bdblly

Hello! Just wanted to introduce myself, and give a little info about our Astro van. I am a 3rd. time Astro owner, but only 2 vans. My wife and I owned our first Astro a few years ago, bought from my former supervisor. It was a 88, and ran very good, but had a reacurring problem of shearing off the bottom bolts of the power steering pump mounting brace. I knew 2 other people who had 88's and they had the same problem, so maybe it's a 1 year only deal. The Astro we now own, a 92 extended, was also owned by my former supervisor, and he did the engine swap I will tell you about in a second. We (mainly me) drove this van a couple of years, then sold it to our oldest son who drove it for 3 years, then we bought it back from him a couple of weeks ago. When my ex-supervisor owned the van, there was nothing wrong with the engine and tranny, but he wanted to do a V-8 swap, and found a 350/700R4 from a wrecked low mileage 91 Z-28, and swapped them both into the Astro. The 350 was originally Tune Port injected, but he did not have the computer for this, only a throttle body one, so he came up with this: A 4 barrel intake manifold with an adapter to mount the throttle body from the V-6, with injectors for a 350. It has a large open element K&N air filter, with the lid being filter element also. He had to fabricate an upper radiator hose from 2 or 3 different hoses to make one to fit. This hose is taller than the radiator fill neck, so it also has a radiator cap "T" spliced in to add coolant into. It has an aftermarket tube grill for a little dress up. Since the van is made up of so many different components, my wife referred to it as Frankenvan, so the name has stuck. So thats how I am now again the owner of an unusual Chevy Astro.

bdblly

Thanks for the response Gary. I don't know if anything was done about the chip, I don't think so. My van is no Hot Rod, but runs fine, and gets me to where I need to go. I have seen the pictures of your project a couple of days before I joined the forum. Looks like fun! Good luck.

NCJOEY

New to this today.....i have a 2000 astro which i knew needed a cap and rotor (doesn't start on rainy days)i started it the other day and got a loud boom from under the hood /w/ some smoke.it finally started, but now i notice when i accelerate i have oil coming from somewhere under the van.doesn't leak at idle,only when i accelerate.any ideas??????????