motor gurus-CLICKEY RIGHT HERE!!!

[knightowl73]

Ok so me n a buddy have been contemplating this engine build for about a month now, after finding out about a L99 motor in a caprice we have that was bought as a parts car. thought we had a lt1 and i quickly was interested in the donor motor to swap into our 77 stepper project. its kinda the shop's budget build.

anyway, we found this out thru some research:

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You can build a 1 piece seal 302 out of that by using the crank which as stated specs out at a 3 inch stroke, and you also use the rods from the engine which I believe they are 5.940 long, and then you use standard 5.7 rod length pistons from a 350 chevy, and assemble it all into a 350 block. The rods and crank are worth the money you paid for it. The block could also be used to make a 305 by putting a 1 piece seal 305 assembly into the block. That 4.3 V8 used the same pistons as a vortec 305.


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and i have a 87 305 tbi motor on a stand with 57k and a set of 062 vortec heads, thinkin of putting the lil 302 together to see what it does. this would still be a 302 right?
problem is choosing to stay fi or go carb, and trying to find options as we both know we must use a cam that will suit fi if we go that route.
Not too worried about having the chip retuned, no biggie. But if we kept the tbi what are our options for cam,pushrods,lifters. we have allthe roller stuff available inn the caprice motor, so will we be able to use the lt1 cam,lifters, and pushrods with the vortec heads.
the truck wil most likely end up with manual trans (recomendations would be cool too- we both are leaning toward the older 4-speed saginaw or muncies) and the 3.73 rear we got laying around here already.

if we choose to carb it, i dont think we would roller cam it unless we could still use the same stock lt1 cam, otherwise was pondering a comp 262-268 grind. the only benefit we see to going carb is to get the lumpy idle that goes aloong with the look we are after on the truck, dont think you could get that lump from and tbi motor or could you? also, can we use the felpro shim head gaskets on this motor or do we have to stick with 305 specific gaskets? anything else we might run into on this? Ive been looking into valve springs for the vortec heads, ive seen a few guys say ls springs work with the right retainers and wont need head machining, is this true?