit and what won't. I am going to try to document everything as we go. Granted, if you look long enough, there is a lot of info already out there. Unfortunately, it seems like everyone who builds a '62 has tons of money to spend. We are trying to do a lot of stuff on a budget, so we are using stuff we already have and swapping out as little as we can to save some money.

Sorry for the long-winded reply. Good luck with everything and be sure to check out our build thread. It will be getting bumped up to the top pretty soon.

James