Oddball Engine Swaps

[61hawk]

I've mentioned my 331 Hemi swap here a few times and today I got a little closer to getting this thing running. Plug wires are done and I threw the valve covers and wire covers on just to see how everything looked buttoned up. I think I'll like it.

[AcampoDave]

Nice, that'll surley draw a crowd at a cars n coffee alright

[cwcarpenter98]

That's a cool swap!

[Arne]

I agree, if you are going MOPAR in a Chevy truck, the 1st Gen FirePower 331 Hemi is an awesome choice.

[Braunschweiger]

Great project, I'm very excited.

[Chevy Fleetside]

That would nice to do. I bought a 73 Cadillac back in 2000 for it's engine. I paid $500 for it. It was too nice to pull the engine so I just sold it It had 149000 miles on it. I now have a 2002 Dodge Ram 2500 with a Cummins Turbo Diesel and would love to put one of those in a truck. I don't that that engine would fit though. Although, there is someone who put a Chevy body on top of a Dodge frame with the cummins. He has to butcher the firewall but I don't think he was going for beauty.

[vin63]

That's outstanding! I did see a Buick Nailhead-powered C10 last year that was also done nicely.

[Slammed96]

Originally Posted by vin63

That's outstanding! I did see a Buick Nailhead-powered C10 last year that was also done nicely.

Ive wanted to do that swap for a while. Finding good parts that won't cost a fortune is the biggest hangup there.

[vin63]

Originally Posted by Slammed96

Ive wanted to do that swap for a while. Finding good parts that won't cost a fortune is the biggest hangup there.

I hear ya...I started a 401 Nailhead build for a 64 Riviera project in January 2020, and I'm at the 3 year mark still waiting on parts.

[justa dumb hick]

CHRYSLER Fire-Power! Now there is something you don't see every day. A wise and intriguing choice in my unsolicited opinion. I certainly hope you will begin a detailed build thread on this fine creation of yours. I have an annoying habit of studying the background of posted images to better understand the individual who is posting, and based on what I see in your shop, the details and quality of this build will no doubt be first rate.

Accepting my own intellectual limitations of being a Dumb Hick, I am painfully curious to all mechanical details. Perhaps this is a conditioned response due to my Appalachian roots and DNA (I was 14 before I realized drinking water was not supposed to smell like sulfur). That being said, I would impress upon you to share additional details such as crankshaft centerline, motor-mount design, vibration isolation efforts, transmission choice and fitment, long-bock weight and subsequent spring-rates/ride height. And so on... I think you have a very interesting build here and others will be curious as well. I for one am rooting for a Chrysler style A-833 overdrive manual transmission like Arne has in his truck.

Good luck, have fun and please start a build thread- you have a great foundation to build upon!

..I'm headed back to the shop now... can't find my damn coffee cup again...

[61hawk]

Originally Posted by justa dumb hick

Good luck, have fun and please start a build thread- you have a great foundation to build upon!

Little late for a build thread since I bought the truck in 2004 and didn't start on it until around 2006 through 2008 and then abandoned it until about a year ago. If I got my paint guy down here we'd probably have it on the road in two weeks. Truck is basically stock, except for a 2-1/4" body lift that I had to do to get the factory air connections in the firewall to clear the engine heads. Started out as a 1965 fleetside C-10 with a big back window and factory air truck out of Texas that had been hit in the left rear and pushed the bed into the cab.

Engine is basically stock except for a warmed up cam (nothing radical). Bolted on a bunch of HotHead Hemi aluminum brackets, intake, timing cover, etc... JetHot coated the factory manifolds... bought a second set so I could use the right-side manifold on the left side. They are interchangeable but the right side one points down, the left one points to the oil pan. I have a set of shorty headers but like the left-side manifold I didn't like how they fit because the output on both sides is pointed right at the oil pan. My exhaust man will appreciate this too... now he just has to put a 90 in the collector. The motor mounts are something I bought from a Hemi guy on E-Bay, they're just weld in mounts. To clear the front main crossmember under the engine meant heating, slicing and pounding the $#!+ out of it to get the headers (at the time) to fit.

Transmission is a Torqueflite A727. Rear end is the original 3.73 one wheel peel. When I opened up the rear end it looked like the ring and pinion had been changed, but with the condition of the bearings and fluid, nobody has ever been in it.

Now the big question, would I do it again? Probably not, it's a fun project but it seems like everything is one step forward and six steps back. I bought the engine for an earlier project but sold the car. The truck had a blown 327 and I needed an engine for it... and this one was just sitting there. For example of what I mean by six steps back, the steering... came with manual, decided to do power steering... found a P/S tilt steering column out of a van, nobody at the time made a mount for a pump, decided to look at electric steering, nobody makes a kit but everyone was willing to work with me to be their guinea pig. Then decided to go with a Volvo electric power steering pump like all the drift cars are running because it works and you can mount it anywhere. Then out of nowhere, about three weeks ago, a guy on The Early Hemi Facebook page posted a bracket he made up for a GM Type II pump which when you look at it was so simple to design. He had it CNC cut out of 1/2" aluminum and it mounts to the left side motor mount bolts... you just turn them around with the threads pointing to the front and use these long nuts to attach to the MM bolt threads. I put in the radiatior and electric fan in last night, if I use the shroud, I have 3/4" between the fan center and the water pump pulley. Just enough space to get a belt past them. Hemi means 4x the cost for everything. I don't even want to know what I have into this engine... maybe $8000? This is for a maybe 250-275HP engine. A guy on the Facebook page has one similar but no accessories and is asking $10.5k and everyone is telling him he's giving it away. So I guess that's a good thing.

The next truck I do, if I do one is going to be a Ford F-100 with an inline 6 300 and 4-speed manual transmission. Might even think about putting A/C in it if it's not going to be a headache. If I do another Chevy, and decide to modify it I will do something really original... like do an LS swap... I bet nobody has done one of those.