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GM Performance Parts Gen III carb conversion

sled_dog

sled_dog

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Anyone seen it for sale anywhere or have a part number for this setup? GM Performance Parts is making what seems to be the best/coolest carb conversion for Gen III engines and I want to track it down and pin down a price to think about. I mentioned puting a 6.0L in my dad's 69 Firebird, cause he was raving about how much he loves the one in his truck. He seemed intrigued by the idea.
 
the manifold is 88958675, and runs about $340. I'm not finding a kit from GMPP that has the manifold and the ignition box you'd need. Edelbrock has them though, in Performer RPM and Victor Jr. MSD makes the ignition box for them (and would probably make the one GMPP would sell too).
 
why would you use a carb? your getting a great motor with the fuel injection, why ruin it? honestly its not that hard of a conversion and your losing alot of the great points of a motor if you swap in a carb. hell its harder to fab the mounts up for it then get the fuel injection to work. Hell if your going to run a carb why not just run a standard 350?
 
Dang. How long is this LS1 EFI-to-Carb conversion kit been available? :thinking: From what you guys were saying about the kit coming with Edelbrock stickers, apparently GMPP contracted out the manufacturing of the kit to Edelbrock, since this is a very niche-market, low production oriented application. Wouldn't surprise me.

The only problem with the kit is that now the engine looks more like a F*rd motor than a Chevy. :haha: Pretty ingenious setup though.
 
79k20350 said:
why would you use a carb? your getting a great motor with the fuel injection, why ruin it? honestly its not that hard of a conversion and your losing alot of the great points of a motor if you swap in a carb. hell its harder to fab the mounts up for it then get the fuel injection to work. Hell if your going to run a carb why not just run a standard 350?
Click to expand...

Good point too. Any K5 I get I'm definitely going with an engine equipped with some kind of EFI, because about every vehicle I've ever driven's been a fuelie, so I'm used to it. Actually, it said in the CHP article that really the drag-racing guys who want an alternative to the standard small-block would be the ones mostly likely to go with this setup.

Biggest problem I see is that this setup probably won't work as well in cold climates, since on the Gen III, no coolant flows through the intake manifold. With this setup, warm-up time's gonna be pretty long I bet.
 
79k20350 said:
why would you use a carb? your getting a great motor with the fuel injection, why ruin it? honestly its not that hard of a conversion and your losing alot of the great points of a motor if you swap in a carb. hell its harder to fab the mounts up for it then get the fuel injection to work. Hell if your going to run a carb why not just run a standard 350?
Click to expand...
I knew someone would make this comment.

Did you read the article? haha. 520HP out of a LS1 with just a cam, headers, and the carb conversion. Thats why not a Gen I engine :wink1: Head work, bump up the compression, forged rotating assembly, and the fact that I want to build a LQ4 not LS1, can you say 450-500 reliable RWHP? A feat I know can be achieved easily from a Gen I as well, but Gen III is cool. Besides I can always upgrade to EFI later.

Why carb? I can get a block and heads much cheaper then a full engine with computer. I will replace everything internal anyway so no need for a full engine. That and it is a cool factor. When I pop the hood on a 1969 Firebird at a show and everyone scratches their head to figure out, wtf engine is that?? Half the people would figure it right away when they see a Gen III intake. I mean, with the front mount distributor and equal spaced round exhaust ports people will think it is a small block ford :haha:
 
Yeah, you got a point sled. About the winter drivability problem, I just thought up of a way around that. Since the lifter valley cover and intake are separate pieces with this setup, that leaves an air gap between the cover and the intake. Looks to me like you could rig up some kind of 12V heater setup to fit right under the intake on the lifter valley cover that would heat up the intake when the motor's cold. It'd be controlled via thermostat and would work probably off the same circuit an electric choke would use.
 
eh I don't think anything that is running this setup will see winter usage ;) A single plane manifold isn't exactly daily driver fare. The Firebird will be a Saturday Night Special street racer.
 
sled_dog said:
eh I don't think anything that is running this setup will see winter usage ;) A single plane manifold isn't exactly daily driver fare. The Firebird will be a Saturday Night Special street racer.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're right. I've been in the EFI world too long, and I forgot about the single-plane vs. dual-plane issues you run into with a carb. They went single plane with this setup first off I guess because a single plane setup was initially the easiest kind of carb manifold to try and put on a Gen III. A dual plane manifold for the Gen III'd probably look pretty strange.
 
eh I think its just that those motors like to spin up and make power a little higher in the RPMs. That and most of the folks converting to carb are likely puting them in hot street cars and rods.
 
Inu-Hanyou1776 said:
From what you guys were saying about the kit coming with Edelbrock stickers, apparently GMPP contracted out the manufacturing of the kit to Edelbrock, since this is a very niche-market, low production oriented application. Wouldn't surprise me.

The only problem with the kit is that now the engine looks more like a F*rd motor than a Chevy. :haha: Pretty ingenious setup though.
Click to expand...

jesus dude, CAN YOU FREAKING READ? :screwy: i just posted that they did EXACTLY that.

please list 3 examples of why this looks like a Ford engine, and nothing like a GM product.
 
short front mount distributor, equally spaced round exhaust exits. Thats all I've got... Those the 2 big differences from a Chevy engine though.
 
Didn't notice the exhaust ports until after I put that up. What got it for me was the front-mounted distributor.

EDIT - They said so in the article that they had to put a F*rd small-block distributor drive gear on the distrubutor they used.
 
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