Re: 4.3 vs LS Reliability
This is like comparing apples to titties.
As Jimmy said...LS motors are great and in most case cheap HP can be had. I bought my first Ty back in 1993 when they were a truck to be respected on the street and fairly fast on the track. For the first 10- 15 years, especially on this board, we would not even consider running anything but a V6 in these trucks and in fact anyone who even considered something else was somewhat of a traitor and not considered a true part of syty land. SBCs where always available to drop into our trucks from the very beginning, but we where a proud bunch of guys and had that V6 ("we can do it") spirit. These trucks were special and we were an elite group that wanted to be a part of this special truck. We didn't belong to the GN crowd, the 454 SS truck crowd, the muscle car crowd, the newer Vette crowd, etc. It was the SYTY group and we hung together with our cool trucks and V6 turbo power.
Eventually over the years a few V8s started coming in, but mostly because of the quest for more power. and although the first ones took some engineering and a lot of man hrs. It was more of a personal challenge for some than a cost difference to build up a decent V6 build.
The LS swaps started out of the need/what for more street competitive hp than the our trucks were originally designed for. When a few of us V6's were in the 11,s and bumping into the tens, most of the others were satisfied having 12 sec rides which were still terrors on the street compared to our non-syty friend's non turbo'ed cars.
Today, everyone has finally discovered "the turbo", that dirty little secret that we had along with GNs for years. They are sticking it in everything. Mustangs, F-bodies, Jeeps...everything. It is cheap HP and with all the vendors and china's manufacturing we now have instant 10-9 sec street cars cheap. The sad thing is that we were the big, "little V6 turbo". Now we can't keep up with the bigger brother V8 turbo...unless we over spend and max design a V6 that has to have over 4 hp per cube, which is totally in the stratosphere range for a V6, let alone putting that kind of HP per cube in most any motor.
The same reason we bought these trucks years ago was the big coolness of them and a little self pride mixed with a touch of ego. Today we are reversing the order somewhat.. Our bigger ego wants to keep up with the rest of the world going around us. Our pride of what these trucks originally meant to us was pushed aside in the LS swaps. The interesting thing is most non-syty people think the V6 turbo was the coolest thing about them. Having a V6 perform the way ours did back in the day was a real feat and that was just cool.
I take both of my trucks to rather large car shows in the area/region. I usually trophy with both of them. But the AWD will normally out rank the other when judged by serious judges, especially when they ask "is it still a 4.3 with AWD?" I am asked all the time if it's still a V6 and AWD...as if they know that these rare trucks are getting change-overs and cut up. When I tell them it is, they stop and spend a lot of time asking questions and going over it. Our trucks are getting noticed as the younger crowd "from back in their day" is getting older and more interested in their "old school" dream car. Hopefully there will still be some V6 AWD trucks around when everyone gets tired of seeing every type of car with an LS turbo stuck it.
The OGs are still around, the Big Guns still talk and occasionally we still meet up..,just not on the board so much. We, quite frankly, get tired of the cheap hp talk. We are into Syclone and Typhoons and it seems that the treads have become more about motor swaps than the coolness of the trucks, the pride of what they are and the thing inside that makes us smile and swell up a little (ego) when someone looks at us and says
..."is that a real Syclone Typhoon? WOW,I have heard about them but never seen a real one...does it still have the V6 Grand National motor?" :tup:
John
