Late model GM 4.3 fitment question. The JIMMY motor!

a V-8 convert is the way to go in my opinion. theres no replacement displacement when you need it.

key is finding the driveshaft chop shop with balance ability.

msd.....griffin radiator.....3" flowmaster's....root's 671 blower....NOS......

parachute...

The worst part of the swap is...even if you are successful...you are still driving an S10 blazer/Jimmy crossbreed!!!

Scrap is $150 a ton at my local yard...dad just "cashed in" his Suburban that had a rotted out frame and put the $450 towards another runner...

There's a place in Shrewsbury that chops driveshafts - they've been there for years, and now a guy I know owns the place. They do everything back from the tranny tailshaft. That's their specialty, so I'm in good hands there.

I hear ya Markviii. This is just a winter beater to get the wife to work this time of year, so her Marquis won't turn into a rust pile. If I could rig up several Briggs & Stratton engines in series, I'd do it. She would still get to work. I figured I might as well use the engine that's sitting right there. I already own it, so I'm already ahead of the game. The '89 runs, but the wife is getting sick of pouring a quart of 20W-50 in it every 200 miles. Burns it like a bastard. Has 77,000 original miles, but was driven outside NYC it's whole life ... so multiply the mileage by 5 .. and that's the condition of the engine. Just holding on.

OK - I just called PATC out of Bossier City, LA - they specialize in 700R4/4L60/E transmissions. This guy said it will bolt right up. He said my biggest concern is getting the TV cable hooked up and adjusted properly so I don;t burn up the R4. That's a piece of cake - done that a bunch of times. SO it looks like the project is a GO! I'll start another thread in the spring on that one.

Thanks for all your help! The Jimmy shall live on in spirit ...

Smitty, heres an alternative to swapping the engine....

better yet.. its a lotta work..

SMITTY wrote: I hear ya Markviii. This is just a winter beater to get the wife to work this time of year, so her Marquis won't turn into a rust pile. If I could rig up several Briggs & Stratton engines in series, I'd do it. She would still get to work. I figured I might as well use the engine that's sitting right there. I already own it, so I'm already ahead of the game. The '89 runs, but the wife is getting sick of pouring a quart of 20W-50 in it every 200 miles. Burns it like a bastard. Has 77,000 original miles, but was driven outside NYC it's whole life ... so multiply the mileage by 5 .. and that's the condition of the engine. Just holding on.

Smitty, the toughest, most trouble free car I ever owned was an '88 Grand Marquis. It was a one owner car from Florida with 80,000 miles; I bought it for $600. The catch...it had no heat, which ended up being a vacuum leak in the climate control system. I drove it everyday for two years, sold it to my brother who drove it to college for two years, he sold it to my uncle who drove it to work for two years, he sold it to his neighbor who drove it for two years...last year it finally went out in style at the local demolition derby. I was so impressed with that car, I have always owned at least one "panther platform" car since I sold the '88. My current daily driver is a 2001 Mercury Grand Marquis Ultimate Edition that I bought in '04. I have also owned a few retired police interceptor Crown Vic's for "beaters". The '99 I had with 3.55 gears and a limited slip would really haul! Last I checked that car was delivering newspapers...

As long as I am completely off the topic of this post, I might as well wrap it up by talking about my all time favorite car. The Champagne colored '95 Lincoln Mark VIII that I owned for two years. That car would drive around town like a Mercedes, but pull out to pass and you knew it was something unique. At 50 mph the air suspension lowered the entire car by about 1 inch, and it pulled hard until the computer said "fast enough" at 135 mph. Here is a picture from the last time I raced it (with the A/C on) in the street class at Napierville, Quebec. Don't let the primer and bald whitewalls on that Nova fool you, the guy was running 14 seconds in that class, but it ran the quarter in 12.6 seconds in the open class.

-Rob

markviii wrote:
Smitty, the toughest, most trouble free car I ever owned was an '88 Grand Marquis. It was a one owner car from Florida with 80,000 miles; I bought it for $600. The catch...it had no heat, which ended up being a vacuum leak in the climate control system. I drove it everyday for two years, sold it to my brother who drove it to college for two years, he sold it to my uncle who drove it to work for two years, he sold it to his neighbor who drove it for two years...last year it finally went out in style at the local demolition derby. I was so impressed with that car, I have always owned at least one "panther platform" car since I sold the '88. My current daily driver is a 2001 Mercury Grand Marquis Ultimate Edition that I bought in '04. I have also owned a few retired police interceptor Crown Vic's for "beaters". The '99 I had with 3.55 gears and a limited slip would really haul! Last I checked that car was delivering newspapers...

As long as I am completely off the topic of this post, I might as well wrap it up by talking about my all time favorite car. The Champagne colored '95 Lincoln Mark VIII that I owned for two years. That car would drive around town like a Mercedes, but pull out to pass and you knew it was something unique. At 50 mph the air suspension lowered the entire car by about 1 inch, and it pulled hard until the computer said "fast enough" at 135 mph. Here is a picture from the last time I raced it (with the A/C on) in the street class at Napierville, Quebec. Don't let the primer and bald whitewalls on that Nova fool you, the guy was running 14 seconds in that class, but it ran the quarter in 12.6 seconds in the open class.

-Rob

they were great cars, the car that i like is this...........





now can any one id it ......

p.s. i have a couple of them ........

Taurus SHO? Early 2000's?

Yeah, the Grand Marquis is the best car on the planet for longevity. I had one ('86) before the one I have now. I bought that first one back in '97 or '98 for $800. Had 205,000 miles on it. Drove the hell out of it all around MA. Even overheated the *censored* out of it due to an air pocket in the cooling system ( failure to remove t-stat & burp air out after flush ). Was so bad it turned the oil to milk. Thought the car was done. Nope! Cooled it down, changed the oil (after driving it back to my apartment), then the following week, towed 1,200 lbs of U-Haul trailer, motorcycle, & everything else I owned at the time to Phoenix, AZ. Only breakdown was a blown heater hose in the mountains somewhere on I-40. I cut the hose in 2 & clamped a 3/8" deep socket in it. Got me to Phoenix, then I left it there & drove around the place in 110° heat for 3 weeks, before I finally got around to fixing it with copper pipe.

Then around mid '00 ( here comes a long story!), it was stolen by mexicans & registered in AZ with false VIN #'s. Then it went to Bell, CA where the DMV discovered the tampered with VIN & found the correct VIN. This was in March of '01! SO ....... white Smitty took a bus alone from Oakland, CA, to East Los Angeles at 5 am ( just like being in Mexico). Listened to the spanish announcements in the bus terminal until the sun came up, & then it was safe to go outside without getting caught in the gang crossfire. Found Habib standing out there & he gave me a ride to the impound yard. Paid $500 to more mexicans to get my car out. What a sight when that thing rolled out!! Dirtier than *censored*, inside & out. Had this 7 foot wide rearview mirror installed, some stupid wrap on the steering wheel, & a fuzzy dash. The guy drove it out for me & I had to quickly slide under him & get my foot on the gas before it died. Battery was totally smoked! So I thanked the guy & headed out into what looked like a scene from "Boyz in the Hood". Houses with bars on the windows. Trash strewn streets. Gutted hulks of cars. Finally found the 101 ... THANK GOD!! Hopped on that highway, tossed that 7 foot rearview mirror out the window like a javelin, ripped off the steering wheel cover & pitched that out ... then somewhere around I-10 the fuzzy carpet on the dash when fluttering into the breakdown lane. I was free again!!

I wanted to get as far away from that hellhole as the fuel would let me. Made it to the Grapevine (I-10) & pulled off a downhill exit. When I let off the gas, the car bucked once & stalled. That was the end of that. So I coasted to the end of the ramp and tried pushing the car after it rolled to a stop. 4,000 lb Marquis was kicking 150 lb Smitty's ass .. and I had no health insurance then either, so no inhaler with me ... and by that point I was wheezing pretty bad. A truck pulls up behind me & the guy asks if I need a push. I'm like YESSSSS!! So he's like "hold on" ..... then about 30 mexicans poured out of the back of his truck ( no joke!) & they all pushed me across the main road & safely off to the side. He pointed me to an autoparts store about a mile down the road and off I walked ( no room in his truck, lol!!). About a mile later I finally get there, buy the battery, and carry that heavy SOB all the way back, wheezing like a 120 year old man. Tossed in my battery & I was back on the road ... after a greaseball burger at Mickey D's. 400 miles later I'm back in Livermore where I was living at the time. Spent about 7 hours the next day cleaning the car up, changing the oil (had same filter from a year before!) then taking pix for the want-ad. Sold the car in 5 days to a deaf guy. That was my first TTY experience on the phone. Gave me $1,500 for it! So I rented another U-Haul with that cash, and the El Camino ate the rest of it heading back to MA in the form of gas & oil. 256,000 miles on the Marquis when it was sold. Probably still driving out there somewhere ...

We bought the one we have now back in '03. Paid too much for it at $2,800 .. but it only had 68,000 original miles on it & was a creampuff. Not a speck of rust. Knowing how my old Marquis held up to years of full throttle starts in everything from -5° MA winters to 115° Phoenix heat ... and spending a year with a mexican family living in it ... I felt it was worth the cash. I knew I'd have the car forever. Today it's parked for the winter & has 174,000 miles. Just gotta do a rear brake job & axle seals in the spring. Still starts right up & runs like a champ. Wife drives it 80 miles every day for 9 months out of the year.

the sho picture is my 1994 ATX , i also have a blue 1993 atx low production number built in 1992 , 93 was the first year for the atx sho's

Jeff

And be careful of the 700r4 kickdown cable, if it is not set just right you'll slip n cook your clutches before you know what happened. I learned that the hard way with my GMC pickup.
I had a 95 Jimmy given to me with a blown engine. Boy those were the days, I got a longblock and went nuts on that truck. I disconnected the body to pull the engine and trans/transfer case all in one piece. I took the garage door off and stowed it in the loft while I was slinging the engine off a roof beam with a come-along I got a lot of use out of that truck that had previously been beaten in the woods, run off the end of a street ( the abs had severe problems that year, I gutted it and had straight brakes, no proportioning valve, lol passed nj state inspection with that setup), and left outside all bashed up for a year. They finally had the bodywork done, whole front clip, and the kid blew the motor on the way home from the repair shop. That truck has a remote oil filter, and an oil line blew. He spun the main bearings.
I put a new carpet in that truck, scrubbed the seats and dumped a lot of febreeze all throughout, I could never get rid of the smell, that I called teenage girl beer puke
Then the trans blew when my rigged up remote trans filter popped a line. I pulled it and had it rebuilt, I never could get the truck to run right after that. A few shops couldn't fix it. I sold it here to a guy I forget his name, $300. The guy came all the way from Connecticut, I felt terrible because I gave him bad directions. Trans alone was into $1500.

Looks like the same engine. Notably the 6-bolt plastic timing cover. Only difference I see is the 2 long studs hanging off the front are missing, unless you removed them. .. and the steel oil pan.

Yeah I was warned about that. PATC sells a lever that bolts to an Edelbrock carb so you get the correct geometry. From there it's just a simple adjustment. Those guys have it all figured out! I forgot all about that place, & stumbled upon it online searching. Figured I'd give 'em a call. Glad I did. Now I'm 100% certain this is doable.

turn it into a cyclone....
http://www.vortechsuperchargers.com/product.php?p=109

is it soup yet??

No swap till spring. No way I'm doing this in the driveway surrounded by 2 feet of snow & ambient temps averaging 20° ...

Besides, if I do that, the wifey will be forced to drive the '07 ......... ............. I can't have that now!

oh yeah right! thats the ticket..... not now.....yeah yeah spring!!! ok ok