Ottawa Fiero Club Forum

My brother own an 1970 Z-28 yes a real to godness original 1970 Z-28 he has change the LT-1 as often as he changes shorts but aside that he has an old bored out  redone 283,Considering the age of the engine will it bolt on to the Fiero tranny......He playing around that i may have a chance a this engine he has no room in his garage. :)  

I'll assume the bolt pattern is Chevy and therefore would need an adaptor plate.  Nick (Gizmo) has done the chev swap so he would be the best to ask.

It will be carbed and have no pollution gear to speak of as a 60's motor, making the install easier.

 ???Thanks Gary @ thanks again for bringing up a good point being the pollution system Quebec is following Ontario's route for testing  being an 1985 car with a mid 60's engine may cause me problems :-\Something i will have to check......

just wondering if there is a certain nostalgia effect at work here? ::)
I have had a lot of chevy small blocks in all different states of tune and performance and would suggest that there is no good reason to 'want' a 283 (yes, had one of them, too).
It is the same block as the 350 but less power, its old age (and probable long use) dictates very very careful checking for cracks, or excess wear, etc. If you want a small block chev you can go up to 400 ci and have the same size and weight engine but lots more selection for parts. If the heads are not with it you may have difficulty finding heads for that motor (they are NOT all the same - chev made a zillion different cylinder head castings!) and there are loads of differences - pick the wrong head and the valves might hit the narrower cylinder bore, give you very low compression, etc etc
I really don't want to be a wet towel but there isn't really anything special about the 'ole 283; it is as big and heavy as the 350 or 400 but less power, older, fewer parts available and so on. But some people simply "like the number", so it is, of course, up to you. Just be prepared to be patient and not jump at parts that 'might' fit it.
good luck! ;)

I dont know, It also depends on what you want out of your engine though. A 400 is great for torque, but its not as nice in the Revs department. I would think that for a fiero a SBC what could rev and had a moderate amount of torque would probley be better then something with Massive torque down low but no top end. When biulding a SBC its all about compromise, and what you end goal is. Im sure a recently rebuilt 283, would do great in a fiero, I would choose a destoked 350 myself.. somewhere in the 323 or so range built for RPM and with a smooth power delivery all the way up to 7500rpm.

Just my thoughts; Rob

 ;DI like a high reve engines but this sorta brings back old memories has anyone here have the experience of sitting behind a chevy 302 ci,awsome :P :P :P :P :P

there is very often a tendency to assume that bigger cubic inches means lower rpm, peaky curves and other things. That isn't necessarily true for all engines,  especially where the engines are from the same family. When bores and strokes are changed dramatically, or you jump to a whole different engine type/family, then it can have some effect, but proportional increases to bore and stroke will generally result in broad power increases across the rpm range. The 350 has had probably so many hi-perf combos tried on it that there are none left, and it can wind up with the best of them (one reason it is the most popular base for a race engine ever)  Its oversquare combo of 4" bore and 3.48" stroke has turned out to be a very effective setup. Drag racers run it to 8000+ rpm. Nascar 350's run at 6500 for hours. Peak rpm is not a function of the cubic inches, it depends on valve springs, cam specs, internal balancing, physical limitations of materials like rods and valve stems, not displacement.  
So making an engine smaller won't necessarily make it rev higher or add torque at another speed, it will typically make less power. I am plagiarizing a curve from Edelbrock here just to make a point; they have a standard package that is tried and tested and gives reliable performance without undue stress on anything. You can see that torque and horsepower for this engine don't suffer too much altho it is about 70 cu in bigger than a 283.  It simply benefits from the increased inches across the board.  If I was to go the SBC route (again) this is the combo I would get. The reasons are right there in black and white (or red).

Not to be argumentative but it is a pretty common perception about some engines.
 8)