1994 S10 Build.. 5.7L Vortec 4x4 5 speed

[Wet..Paint]

I have had this truck running for about a year now, and I use and abuse it.. Pull the sleds, car trailer (with vehicles on it!) and of course off road it, race it and generally drive the balls off it. I copied my build from another forum so hopefully its readable!

Well, long story short, bought an S-10 as a winter beater in November. It had 320,000 kms on it when I bought it. It was a Regular Cab short box, zero optioned truck with the 4.3L Vortec V6, standard trans and 4x4! It lasted up until middle of February I believe. Had about 340,000 kms on it by then, lost oil pressure on the highway. I said FFFF it and kept driving it home. Got 2 blocks from my house and it seized up solid.

Sooo found myself a 1997 GMC 1500 2wd auto from SGI (local government insurance) with a 5.7L Vortec V8. Only 190,000 kms and ran like a top.

I'm creating my own wiring harness using both S-10 Computer, to operate the truck stuff, and the 5.7 computer to run the engine. Since it is OBDII, I just started on the wiring, hopefully don't have any problems cause of that.. Things might change yet, I can buy a complete plug and play harness which just uses the 5.7L computer, but its $750. Or send both mine to get connected for $350. So I'm gonna attempt it on my own.

Using Stealth conversions 4x4 motor mounts, with new 2.8L V6 clamshells. I have to use the original 4.3L Oil pan which I had to stretch with Stealth conversions extension, it fit real well! Then had to take off the oil splash tray, cut the studs off for that, and use a 1997 4.3L 4x4 oil pick up to fit the smaller, deeper oil pan. Had to do all this to clear the front differential. The oil pan tucks down behind it. Had to drop the whole front diff out to pull the engine forward since it is a standard trans..

The only company I found that made headers for the New body style S-10 and 4x4 with a 350 was Sanderson headers, which was pretty pricey but I didn't really feel like buying a set that would need to be modified and be a pain in the ass to fit.

Using a new flywheel from Luk for a 5.7L Vortec, and possibly the original 4.3L clutch and pressure plate. I have been looking at getting a different clutch tho, might as well since I am right there. Gonna make decent power and it has 31x10.50s on it..

Gonna be throwing in a GM Performance Parts LT4 Hot Cam, possibly bigger injectors and throttle body. Supposedly this combination will clear 400HP no problem as long as the computer is set up properly.

Garage is a pretty big disaster, just tryin to get this done more so keep tidy... I wanted to take more pics but I always forget the camera. Oh well.

Donor truck.


5.7L Vortec


S-10



4.3L


Engine out


Engine bay cleaned


Oil pan stretched


Cut studs


New pick up


Motor mounts



New flywheel


Wiring




Mess of parts


Old ****ty bench seat, now in the garbage! (pic taken with my crapberry)


New Heated Buckets from a 1995 Honda Prelude, fit pretty good. Might end up building a center console with a 10" Kicker comp inverted into it.


Spent the weekend working and got it in and almost ready to go!

Everything went extremely smooth dropping it in and setting it up! So I'm happy for that, had to beat the passenger side floor board / firewall to make the header clear. Other than that, zero problems. Driver side header was the other difficult part, getting the steering shaft through the headers... so ya, everything has gone real well so far.

Used the original 5.7L Upper rad hose, cut in half and turned it around to make it fit. The bottom rad hose however, didn't work out so well. Went to a couple parts places and I hate lazy ass parts guys that won't go look and compare to help find a rad hose. So I might have to get creative and patch one together or something. The original heater hoses from the 5.7L fit as well, just shortened them up. I'll have to get some electric pusher type fans and put them in front of the radiator, the pic doesn't show it well but there is only about an 1.5" clearance from water pump to radiator. The wiring is also goin really well, got the new computer and fuse box mounted and started organizing and routing wires.

I need to figure out an air cleaner for it, the old 4.3L just had the old bolt on style cleaner, the 5.7L air cleaner goes towards the passenger side and ends up where the battery is, so I need one to go towards the driver side. Might buy an ebay special or something.. Also figure out my fuel lines and I'll be ready to rock!

Again, forgot my camera... So I only took a couple, and they are kinda ****ty.









Bumpin it up

Its running now, took a while.. Lot of little FFFFing around. Had a lot of bugs to work out.

Scored an original stock air cleaner assembly from a 2003 S-10 V6 which uses the same throttle body so I mixed and match some of the 5.7L stuff to make it work. It looks awesome, says V6 Vortec on it so at a glance it looks bone stock. Also got the original fan shroud to fit extremely well.

Made a lower rad hose out of 2 pieces just spliced in a connector to make the right shape.

Picked up 2 12" electric fans and mounted them infront of the radiator. Tried to tie them into the computer (apparently it was supposed to be able to turn em on but it doesn't) so they are just wired to the ignition now. Anybody know how to properly wire in electric fans?

We had a fuel issue as well, stock TBI V6 only needs like 15psi to run and the 5.7L needs atleast 60psi so I bought a Holley inline high pressure pump and it fired right up. But died after a couple seconds. Found out its cause it was wired to the old computer which didnt see the engine running so it killed the pump. Rewired that to the new computer and it fired up and ran great!

Took it for a quick drive, only hammered it up to 4,000 rpm since its loud as FFFF! And it pulls like crazy! Clutch needs to be bled tho, gotta do that yet.

Now just working away on the dual exhaust. I just went with a cheapo dual in dual out chambered muffler. If it sounds like ass I'm gonna get a pair of Hooker Aero chambers and see how they sound.

Other than that just gotta tidy up wires, loom and tape and tie them all out of the way and get it all nice and neat!

I can't drive the effing thing! Needs clutch work... Ordered a new slave and master today hopefully that solves the problem!

Couple of quick photos..

Clutch is still a little FFFFy, changed the Master and Slave, but not sure if its bled properly... Still needs some cleaning up and minor minor stuff yet!

But it goes good and sounds mean!











Ignore the gay ass sticker on the back.. I used to work for the guy but he ****ed me over.. I ripped it off a long time ago!

I also put on wheel spacers on the back to kick them out so they are the same as the fronts. Other than that the truck is still the same, I haven't had time to wire loom or anything yet. Although I did straight pipe the truck, its loud as hell but I wanna X-Pipe it atleast now to get rid of that rap straight pipe has.. My oil pan also has a small leak and I keep an eye on it all the time.

Future plans are basically whatever happens to the truck... If I blow up rear diff, I'll upgrade.. Front diff, straight axle.. Or if I come across a good deal, I'd like to do a big lift on it so I can put in a normal 350 oil pan and solve my leak! But my tires are also still new surprisingly since it does sick burnouts! Although I am definitely gonna source out some helper bags or heavier rear springs, since I use it like a 3/4 ton now! Since I never did upgrade the cam in it, since I felt like I was putting too much money into it at the time, if I ever have to pull it apart for whatever reason, I'll do it then, if not, it still hauls ass!

Thats all for now! I haven't usually posted much here, but I'll try to come back as often as I can to help out others and answer questions!

Thanks

[BarryB]

Cool, glad to see you kept the injection. I going to do the same thing to my 91 s10. Dropping in a 350, but keeping it T.B.I. I like it when you open the hood it looks like a factory install.