Small size motor swap ideas please.

McPierson

New Member
Joined
Sep 9, 2019
Hi,
I have a 63 Lark with a toasted 215. I don’t have much faith in the 215 or rover V8 platform so I need a swap. This car has the first GM Uni-body, and has a small engine bay. I’ve looked at LS and also at 1UZFE, but both of those are just a bit too wide to make things easy.

I’d like to consider a Buick V6 option, but I’m way down the learning curve. Can you advise me please?

OTHER IMPORTANT DETAILS:
Trans: Manual Preferred, but 200r4 is fine. Small tunnel… will need significant cutting to fit anything.

Use: Cruising low miles…. I’d like to drive this to work on nice days (8 miles)… Not racing, but ripping it on ramps and such.

Primary Goal: 300HP (possibly 200 + room to boost). There’s no chance this car will be faster than my IS-F. So fast is not the goal.

Subgoal: If not Boosted, carb would be more authentic to the car. If boost I’ll want EFI for tuning.

Economical: The LS and the 1UZFE are very low cost options. It would be hard to beat those, but a Buick would save me some fab challenges due to the small size of the car and being Uni-body makes cutting perilous. So give me a reasonable ball-park, not “if you know a guy” pricing.

I’ve been reading some and I have some ideas of the least cost solution, but I don’t want to poison the well. There’s not chance this car will be faster than my IS-F, so realistically.

Thanks,
Matt
 
Ouch, maybe I'm asking too much. Here's my idea:

Buy L67 and L36. Use the L36 heads and intake on the L67 bolt that to a WC T5 and boost that sucker.

I would probably try to make the L67 intake work with the intake elbow I've seen first, but I'd prefer to push the motor back as far as I can....
 
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