rebuild or go with a big block?

[wtchop]

Originally Posted by MARKDTN

What do you want to do with the truck? Is it a daily driver or a show piece? Do you want to cruise or drag race? All these things really come into play to make the best decision. If it is a DD and/or cruiser, the fuel injection swap will pay for itself. If you want to go fast or want a show truck a BB may be ok. Just as an example, in my '83 K20, the original 350 is like 180 HP. It got 14 mpg city and about 18 highway (700R4 and 3.42 gears). I swapped in a stone stock '90 L98 Corvette TPI engine (250 HP) and my mileage went up to about 17 city and 21 highway-same exhaust, same transmission, same rear end. If you take fuel at $4/gal that is $.05/mi savings. Roughly every 10,000 miles I spend $500 less in fuel with $4 fuel. At $5/gal the spread is over $.06/mi. The performance increase is also noticable. My uncle bought it brand new and I have owned this truck since it had 42K miles and you were always on the throttle to maintain 65-70 mph. Now it will run 80 with no movement of the throttle. My point is this, if you want a BB just to say you have one-then get a BB. There is nothing like the bragging rights to say "I have a bored out 454 under the hood". But if you want to drive it much, you may want to consider fuel injection-it truly is the best of both worlds. If I did my swap again today, I would buy a 5.3 LS style engine. Just look at the ratings on LS engines. You can get to 400 HP pretty easily and have the torque of a 454 without the annoying hot start issues and get mileage like a 350. It might cost a little more on the front end, but if you put many miles on it you will have payback in fuel savings. Just my .02

I"m going to look into it thanks.