Cleaning up for an LT1 350 engine swap

Posted by Carl King - 06/07/09 at 07:07 am

Now that I’ve got a pile of parts out of the way, I need to move on to another collection of parts. Last year I bought an LT1 350 with a 4L60e transmission behind it. I had to pull it myself which was no big deal, and I plan on putting it in my truck, an 86 GMC Sierra Classic.

The problem with the 305 in the truck now is that it’s gutless. GM made a really bad decision to put such a small engine in a work truck with a 2.74 ratio rear end. Bad move! The truck only gets 12 miles to the gallon and I’ll bet it only got 15-16 mpg when the truck was new.

So the first step is to clean the engine. I picked up a power washer from Sears on Saturday (July 4th, 2009) and unwittingly got it on sale for $40 less. It’s a Power Washer 1850 PSI Electric Powerwasher®. I didn’t use it, but the power washer came with a detergent container that didn’t require a wand attachment. Just plain old high pressure water seemed to do the trick. Look for an upcoming review.

The engine isn’t all that dirty. It has enough grease on it to make it look grungy, but the only place the grease was caked on was at the front of the engine around the accessory mounting brackets. The intake manifold has a thin layer of grease that looked more like blow by and it seemed to cleanup nicely.

After cleaning up the engine and transmission I did a quick review of the engine compartment on the truck. The engine compartment looked like it could use a cleraning but it had little to no grease in it other than the engine. I didnt bother with it.

After that I thought the driveway could use some help. In the last couple of years since it was poured the tree leaves and dirt in general had colored it a dingy brown. The pressure washer seemed to take care of it well other than the grease spot my Plymouth Neon had created. The grease spot came up, but I was still left with a stain that was noticeable as engine oil.

So now you can look for some upcoming articles on the engine swap. I’m going from a carburated 305 to the multiport electronic fuel injected LT1 350. Stock this engine has 260 horse power, about 120 more than the 305 had new, so I’m expecting the truck to pull better and get better mileage.

Before I do the swap I’m gonna put a new timing chain and fuel pump on it, adjust the valves, and replace the engine gaskets in the process. If you haven’t guessed, I don’t like leaky engines. I’ll need to find a couple of gas tanks from a fuel injected 87 model year as well, since the fuel injected 87’s had the submersible fuel pump. The carburated 305 has the classic side mounted fuel pump at the front passenger side of the block.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 7:34 am and is filed under Engines, LT1 Conversion. The entry is tagged under engine cleaning, lt1 350 engine swap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.