a short vacation from motorcycles may come...

Hello everyone. i have been posting on here forever now and it pains me to say that my 81' KZ1000 might have a new owner soon. A guy up the street from my house has 2 1962-1963 Chevy Novas that he wants to sell. I offered him a trade and he said he was very interested. (Hes seen me having so much fun going up and down the street on the beast). This is just an idea for right now, I'm not full bore into this decision yet. Both Novas have complete chevy straight 6s in them with good transmissions. Im thinking of this purely for sentimental reasons. My grandfather passed away last thanksgiving and i was kinda left with his truck. The truck is a 1980 silverado with a bad motor. The motor... went tits up after i was put in charge of it. i want to make that truck drive again because i feel like i failed with my responsibility to make the truck better. So, 1 of the motors will be going into the truck. THE REALLY GOOD NEWS THOUGH!!! With 2 motors, 1 complete car is possible. I'll be able to sell 1 of the Novas as a complete car and the other one as a parts car. I could buy another KZ, Maybe even buy my bike back from the guy. Ill be updating the situation. decisions will be made tomorrow..

find out which 6cyl those novas have in them first before you try sticking one in the truck,if its smaller than a 235 you might be really bummed at the lack of power if you shove it in the truck.
305-350 small block chevys are really easy to come by in most places,ans are usually pretty cheap depending on what the truck had origionally.
if the truck had a 6 cylinder origionally im gonna guess it was a 250,the ones with the intake cast into the head are notorious for cracked heads.
if you can find an old 60s-early 70s farm truck a lot of those had the 292 6 cylinder,which is a serious powerhouse of a motor.

OH the truck has a 350 in it now but its got a bent push rod, it burns alot of oil, and i think the intake on cylinder 1 is burnt up...

have you pulled the pushrod out and rolled it across a piece of glass to check it?

have you checked your local scrap yards or craigslist for a 305/350?
figure a 63 nova probably weighed 2000-2500 on a good day,compared to 4500 for an average pickup truck.
those novas probably have 3 speed manual trans or a powerglide and 4.11 ish gears in the rear end to get that baby 6 moving,compared to an automatic and 3.08-3.50 gears in an average pickup with a v8

looks like the 63s came with a 194" 6 cylinder

The 62 has a Power glide and the 63 has a 3 on the tree.
siouxcity.craigslist.org/cto/2533910969.html

The rusty looking one thats outside will be the parts car to make one good car. the motor that doesnt run will run before i pull it. then it will go in my truck. The motor that does run in the rusty one will go in the red one. then ill sell both cars, One to drive and one for parts.

It's up to you, of course, but I sincerely believe that's a bad trade. The car will quickly become a huge moneypit and recovering your investment will be difficult if not impossible. As Wireman pointed out, you should be able to pick up a decent small block Chevy V8 fairly easily and that would provide much better power for the truck. In either case I wish you the best of luck. Ed

Wireman has some good advice for , swapping that baby six into your truck, that would be like putting a KZ250 single in your bike.
If you get another 350 4BBL 4 Bolt Main, you would be much happier. Even the low compression Smog motors will kill that little Six. You can get an earlier one that will really run, like around 69. Or you can get a Smogger with Hard seats already, low compression. Depending how much driving you have to do to pick one up, you could swap it and be driving your truck the same day. So easy to pull out.
Now the value of a clean early Nova is going up all of the time, so IF the one you consider the Driver, is clean, and can be made to Look Good/ Run Good/ Drive Good, without you spending 3K you don't have. Then maybe the swap, 2 Square Novas for a KZ can be a money maker. But 650ed is probably right, it will more than likely be a Money Pit.

Agree with cars being a money pit. When I first got my kz I started getting parts and could not believe how affordable parts are, even cycle shop work is affordable. I have a '72 Pontiac LeMans that just sits there because my funds went away. Its just one slow step at a time. I did a motor swap, and They are not always easy unless you have the same exact vehicles to swap between. you have to consider that the motor is not just going to fit. It'll fit mount and maybe bolt up, but you have hoses, wires, exhaust, etc then you have to get adapters, and this and that, oh that wont work I need to get this bolt, and by then you don't have a Bike to do a quick run to the hardware store to get a bolt. And when its all said and done you could have pulled the 350 apart and rebuilt it in the money you did the motor swap. Trust me unless you have cash and lots of available cash or extremely good credit to just get a cash loan then I wouldn't get mixed up with those cars. My swap was the same exact motor block and similar cars and I still ran into problems. The fuel pump, trans lines, wiring oh god the wiring!, and because I threw on headers I had to move all the brake lines and the module. And drill and tap new holes in the heads so I can bolt up a header that the factory didn't drill. See even though I had the same blocks the heads were different. Why do you think that guy is trying to get rid of them? Because Cars take money. even though its said to be PLug'n'Play. It's not and never is.

And all of what I said, was before I seen the craigslist ad. Trust me you wont be happy.

Motor Head wrote: Wireman has some good advice for , swapping that baby six into your truck, that would be like putting a KZ250 single in your bike.
If you get another 350 4BBL 4 Bolt Main, you would be much happier. Even the low compression Smog motors will kill that little Six. You can get an earlier one that will really run, like around 69. Or you can get a Smogger with Hard seats already, low compression. Depending how much driving you have to do to pick one up, you could swap it and be driving your truck the same day. So easy to pull out.
Now the value of a clean early Nova is going up all of the time, so IF the one you consider the Driver, is clean, and can be made to Look Good/ Run Good/ Drive Good, without you spending 3K you don't have. Then maybe the swap, 2 Square Novas for a KZ can be a money maker. But 650ed is probably right, it will more than likely be a Money Pit.

if you can find a 4 bolt main 350 cheap that would be a bonus,but its not really manditory by any means.
4 bolt main blocks are usually found in 3/4 and 1 ton pickups and dump trucks,very few 1/2t trucks have them origionally.some of the higher end small block car motors like early Lt-1's had them and some 300hp 350s,but theyre still overkill for most applications