My burban has 173K miles on it. Time for a rebuild is creeping up and I am considering my options.

Option 1: Full rebuild, with hyperblahblah pistons, mild cam, vortech heads, intake, tbi mods, and full exhaust. Later a custom chip (is the chip even worth it?) I was even considering a 383 stroker. the 190 stock just isn't cutting it. Now that 6' and 35's are going on, I imagine its going to be a real dog unitl I can get the 4.56's.

Option 2: Lets just say I have the hook up when it comes to junk yards. I can probably get a vortech engine either a 350 or a 454 with all the wiring for around $1000.

Well gearing is not really the question. I plan to go with 4.56 maybe even 4.88's. Now I am trying to weigh out the cost/horsepower/efficiency issue. What do you guys think. I need to take into account the repair cost issue also. I know tbi's are more plentiful then vortechs.

Any input. This is a future project, nothing I am going to start real soon. Right now I am still looking for the right tire/wheel combo that I like and am willing to spend the cash on.

Is yours a 1/2 ton or 3/4 ton?

I'd get a vortec 454 wiht 4l80E tranny from the junk yard. With 6" lift and 35's, you'l benefit from the bigger motor, and don't think gas mileage will suffer much because a 350 has to work so much harder to spin those than a 454 will. I may not be accurate on teh gas part, but i'd opt for the more power!

Depends on where you want your power. The wonderful thing about a throttle body engine, is that the high torque numbers are produced much lower than a vortech. I know a particular gentleman near where I work that has a race winning truck like mine on 36's and 6" of lift. Dont know if he offroads a whole lot... but he had my machine shop fab up a sweeeettt ass 383. The torque numbers are up in the 500+ range. The thing of it is, he still runs throttle body instead of fuel injection. He can pull one hell of a mean 4 wheel burnout (with the occasional snapped halfshaft!) out in front of our store!

Fuel injection is efficient - yes. And the reason a stock vortech can whoomp a stock TBI truck from the factory? Its all in the intake and the vortech head design. TBI heads and intakes are the pinnacle of inefficiency... Most true motor nuts end up with vortech heads on thier TBI engine at some point in thier life.

But the reason behind the GM trucks having throttle body in the first place instead of MFI is that the truck burns the fuel more efficiently with TBI. Just think of it as a finely tuned carb. With the right mods, I think you would do well staying with TBI and a stroker.

Just my two cents.... [img]images/graemlins/burnout.gif[/img]

Well the suburban will see no rockcrawling. I'm a whole lot more into the sand and baja driving. What kind of numbers would I be looking at with a rebuilt 350, vortech heads and a cam/intake match.

That combo, depending on cam and intake setup could net you at or above 350 HP. Gotta be careful what you pick though. It will take you lots of money to make your TBI 350 run faster than it will pull hard. Those engines work best at low RPMs. You may need to build up the internals to allow it to handle high R's and lots of speed. Just dont neglect the torque numbers... Horsepower is less than half of the equation. You need lots of torque to get big meats moving (or stupid high gears) so you need to do a little planning.

Call an offroad performance shop and see if they can blueprint an engine design for you that will meet your needs. They can take into consideration what tire size range, gear range and whether you mud, sand, drag, or pull and make a balanced engine to fit your truck. Keep us posted on whatever you do [img]images/graemlins/RockOn.gif[/img]

Hello,

I am along the same route with mine. Edelbrock has a MFI setup that uses "our" stock TBI as a "valve body, and "we" use the same computer & wiring basically.