S-10 Forum banner

96 Blazer V8 build!!! Put your reading glasses on and grab your favorite beverage.

22K views 98 replies 21 participants last post by  Clapps1775 
#1 ·
Well........ After many years of himmin and hawwin, the 4.3 just got way to tired. About two weeks ago the bullet proof 4.3 :haha: decided it was time to throw in the towel. She was a good motor that lasted me 340,000 miles with no internal parts going bad. (Changing the oil religiously really helped in this case I believe) But a stubborn head gasket will change all of that. :rant: So I figured it was time to put a v8 in place of the v6. I'm 25 now and have been wanting to do this build since I was 16.

The Blazer (dubbed Ron Burgundy):


She sat out in Wisconsin for 5 years under a pine tree (this will end up being my worst enemy as the project moves forward) until one day I went and picked it up. The blazer used to be my father in laws and he had it sitting out there because the tranny went bad and he didnt think he had the money to fix it. Well money isn't an issue when you have the balls to do it yourself. Well not necessarily balls but just the willingness to tackle it yourself.

Brought the blazer back to my fathers shop and I knew only two things before getting started on it, the tranny is shot and I needed to get the motor running.





This pic is after we unloaded the truck and started to see what I needed to get it running.

Needless to say, all it needed was a good fuel pump and fuel filter and some fresh gas and she fired up on all cylinders and was surprisingly quiet and smooth running.

Now we were on to the tranny. Right out of the gate I had first gear and as soon as it wanted to go into second, slip and rev. Anybody who knows even the slightest bit about transmissions knows that in a 4l60e when this happens it's.............2-4 gears are out. I won't go into detail on how to remove the tranny but I rebuilt it myself with the help of another member/friend/co-worker (acehaag) <-GM GURU!

Jegs 4l60e complete rebuild kit for $200.00


Started ripping the tranny apart and found out that nothing bad had happened. The thing just got tired also.





Anyways, that's all I've done leading up to my build. As for my build now, I have the front clip off the blazer, engine sitting on the floor propped up by 2x4's and the tranny again has had some more updates.

The old 4.3 may you rest in peace.




This is where most of the oil and smoke was coming from the engine when I decided it was time to put it into retirement.




The rest of the photos are just eye soars because it looks like a mess but honestly it's going a lot smoother than I anticipated.




When I said that sitting under a pine tree would be my worst enemy................ Yeah, The mother f-ing rust and snapped bolt and rusted shut bolts!!!!!! It's a pain!







But I prevail, there was so much rust I just ended up ripping the core support out, literally.





This is what it looked like a few days ago.


I removed the tranny and did the proper updates to accommodate the v8. I needed a newer valve body because I had a hard down shift issue. Got one from a donor 2003 4l60e provided by acehaag. Did the corvette servo swap, new valve body separator plate (transgo part #46-plt-96), and rather than use the steel balls in the valve body I used .250 torlon plastic balls, this will help keep the plate damage down to a minimum. Ford uses these plastic balls in almost all of there transmissions now a days.







With all of that being said, I'm on the road to putting it back together.

My future updates include:
411 pcm swap
V8 Swap kit
Chrysler 300m E-fans
Want to find some aluminum race valve covers. (I just like the way they look, so any help will be apreciated.)
Find a good sounding sleeper muffler. I like a quiet tone at idle but when I get on it, I want it to sing!!!! Was thinking of the new muffler.

That's it for now, after the holidays I'll be getting back to it. Thanks for taking a look!!!!

Please leave any feedback you may have or ask any questions!

Travis
 
See less See more
1 36
#4 ·
Update: working on some plug re-pinning. My fan was acting up for a while and I think this may be the cause of it. Every time I would go over a bump, my fan would loose power for a second and sometimes even longer. At the top right of that plug, that is where the ground for that plug was. That's also the plug located down stream from my cabin fan which also needed a new plug a while ago.



This photo shows the original wires re-pinned rather than spliced into the new plug, minus the ground wire because it needed to be cleaned.


The ground was really rusty and greasy for some reason but sanded it clean and through it back in.


After


Before and after


Next on the list is the other half of that plug and start the 411 pcm re-pin.
 
#5 ·
Well the 411 pcm swap went smooth...... for now. I hope I got all the wires in the right connections but only time will tell.

Pic of me working on the swap. My lovely GF took this photo, she should have got one in good lighting. Looks like I have an albino birth mark on the side of my face.

Make sure that you label the connectors, one wrong slot and it could cause a headache down the road.

This is about half way through the swap and it's already starting to look like a rats nest.

This pic is a complete pic. pretty gross looking but some wire loom will dress this up nicely.

Bam! Now I just need to install the engine and plug it all in and fire it up when I get to that point.

This was my cheat sheet.
 
#9 ·
It wasn't that bad to repin it where it is. I did indeed get some extra wires.

But, I have the 5.7 tore apart and gonna get some new cam bearings, main bearings, head gaskets, intake gasket, and a good block wash. Everything else looks good. Can still see the cross hatches in the cylinder walls. Slowly getting there.
 
#12 ·
Well a small update:

Donor Truck



Donor 5.7 Vortec

Started tear down on the engine like a week and a half ago and finally today, it's all tore apart. Was debating on just a simple swap but I decided to take the intake off and with a little convincing, I decided that it would only be decent to just get some new cam bearings, main bearings, and some connecting rod bearings. Engine looks good for having 220,000 miles on it but it will be getting some fresh parts inside.


Heads are going to be scrubbed later today.


Block wash coming on Tuesday or Wednesday.


Cylinder walls still have the cross hatches in them.


 
#13 ·
Update: I will be ordering my swap kit in the morning from Jegs. Crank will be going out for polish on friday. By next week sometime I should be putting stuff back in the truck itself (FINALLY!!!!!!) So far it feels like I have made no such progress but with my daily life, it's going to happen i guess. Block is going in tomorrow or Wednesday for a hot bath. Heads have been cleaned and intake was cleaned. Yada Yada Yada. Been thinking lately about doing the ford 8.8 swap as my next upgrade along with 98+ knuckles and 98+ calipers. Then further down the road I would also like to do the sfa swap. Ta Ta for now!
 
#14 ·
Well the kit showed up! Wrong oil pan!!!!!!!! The kit was correct but no where on jegs site or there ebay site did it say it was for blocks only up to '78. Should have done more digging BUT I called them back and they are going to exchange my oil pan for the Milodon 31082 pan, sump and gaskets. As a bonus they are throwing in new pan bolts too! (The kit was 2 short) :) Anyways this is the kit (Pink and Purple Legos Not Included)



You can see on the pan that it's a driver side dipstick and I needed the pass. side dip stick setup.



I am going to be stripping the headers of the protective paint and will be coating them in high temp paint probably on sunday. The only down fall is that my new pan won't ship until the 24th (LAME!!!!) Oh well I should have the majority of the engine put together by then.

So to sum it up, if your going to do a 4x4 vortec 5.7 swap, Trans Dapt 44061 will not work due to the fact that it is for "Old School" 350's with the dip stick on the drivers side. Yes I know the info is out there warning me of this but with all thats been going on, I'm sure it's just one of the things I will miss along this build.
 
#16 ·
Pfft don't be scared, there are people who have done that build time and time again. Same thing I'm doing. Find a vortec 5.7 and dive in. The 411 swap was quite simple if you have a good cross reference. Acehagg gave me mine and it was straight forward and simple. Gotta cut and splice some wires together and make a couple longer but all in all, if you can wire up kc lights, you can swap a 411 pcm into your truck, if it doesn't already have it.
 
#18 ·
I know the 411 is tuneable and I wanted pcm controlled e fans, I knew I was going to do the swap so i didn't do a whole lot of research into the black box pcm. I know you can swap with the black box pcm but I think your stuck with the shift points already programmed into the pcm.
 
#19 ·
Well the last couple of weeks have been pretty dull. Cold weather and virtually no time to work on the truck have been my hold ups. But I have been making valuable time with Jegs! They kept sending me out the wrong parts. First it was the oil pan, pickup tube and header gaskets. Well I got new and correct header gaskets and after a few phone calls and some more wrong parts, they sent out the right pickup tube today. Well what I thought was a wrong again pickup tube, ended up being the right one after all, I just need to get the melling m55 hv oil pump. $40 more to the engine but it's not like I wasn't going to buy one anyways. I just have to make sure it's a 5/8 inlet which i think they all are. AAAAAND as for my oil pan........ Milodon is sending it to my house still. Slowest ups driver EVER!!! No, actually they pushed my ship date out till 2-3-2013 and now it's in transit and should arrive monday. Thank GOD! Then after all that, it's time to order my rering kit. Got the crank polished a few weeks ago, heads have been cleaned, block cleaned and painted. Anyways my plan is to have it running in a week and a half to 2 weeks. I miss my maroon cocoon. Ol'red will ride again.
 
#26 ·
Well fellas, I wish I could say that the motor is in but............ It's kinda in...... Sum bitch is tight! Thats all I got to say. Took a few weeks to get my motor to the point it's at now but I'm confident that my rebuild will be a success. Heres a few shots I took while putting it back together.











Heres a few shots of the not so successful install. We tried with the tranny on but that was pretty obvious that it wasn't going to fit, then we tried just the motor alone and we are close but I think I need to change the angle of the engine plus I have fuel lines and brake lines that are hanging up my install.






Anyone got any tips on how to drop this bad boy in? I'm within an inch of dropping it over the engine mounts but it's just binding up on too many things. I'll move a few things around tomorrow to try and weasel it in but if anyone has a tip or trick, let me know please!
 
#28 ·
Thanks, I wasn't sure if the headers had to be on before install or if I could put them on after. The driver side was my only real head scratcher. I'll try with the headers off next. I'm sure it will drop right in then. I have the trans dapt 4x4 kit. Which ones did you use?
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top