1992 K1500 Motor Upgrades?
 

Hi all,
I have a 92 K1500 Chevy Pickup. I have done an K&N air intake, 2.5" Full dual exhaust, eliminated the cat, new stock crate 350, rebuilt tranny, small 2" lift, 33x12.5x20 Toyo MT tires, 20" wheels, and a bunch of appearance upgrades. I am wanting to get more HP from the motor so I can pull my sleds up grades without having to downshift all the time, plus have more power all around. I was thinking about putting a set of Vortec heads, new cam, Vortec Intake, and maybe a Jet 6 Pak Chip on it. I am unsure about the Vortec heads, if I need to change pistons, change fuel delivery, etc. I would like to just be able to slap the heads and intake on without cam but I think cam would be worth it. I also want to put electric fan on as well. What should I think about or what are the correct ways to upgrade heads/intake on this particular motor. Any combos already done by anybody on this forum??? Also any clue on MPG losses or HP gains from this setup??
Thanks
Chris

Wheelin,
The vortec heads, and intake would work fine with your bottom end, just make sure the intake will accept a tbi throttle body. The Electric fans are great for throttle response if u remove the factory fan from the engine, the whole cam idea is also great, but to still run the throttle body and injection system, you cant get to crazy with it, also, look into valve spring.
Hope i was some help

morgan,
what kind of valve springs you thinking. Would you change out to rollers? I have also seen that Edelbrock offers a power setup that does a cam, head, and intake swap. Do you think that this might be a better way to go. One other thing, do headers really make a big difference and if they do, should I get shorty headers that will be plug and play or have long headers that I will have to do some custom exhaust work?? Thanks
Chris

On my 90 5.7 I had the stock motor, Edelbrock intake, JBA shorty headers, single in dual out glasspack exhaust, underdrive pulleys, Hypertech Thermo-master T-stat and a K&N filter and it pulled everyhting I had behind it. It rarely downshifted, but it was a 2 wheeler too. And the average weight I hauled was 1,500 LBS. instead of an Edelbrock intake on my dad's 90 model 5.7 we put on a Throttle Body Spacer and it did pretty much the same thing my intake did. Other than that the only difference in our trucks was he did not have underdrive pulleys till much later when I took them off my truck and put them on his. He had a single in dual out Flowmaster. He also had an electric fan, which I didn't. And instead of a Hypertech chip he ran a Superchips chip with the stock T-stat. My tuck pulled a bit better than his and had better MPG, but I had 373 gears and he had 342 gears, so I decided that was the difference in our trucks.

I think I would run a TBS, underdrive pulleys, longtubes and a custom burned chip for starters. Just my 2 cents.