TBI Swap....

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89Suburban

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Question, with all the stuff you would have to gather from a donor truck and stuff ya got to buy and the time and labor, would it be cost effective just to p/u and aftermarket TBI add on kit? What does it cost?
 

Swims350

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I think the after market kits are like a grand.
 

89Suburban

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I think the after market kits are like a grand.
****, I looked on ebay and used ones start at 1400 clams, holy ****. And new ones go up to near 5 G's. :flipthebird:
 

RetroC10Sport

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$250 at the U-Pull-It and he'd have him the entire thing and then some.
 

89Suburban

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Nice.
 

CaliDude76

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$250 at the U-Pull-It and he'd have him the entire thing and then some.

Yeah, I'm thinking the Pick and pull deal too... it's my best shot at it... hopefully I can find me an 87 to pull from.. but we'll see...

Bummer too.. cuz before I got my square, I had me a 92 Silverado 350... that got wrecked, and totalled out... could of totally pulled the TBI set-up from that one.. wasn't thinking about it at the time...,


EXACTLY!!!
 

HotRodPC

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WHEW, to hell with that kit BS. Get your own stuff. Dayum !!! For that kinda money you can go with the Edelbrock TBI intake. Although, I don't how much HP gain that is since the OEM is also aluminum, and not sure how bad the Eddy would affect your emmisions. I bet you can get by with it, since for your year model truck you are allowed some dirty carb emmision standards. I like CA better when they said, once the vehicle was 20 years old it was exempt. Now they just do a cut off of 1975 or older right?? And even then it has to pass emmsions to change owners and transfer title right?
 

Old77

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Bummer too.. cuz before I got my square, I had me a 92 Silverado 350... that got wrecked, and totalled out... could of totally pulled the TBI set-up from that one.. wasn't thinking about it at the time...,

At the beginning of the 77 build my dad had a 2000 ext cab Sierra that he got in a wreck in and they totaled out (no frame damage...all body). Thought's started churning in my head about about swapping over everything as far as drivetrain and seats (before I bought my current ones) from that truck over into the 77 and basically have a 2000 Sierra with a 77 C-10 body. The insurance company wanted something like $3k (or somewhere in that neighborhood) to buy it back from them so we chose not too because we felt it was too high. Well, hindsight being 20/20 we would have come out ahead on that deal and had quite the creation!! It had the 5.3 liter in it and was a really nice truck! I kick myself from time to time about not pursuing that harder at the time.
 

89Suburban

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:popcorn:
 

HotRodPC

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At the beginning of the 77 build my dad had a 2000 ext cab Sierra that he got in a wreck in and they totaled out (no frame damage...all body). Thought's started churning in my head about about swapping over everything as far as drivetrain and seats (before I bought my current ones) from that truck over into the 77 and basically have a 2000 Sierra with a 77 C-10 body. The insurance company wanted something like $3k (or somewhere in that neighborhood) to buy it back from them so we chose not too because we felt it was too high. Well, hindsight being 20/20 we would have come out ahead on that deal and had quite the creation!! It had the 5.3 liter in it and was a really nice truck! I kick myself from time to time about not pursuing that harder at the time.

Yep, usually you can buy back for 20%. So that means they gave him 15K for the truck.
 

Old77

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Yep, usually you can buy back for 20%. So that means they gave him 15K for the truck.

Woulda made for a pretty epic build at the time. At that time the 5.3 were still pretty new and not many people had thought about putting one in a square yet. Oh well, you live and learn and move on. :)
 

CaliDude76

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WHEW, to hell with that kit BS. Get your own stuff. Dayum !!! For that kinda money you can go with the Edelbrock TBI intake. Although, I don't how much HP gain that is since the OEM is also aluminum, and not sure how bad the Eddy would affect your emmisions. I bet you can get by with it, since for your year model truck you are allowed some dirty carb emmision standards. I like CA better when they said, once the vehicle was 20 years old it was exempt. Now they just do a cut off of 1975 or older right?? And even then it has to pass emmsions to change owners and transfer title right?

Yeah.. the 1975 older cut off is correct... I believe it doesn't matter if you change owners.. it's still exempt before 75.

Although.. if you do sell a car here newer than 1975, the owner has the responibility of making sure it passes smog.. even if the registration and tite are up to date, you still have to smog it again.

However, here in Cali, we have to pass smog tests every other year...

As far as the dirty carb emmisions.. not too sure about the rules on that... but I have to leave it with my smog guy for a day, because he has to adjust the carburation to pass... which he says he has to make it run crappy... but passes.. hen he has to adjust the mixture screws and timing back to smooth idle

strange, but he has to do that every time I smog it
 

bucket

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I converted a '46 Chevy panel truck to TBI, it had a 4.3 V6 in it. I pulled the manifold, TB, distributor, throttle bracket, wiring, etc from an S10 at the junk yard. Ended up using a Painless wiring harness (same harness for 4.3 and sbc/bbc) and IMHO, it was well worth it. It was a nice clean install without any guesswork. Also used an aftermarket VSS that goes inline with the speedo cable, and used an in-line 20 PSI electric fuel pump. It was so easy.

I'm thinking about converting my '79 to TBI, and even though I have the complete system including harness, I will still choose the Painless harness.
 

Swims350

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why go with painless and pay more money when you have the stock ones?
 

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