New Body Style 2. 1995 S-10 BLAZER WITH 1996 LT4/4L60-E

The lads at GM installed the engine with minimal modifications to the vehicle: no frame mods, no body mods, and mostly factory parts. It's a beautiful swap.

Basically, the 330 horsepower LT4 engine is a souped-up LT1 engine. It only came in 1996 Corvettes with the manual transmission. The transmission is from a 1996 Camaro and the computer was reprogrammed for the automatic transmission and the 4-wheel anti-lock brakes. Compared to the LT1, the LT4 has bigger valves, stiffer valve springs, bigger cam, roller rocker arms, better flowing cylinder heads, and higher compression pistons. For high rpm durability, premium timing gears and chain are installed, and a dual-mass harmonic balancer is also used.

The accessories on the engine are from a 1993-97 Camaro LT1. The nice thing about using the Camaro LT1 accessories (alternator, air conditioning compressor, power steering pump, and associated bracketry) is that the 1993-1997 Camaro LT1 engines are readily available at the wrecking yards. Corvette accessories (which are required in the 4x4 S-10 V8 swap), are difficult to find in the wrecking yards, and they are expensive to purchase new.

The exhaust manifolds are from a 1988-1992 Camaro TBI V8, and are restrictive for the LT4 engine, but they were used because they required no modifications to the frame or firewall.

If we were to do this swap, we would do a few things differently so as to accommodate the LT1 exhaust manifolds. Naturally, this would require cutting, hammering, and other such butcheries that JTR is often accused of. But using the LT1 exhaust manifolds would offer a significant power improvement over the TBI manifolds. Using the LT1 manifolds would also simplify the EGR hook-up, and the AIR pump plumbing, because it would all remain stock.