S10 Swap Part 4. 1984 S-10 BLAZER WITH 1985 305 TPI/700-R4
The owner of this truck told us that he would do the swap in about a week. Even though this person is a factory trained technician for a Chevrolet dealership, we had our doubts. He wanted to do too many things that would take time. The truck was originally a stick shift, and he had to convert it over to an automatic. He wanted to run electric cooling fans and air conditioning. He wanted to run dual exhaust. He wanted the engine compartment to look nearly stock. And he wanted a nearly naked lady to pose with the truck. He did all of the above, but it took much longer than a week. We can't show you the nearly naked woman. Sorry.
The engine and transmission for this project actually came about from watching the television show, America's Most Wanted. It seems a regular customer dropped off a 1985 IROC Z Camaro at the dealership for repairs. While watching America's Most Wanted, the technician recognized the owner of the Camaro, who was wanted for suspicion of murder. To make a long story short, America's Most Wanted got their man, and the owner of the above truck got his engine and transmission. As the owner put it, "I got a killer deal." We are not making this up.
The engine is almost completely as it comes out of the 1985 Camaro, except for the exhaust manifolds, the routing of the wiring harness, the Corvette valve covers, and the routing of the A.I.R. hoses. The air conditioner accumulator is from a 4.3 V6 S-Truck to improve hose routing.
The engine is set back about 1-1/4" to provide room for the 4.3 V6 radiator and the Flex-a-lite model 210 electric cooling fan (see page 10-24) which is mounted behind the radiator. The radiator is positioned about 1/2" more forward than the stock position, and the radiator core support had to hammered slightly to provide room for the radiator cap. As you can see, it is a bit crowded, but everything fits, and this is a worst-case example for room between the engine accessories and the fan/radiator combination. This cooling system works o.k., but it has not been tested in weather over 100 degree F at the time of this writing. We prefer an engine-driven fan for this swap.
It was the details that took so much time to complete this swap. It took hours to make nice looking brackets to mount the radiator, cooling fan, and air cleaner ducting.
This V8 swap looks so stock that it is very hard for the average person to understand the many details that required skill, money and time.