Since deciding that the S-15 was going to be a daily driver for my mother I felt that the 350 Chevy that was in it was a little much for her,and besides I have a perfectly good 305 that was gonna get tossed anyway. With a little help the 305 can be a strong enough engine for a lady that's damn near finished her working life. The above picture shows just how tight the engine bay is when you move closer to the firewall.
Another very strong indicator of the thought put into installing the LT-1 into this truck was that the firewall was not gently "massaged" to give plenty of clearance for the H.E.I. or access to the bell housing bolts. Resulting in the need to undo the tranny cross member and pulling the engine forward enough to get at the last couple bolts to disconnect the engine from the tranny.
At first I figured that it would be an easy swap however,on closer inspection it turns out that there were some aspects of the initial built that were over done from laziness if you can believe it. Instead of using proper exhaust hangers the complete system was welded lock,stock and barrel from the collectors right to the dumps. Including welding the pipes to the cross member. There are actually places where they welded the two pipes to each other. One the other hand the guy putting this system in may have understood the fact that there would be a lot of vibration and may have just not wanted it to ever come apart..either way we'll never know.
When I first drove this truck I noted that the transmission would not go into any forward gear but,drive. Once I got underneath and had a look it was easy to see the reason why.The way the shifter cable was attached with a bolt and a few nuts locked against each other didn't allow for any clearance past the transmission pan. A little thought and this would have fixed this little problem right up. One off the pluses are engine mounts with adjustable holes so that you can change where the engine's final resting place by as much as an inch and a half with out drilling new holes for the frame mounts.
For a while I was trying to figure out the reasoning behind most of the way this truck was built however,I decided it wasn't worth the effort. When it gets put back together it'll be done so that what needs to be accessed can be and what doesn't won't. This is the third S- series truck I've done and I've found that without serious modifications these trucks just aren't built or designed with anything but,stock V-6 or 4 banger engines in mind. So adding anything over 350 horsepower requires doing some homework. Just like any other build.
