have a striaght 6How hard is it to change engine's in a 1981 chevy c10? and what engine would fit best?Wow, come on people this aint a custom engine swap. Aint like shoe horning a 454 bbc into a toyota supra.
The 1981 c/10 came with a straight 6, small block v8 and a big block v8 all from the factory..
The truck has mounting holes drilled for engine of those mounts..
All parts for swap are common part store replacements (just tell them 1981 c/10 with a 350) to get the parts you need.
It's been awhile since I messed with a car/truck with a straight 6 so forgive me if I don't have all the info.
If the rad hoses is in diff places (V8 is water pump, lower hose to pass side bottom, intake, upper hose to rad driver side top) then you will need to swap the rad to a v8 one.
Change the frame engine mounts to v8 mounts ($20 at parts store)
You will probbly need a v8 fan, fan clutch, and rad fan shroud..
Next is the transmission.. IIRC the straight 6 and v8 shares the same bolt pattern so trans will bolt up, but 6cyl trans used less frictions inside it so it is weaker and you may kill it with a v8... You may want to look for a v8 th-350 long shaft or newer 700R4 overdrive trans from a v8 to swap in.
The wiring on 6cyl and v8 is pretty much the same..
The exhaust will need changing, but thats not too bad, you can pull a v8 exhaust system from a 1973 up c/10 and use it on yours with V8
Or have exhaust shop to fix you one, or install long tube headers and pretty much fab up your own system.. Thats one great thing about the chevy trucks.. Lots of room under them.. Two straight pipes, hooked to headers, then back towards the bed 2 mufflers, and 2 straight tail pipes out the back and you have an exhaust system made up
This is almost a remove and replace swap.
As far as engines.. Any of the v8's 262, 265, 267, 283, 302, 305, 307, 327, 350, 400 would fit easy in your truck..
Also the big block 396, 402, 427, 454, 502 would also fit pretty much like the small block doesHow hard is it to change engine's in a 1981 chevy c10? and what engine would fit best?The best engine to put back is the same type enging. Otherwise, you will hap to change a lot of things. Which in cludes welling. If you got the money and time you can put a V6 engine. In the shop it would take a day in and out. And aonther day to get all ajustment maded. I would keep it the same. There to much to change over and adapt to make it work. It could take a week of longer in a shop equiped to do this.How hard is it to change engine's in a 1981 chevy c10? and what engine would fit best?straight six would be easiest, but they had smallblock v8 and bigblock v8 in those trucks.
If you've not changed an engine in one of these, you'll find the six isn't all that bad.How hard is it to change engine's in a 1981 chevy c10? and what engine would fit best?very hard and very costly, and no offense you probably will fail miserably before you even get the intake manifold off
