TPI swap 101 the easiest, cheapest swap out there

[Tinbender59]

Howdy people, I'm back with a fresh swap, "actually just getting ready to start it". Yes I know the LS swaps are the hottest thing going. BUT! they aren't my cup O tea. so save the hater remarks if you don't agree that is ok, just keep it to yourself please, I ain't got time nor patience fur it. thank you please??

Ok as you all may remember I put an LT1 in my personal 1997 K1500, well that setup failed!! largely due to bad machine shop work. the distributor mounting was 1/4 inch off, long story short, the distributor gear ground away, spitting metal shavings all through the motor. and you know the rest of that story. I then acquired a fresh LT1 7K miles, this time I put a TPI intake on it, and oh man does it have some torque. my dyno program estimates it to be shy of 470ftlb 300hp which is darn respectable for a "stock" small block.

Since I now have this swap figured out and worked out my mistakes, I will be building another one. This time with a GEN 1 motor, and a fully functional "stock" 4L60E. My nephew has a 1999 Z71 that the ol Vortec died. We were talking cost Verses bragging rights and I advised that we are just a bunch O hicks that don't much care fer braggin rights to just go with a Gen 1,a TPI, 411 ECU and then get it muddy. Starting 5/2/13 we are going to do this. I will try to document every step in the process. We acquired a lightly used 1992 5.7 IROC TPI motor complete with ECU, wiring, and accessories. this is going to be a walk in the park!!! stay tuned as we fly through this. The plan is crack the first bolt Thursday, and test drive it Saturday. pictures to come. I'll have the laptop in the shop, and may be able to interact as we work?????

 

[Tinbender59]

hello all sorry for the long sabbatical, the ol back decided to flair up, not fun. any how we have the ol dead Vortec out and the TPI long block bolted in. that part is pretty much straight forward, so I didn't worry with pictures of that process.

first up we will be using a 411 ECU, that is a proven mod now. then we used the Vortec timing cover, timing chain/gears, reluctor/sensor, and harmonic balancer to get the crank signal. like wise we will also use the Vortec distributor for cam signal. Here is what we started with.

by the way "MY" TPI setup pulled this at 70 MPH at 35% throttle, I monitor all important data when pulling.

 

[Tinbender59]

curent progress

 

[Tinbender59]

I guess every body has bought into the LS swap and money is not an issue??

 

[superdave]

97 vortec 5.7 rated at 255hp and 330 ft/lbs torque
92 L98 TPI rated at 245hp and 345 ft/lbs torque

I think this may be why you aren't getting a ton of response on this. It seems to be a lot of work for basically the same results. I like the TPI and had one in a Corvette. It does have a lot of low end torque. If I was doing an engine swap, I'd be looking to improve performance, not break even.

 

[great white]

so, what do you want people to say?

It's a nice project.

I've done it in an 89 before.

Specs:

89 K1500 ECLB 350.
Stock GM upper TPI.
Edlebrock Vortec tpi conversion lower intake
Vortec heads.
Vortec harness
vortec tone ring
411 PCM
700r4
Lots of other little bits I'm probably forgetting.....

Ran like stink (when it ran).

truck rotted away underneath it.

Sold it all off but kept the TPI stuff:

You must be registered for see images attach

Still have one full TPI setup hanging on the garage wall as a conversation piece and about 1.5 more setups in bins. Most of a couple IROCs are in the bins with it. Tried to sell it all off a couple times (was down to 400 bucks for the lot), but no bites. Only thing that did go was the Edlebrock Vortec/TPI lower.

It's just too old tech for anyone to want to mess with anymore.

Hence, it ended up on the wall for guys to point and gawk at.



TPI: best truck engine they never put in a truck. Starts running out of breath right around 2500 rpm and gets worse from there but it's a heck of a stump puller down low. The runners were designed to give the 305's of the day more low end grunt and they got it pretty well right.

Mine was just a bit more temperamental than I would have preferred. If I had it to do again I'd probably stay OBDI and have gone with a batch fire EBL instead of doing segment swaps run sequential on a 411.

But I dropped gassers for Diesels many years ago and never looked back....

 

[bluex]

I'll be watching this, planning on basically the same setup in my 78, just using the engine that's in it with the tpi. Don't give up on the updates!

 

[Tinbender59]

ya granted this is old school, but pretty neat old school, and yes the numbers say it is an even swap, but the ol seat of the pants will argue that point. 2500??? friend Ill have to take issue with that, the biggest issue with TPI was stock exhaust, get a set of headers, properly tuned it will fall flat at 5600, that is because TPI was designed to make more torque than normally possible out of an emissions motor. the 305 was designed purely for emissions and became the laughing stock of the small blocks, heck even the 267 was a better motor. and yes i'll keep you posted

 

[Tinbender59]

so, what do you want people to say?

It's a nice project.

I've done it in an 89 before.

Specs:

89 K1500 ECLB 350.
Stock GM upper TPI.
Edlebrock Vortec tpi conversion lower intake
Vortec heads.
Vortec harness
vortec tone ring
411 PCM
700r4
Lots of other little bits I'm probably forgetting.....

Ran like stink (when it ran).

truck rotted away underneath it.

Sold it all off but kept the TPI stuff:

You must be registered for see images attach

Still have one full TPI setup hanging on the garage wall as a conversation piece and about 1.5 more setups in bins. Most of a couple IROCs are in the bins with it. Tried to sell it all off a couple times (was down to 400 bucks for the lot), but no bites. Only thing that did go was the Edlebrock Vortec/TPI lower.

It's just too old tech for anyone to want to mess with anymore.

Hence, it ended up on the wall for guys to point and gawk at.



TPI: best truck engine they never put in a truck. Starts running out of breath right around 2500 rpm and gets worse from there but it's a heck of a stump puller down low. The runners were designed to give the 305's of the day more low end grunt and they got it pretty well right.

Mine was just a bit more temperamental than I would have preferred. If I had it to do again I'd probably stay OBDI and have gone with a batch fire EBL instead of doing segment swaps run sequential on a 411.

But I dropped gassers for Diesels many years ago and never looked back....

give me a couple of months and i would be interested in yur TPI stuff

 

[great white]

ya granted this is old school, but pretty neat old school, and yes the numbers say it is an even swap, but the ol seat of the pants will argue that point. 2500??? friend Ill have to take issue with that, the biggest issue with TPI was stock exhaust, get a set of headers, properly tuned it will fall flat at 5600, that is because TPI was designed to make more torque than normally possible out of an emissions motor. the 305 was designed purely for emissions and became the laughing stock of the small blocks, heck even the 267 was a better motor. and yes i'll keep you posted

Yeah, umm, I said started to run out of breath 2500, not fell flat.

The tuned runners were intended to boost low end torque and they did just that.

Most documentation says around 4500 is pretty much it, but my stock tubed TPI would start laying down at around 2500 rpm and would begin to plateau around 3000 and stay there until round about 4-4500 where it began to choke out and lay down. This was with a mandrel 2.5" Y to a single 3" mandrel exhaust.

No amount of tuning would help it at that point. You could feel it start to suck down.

Bigger plenum and bigger runners got the rpm breathing up, but I lost low end as well.

I went back to stock runners to keep the low end I needed in a heavy truck body.