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Recently over the past summer I saved up enough money (with a little help from my parents) to buy my first car. Its a 1997 chevy silverado 1500 with no rust, a great body, and a mostly intact interior. All of this for 1000$ what more could a 16 year old ask for? Well on the flip side of this story the motor in it is junk, and I mean junk. It was running on 7 cylinders when I got it and wouldn’t start on anything but starter fluid.
So naturally, the next weekend I spent a Saturday pulling the motor out of this thing. Tore the motor down and, well it wasn’t pretty. Someone had over torqued the head bolts to the point where I broke 3 sockets trying to get it off with a breaker bar. The flex plate was also put on with an impact it seems and certainly not torqued to spec. On top of this, the block looks like its junk because its not only cracked but also looked like it has been overheated many of times. So clearly I needed a whole new motor, lucky for me because we have another small block chevy laying around (ZZ4 corvette motor) that had been burning oil. So we pulled this motor apart and ordered all new rings, bearings, oil pump, everything to put the short block together. Also we plan on using the corvette heads instead of drilling holes for the vortec 5700 heads which have a different bold pattern than normal small block chevy heads. Now what remains up in the air is cam selection.
Most people told me the ZZ4 cam will work with the stock PCM in the truck because its a mass airflow based system instead of a speed density and because the ZZ4 heads should also up the compression the stock tune should be happy with the newer cam (which has slightly more overlap and duration).
Also decided based on the condition of the motor to pull the 4l60e transmission out of the truck (that was fun in the driveway on jackstands on a hot florida day…) and I’m glad I did given the fact that ATF shouldn’t be black lol. The transmission will get rebuilt to 4l65e spec which just means it has stronger internals (5 pin planet carrier vs 4 pin, also rear sun gear has more teeth that spline onto the output shaft). Guy I know at a tranny shop will do this for me for free (and by “free” I mean cost of parts free, I’m rebuilding it).
That’s about it for now, In the future I plan on putting a mild lift (maybe 4 inch) that way I don’t have to worry as much about water depth while offroading while keeping the truck streetable.
Here is a current picture of the truck (old block in bottom center of picture, as you can see I also need new front tires):
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I agree very much with keeping the lift mild. Most trucks never even see off road, let alone use to their full potential. It’s good that you have an extra motor laying around to replace that abused block. It sucks getting a vehicle that’s been abused or neglected. With a lot of love, you can bring them back. The one thing that is going to be difficult with a vette motor is that while the block is mostly the same, you are going to have trouble with the front accessories bolting up. I swapped a motor out of a corvette into my El Camino and what a nightmare the front accessories were. Nothing matched up. So just a word of caution there. We were lucky we were able to take the front accessories off the 267 and get them on the 350. You sound like you are quite knowledgeable, so I think you will be fine.
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