Vortec Conversion

[searsgremlin]

i got my delorean about a year ago, it basically needed a full restoration, the body was all the car had going for it. It had no motor so i opted for a swap, lucky my father owns a salvage yard so i had plenty of motors. i went for a chevy vortec 4.3 out of a 94 s10. i chose this motor because it was a little higher torque and hp than the stock delorean motor and i didn't want to go with a really strong motor and blow up the automatic transmission, also its a small motor and looked as tho it would fit nice. so the next step was getting a transmission adapter made. The hardest part was the machine shop i had make it never worked on it and it sat for about 9 months before they actually worked on it, but i did finally get it. The way the automatic delorean transmission worked out was great. the chevy fly wheel bolt pads were big enough to just drill holes for the delorean torque converter to bolt up to. We thought we would need a spacer for the flywheel to the torque converter to make up the thickness of the adapter plate, but once we bolted the motor and the transmission up it turned out we didnt even need spacers. Next was the first test fit, the motor sat about 7 inches too high. so we slid it back out and had to cut the hump out of the cross member, after that the motor sat pretty good. That's where i am now, also i thru in some pics of the seats i had redone in the color i'm changing the interior to. there is still a lot to do, but its just a matter of time.

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[Bar]

Out of all the motors in the entire world why in the heck would you put a s10 motor in a delorean. Like seriously man what the heck. Plus its made by GM I would have just went with a bigger motor and took my chances on ruining the transmission because chances are that tranny is going to last longer than any GM made motor.

[Silverbullet]

Out of all the motors in the entire world why in the heck would you put a s10 motor in a delorean. Like seriously man what the heck. Plus its made by GM I would have just went with a bigger motor and took my chances on ruining the transmission because chances are that tranny is going to last longer than any GM made motor.

Wow... I have owned like 9 Chevys and never had an issue...seems like a great choice to me...

[Bar]

Wow... I have owned like 9 Chevys and never had an issue...seems like a great choice to me...

I'd rather not own a vehicle produced by government motors before or after their mishaps. I mean really the government can't do anything right even though GM could hardly do anything right before. They made the corvette for god sake. Nobody wants a sports car made out of fisher price toys and one that cant take off in a straight line without running into a tree first.

[artisticent]

Wow Bar, I love the Chevy 4.3 v6 motor. I owned a syclone with this motor. Its a twin turbo pick up that does 0-60 in 4.3. That's pretty dam fast. And you still see A LOT of s-10s still. Wanna see how this project goes.
I think when it comes to a motor swap, everyone wants to go with crazy big motors. Less is more.
Nice work

[Bar]

Wow Bar, I love the Chevy 4.3 v6 motor. I owned a syclone with this motor. Its a twin turbo pick up that does 0-60 in 4.3. That's pretty dam fast. And you still see A LOT of s-10s still. Wanna see how this project goes.
I think when it comes to a motor swap, everyone wants to go with crazy big motors. Less is more.
Nice work

That would be just like GM to make a twin turbo pickup truck, especially an s10 size. Like wtf are you supposed to do with a twin turbo s10, drive over the speed limit? Not only that they thought it would be genius to make them only come in black. The car was another fail by GM, only produced for a year, a car everyone completely forgets about because no one really cares.

[kenny]

Bar, What is with the attitude?
In your first post you have abused a new owner that is showing his car to us.
Great way to introduce yourself to the forum...


Out of all the motors in the entire world why in the heck would you put a s10 motor in a delorean. Like seriously man what the heck. Plus its made by GM I would have just went with a bigger motor and took my chances on ruining the transmission because chances are that tranny is going to last longer than any GM made motor.

To the OP, welcome. I can appreciate the hard work that you are doing getting the car back on the road.
Keep us updated and best of luck with it.

[Dangermouse]

Bar/Earl,

feel free to modify your DeLorean in what ever way you want, and equally, feel free to start a separate thread about how you hate GM engines. In the meantime, stop abusing the OP's hard work.

Sears,

keep up the good work. I think I remember that engine-less car for sale last year, but don't recall the VIN. Looks like you have got a lot of work ahead of you.

[Michael]

Look at the join dates of the OP and Bar and also look at the times the first 2 posts were made. Look fishy? It does to me, almost like they are the same person trying to start a spectator thread to draw attention to the conversion.

[sdg3205]

Sears,

Congrats on bringing another car back from the dead!

Looking forward to watching and hearing about your progress.

Bar - get lost.

[SamHill]

SearsGrem,

So what's the VIN? I see you have the headliner off. Any "cave paintings"?

[thirdmanj]

I'd rather not own a vehicle produced by government motors before or after their mishaps. I mean really the government can't do anything right even though GM could hardly do anything right before. They made the corvette for god sake. Nobody wants a sports car made out of fisher price toys and one that cant take off in a straight line without running into a tree first.

Read the fuckin' rules about political/religious conversation..... Dick. Part of the above was a statement along those lines.... and chill the fuck out.

[Nicholas R]

...They made the corvette for god sake. Nobody wants a sports car made out of fisher price toys and one that cant take off in a straight line without running into a tree first.

I have no idea what this sentence even means...:confused2:

[opethmike]

Funny, I guess that the hundreds of thousands of people that own Corvettes didn't get the memo that they didn't want them.

[Dangermouse]

Look at the join dates of the OP and Bar and also look at the times the first 2 posts were made. Look fishy? It does to me, almost like they are the same person trying to start a spectator thread to draw attention to the conversion.

or bar has been a forum lurker and was so incensed by the use of a crappy-gm-crappyvortec pos that he just had to sign up and impart his wisdom before a mistake was made.

[Rich W]

Sears,

Looks like you are doing some good work here. There have been several 4.3L Vortec conversions, but I believe most of them have been manuals.
IIRC, Duke (Gulf Coast DeLorean Club) used the same vintage S-10 engine and mated it to a Porsche 911 5-speed transmission, many years ago.

I know there are a few "in-progress" 4.3L conversions in CA and a few other older, completed 4.3L conversions ended up in and around CA as well.
The Clamato Rally DeLorean comes to mind (I think yellowmmxwheels still owns it) and Darryl's supercharged 4.3L conversion (might be in TX now).

Later,
Rich W.

[Morpheus]

Out of all the motors in the entire world why in the heck would you put a s10 motor in a delorean. Like seriously man what the heck. Plus its made by GM I would have just went with a bigger motor and took my chances on ruining the transmission because chances are that tranny is going to last longer than any GM made motor.

Troll alert.

[searsgremlin]

Thanks for all the comments guys. some times i lose motivation while waiting for parts or cash, so i appreciate the interest.
bar: gm stands for general motors
Dangermouse: yea the car was on ebay last year under classifieds. it was in the bronx area of new york, and yea a real lot of work lol
Michael: i can assure you im not bar
SamHill: my vin is 003389, and i just wrote everything down under the headliner, on the drivers side there was 22/04/sw and on the brace of the door (same side) wr 5019x and a green sticker with 30167 on it. on the passenger side there was aug 21/10:15 a.m. and a what looked like a signature of j.t. also on the brace there was a green sticker with the same # and wr 5019x
Rich W: thanks for the info, i had no idea that there was that many of them done, ill have to look into it more.

[DeloreanResto]

Nice, Project... This whole Custom Delorean Section makes me want to build a Custom Delorean with an Extra Roller shell we have laying around.... maybe for DCS 14... I'll take that 4.3 over that 2.85 anyway. :thumbup2:

[Kenny_Z]

Too cool Sears. I love the 4.3. I've got two of them close to 200k miles that have only given me a couple of minor issues. Can't wait to see more.

[at88mph]

Sears,

Sorry, I don't post here too often but I did happen to see your thread. If ya have any questions please feel free to send me a PM and I'll give ya my contact info :) Just a couple of things that come to mind (which ya may already know/done) but of course you're not gonna be able to fit the engine cover on there with the CPI (I actually went with the '94 TBI Vortec...I thought about notching the crossmember like you did, however I ended up notching the oil pan instead so I could get it lower and also a slight down angle as well) I had to go with aftermarket accessory brackets b/c running the stock long water pump I ran into clearance issues with the rear fascia. I later saw other engine swaps (V8's) that somehow removed the black skin off the fascia but I didn't think about that, nor did I wana do it. (Just my personal preference...not offending anyone who has done that :) ) I ended up having to run a short water pump with a v-belt setup and yet STILL had to slightly notch the rear fascia for the water pump pulley to clear. You may have already gotten past this issue and, if so, sorry, but I'm just remembering some of the issues that came to light as I went. My car used to be an auto as well before I converted it. Another issue was the PCM. The wiring is really easy, however the PCM doesn't realize that its in another car (duh lol) so it doesn't know when its in gear like if it was in the S10. What this does, since it doesn't know its in gear, the PCM thinks its either in Park or Neutral so it won't let you rev above 4200 RPM. You can still drive it of course, but with the auto gearing, you'll hit that rev limiter pretty easily. The way around this was to find a PCM that was in a manual S10. It won't cut out on you till 5800 (stock rev limit) This took me QUITE awhile to find the right PCM amazingly enough. If you need, I will get my PCM number so you can find the exact same one. I found others out of manuals, however, I would have other issues. (ie, the PCM didn't keep the RPM's high enough at idle, and it would die at a stop, or it would cause the engine to run like COMPLETE crap b/c it wasn't the EXACT one for that motor sans manual instead of auto PCM)

Like I said, sorry if you've already dealt with these issues or already knew about them, but these were the issues I ran across mid swap. However, once you get the 4.3 in there, you will LOVE it!!! It was the BEST decision I've EVER made (well, that and then mating it to a Porsche transaxle lol) Seriously, since those two swaps, I've drove the heck out of my car and THOROUGHLY enjoy it. The only issues I've had (swapped out the engine in '00 and the trans in '03) is two alternators, and two slave cylinders. Its VERY dependable. :)

If ya have any questions feel free to PM me or send me an email at [email protected] :)

[Chris Burns]

i got my delorean about a year ago, it basically needed a full restoration, the body was all the car had going for it. It had no motor so i opted for a swap, lucky my father owns a salvage yard so i had plenty of motors. i went for a chevy vortec 4.3 out of a 94 s10. i chose this motor because it was a little higher torque and hp than the stock delorean motor and i didn't want to go with a really strong motor and blow up the automatic transmission, also its a small motor and looked as tho it would fit nice. so the next step was getting a transmission adapter made. The hardest part was the machine shop i had make it never worked on it and it sat for about 9 months before they actually worked on it, but i did finally get it. The way the automatic delorean transmission worked out was great. the chevy fly wheel bolt pads were big enough to just drill holes for the delorean torque converter to bolt up to. We thought we would need a spacer for the flywheel to the torque converter to make up the thickness of the adapter plate, but once we bolted the motor and the transmission up it turned out we didnt even need spacers. Next was the first test fit, the motor sat about 7 inches too high. so we slid it back out and had to cut the hump out of the cross member, after that the motor sat pretty good. That's where i am now, also i thru in some pics of the seats i had redone in the color i'm changing the interior to. there is still a lot to do, but its just a matter of time.

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Interesting project you have there. The Chevy V6 seems to be a popular motor swap with Deloreans. Never would of thought that motor would bolt up to the auto transmission.

[Nicholas R]

Interesting project you have there. The Chevy V6 seems to be a popular motor swap with Deloreans. Never would of thought that motor would bolt up to the auto transmission.

He's using an adapter plate. You can bolt just about any motor to any transmission with a proper adapter.

[Chris Burns]

I would be nervous about putting that much tourqe on that auto transmission. The engine only has around 150 to 170hp I guess? Since it's a truck motor imagine it has a good bit of tourqe.

I applaude this owner for saving his Delorean though and I hope it turns out well!

[Nicholas R]

I believe a 4.3L vortec has about 230ftlbs of torque. According to this thread at dmchelp: http://www.dmchelp.com/content.php?123-Stage-I-II-and-III-pricing-and-details the stage III is expected to have about 230ftlbs at the flywheel/torque converter (despite the 180ftlbs measured at the wheels). If that truly is the case, the hopefully enough homework has been done to prove that the auto can handle it.

[Alves]

Sorry to dig...

I recently purchased a 4.3 Chevy Vortec along with its transmission. Unfortunately the transmission is built for a RWD front engine truck so it wont fit. Does anyone know if I could use the stock 5 speed transmission or would know a good replacement? Do I need to do any modifications to make it fit?

Thanks Guys!

[Nicholas R]

Sorry to dig...

I recently purchased a 4.3 Chevy Vortec along with its transmission. Unfortunately the transmission is built for a RWD front engine truck so it wont fit. Does anyone know if I could use the stock 5 speed transmission or would know a good replacement? Do I need to do any modifications to make it fit?

Thanks Guys!

If you can do the work adapting it, there's no reason why you can't use the original Renault UN1-369 5-speed. It should have no problem holding up to that engine. It is a surprisingly robust transmission.

The only other real options out there are the Porsche 915 and the Porsche G50 transmissions. I believe the biggest difficulty with these transmissions (at least from what I've researched, those with experience may prove me wrong) is that you also need the Porsche shifter assembly and linkages. In addition, the Porsche clutches are mechanical, not hydraulic so that has to be worked out.

Some say that the ZF from the Pantera can be used but so far it's all just hearsay. The jury is still out about whether or not the differential can be inverted so the transmission can be used in a rear engine car. I've asked several Pantera owners and know one seems to know...

[searsgremlin]

Thanks for all the comments guys
at 88mph i will definitely ask if i have any trouble with it. thanks for the help!
i haven't gotten much time to work on it cause i got a job at a machine shop so at least ill have some funds for the project when i get the time haha
i am a little worried about the tranny not blowing up but as long as i drive it with ease i figure i wont blow it up.
also if anyone is interested in an adapter plate for a delorean bolt patter to a Chevy let me know i can have more made relatively in expensive
again i appreciate the interest and comments thanks!

[Nicholas R]

Thanks for all the comments guys
at 88mph i will definitely ask if i have any trouble with it. thanks for the help!
i haven't gotten much time to work on it cause i got a job at a machine shop so at least ill have some funds for the project when i get the time haha
i am a little worried about the tranny not blowing up but as long as i drive it with ease i figure i wont blow it up.
also if anyone is interested in an adapter plate for a delorean bolt patter to a Chevy let me know i can have more made relatively in expensive
again i appreciate the interest and comments thanks!

Don't worry about the transmission. I have the DeLorean 5-speed transmission in front of a 5.7L chevy LS1 and it holds up just fine. I dont baby it; I drive it like it should be driven. The only changes to the transmission are that I rebuilt it myself, including replacing the input shaft coupler with Toby Peterson's upgraded coupler. Still, after talking to the GT40 guys, you should be fine with just the transmission alone.

What are you making your adapter plate out of and how thick is it?

[Alves]

Thanks for the responses everyone. It's good to know I can use the stock 5 speed. As for the adapter plate, that's exactly what I'm trying to figure out. Has any one on here ever done it. If so same question as Nicholas R what was it made of and how thick was it?

[Nicholas R]

Thanks for the responses everyone. It's good to know I can use the stock 5 speed. As for the adapter plate, that's exactly what I'm trying to figure out. Has any one on here ever done it. If so same question as Nicholas R what was it made of and how thick was it?

I waterjet cut mine from .5" thick 6061 T6 aluminum. It sounds like searsgremlin is possibly having a run of them made. I don't know what the chevy V6 bellhousing bolt pattern is like. The adapter is the easy part. The hard part is supporting the input shaft in the pilot bearing and making sure your flywheel offset is right so that the clutch still fully engages and disengages. Plus, at least on my engine, the starter is on the driver side (and was originally block mounted) and the DeLorean's bellhousing starter location was completely unusable. Also getting a flywheel that works is always fun...

[at88mph]

The only other real options out there are the Porsche 915 and the Porsche G50 transmissions. I believe the biggest difficulty with these transmissions (at least from what I've researched, those with experience may prove me wrong) is that you also need the Porsche shifter assembly and linkages. In addition, the Porsche clutches are mechanical, not hydraulic so that has to be worked out.


Nick, those two issues of course came up with my swap. (Just noting this in the thread in case someone researches it in the future), but I measured and cut the stock Porsche shifter assembly and custom fabbed the linkage using two universal joints. Wasn't that hard at all in retrospect, but at the time it was complicated....I was originally trying to make it work with just the one stock Porsche universal joint...wasn't happening, then when I added another one, the problem was solved and I've had no issues whatsoever out of it. I think the G50 is hydraulic (not 100% sure on that but believe so) and the G50 is the better transaxle, however it is pretty expensive. The original 915's (like I have) are cable driven however the later units are hydraulic.....however, either way even if both trans were cable ya still have to fab up your own master/slave config. I went with hydraulic b/c the DMC of course is hydraulic so I bought a stock DMC master, then bought a VERY long brake/hydraulic aluminum line and bent it as needed to get to a universal slave cylinder. That part was a lot easier than figuring out the linkage, but like I said, if I would have figured out to use two u-joints in the first place I woulda saved A LOT of time.