I am thinking about purchasing a 1994 firebird formula that has a 1993 corvette lt1 block in it. The car runs and drive fine except that when i looked under the hood, the engine was shaking. didnt seem like the car was missing but the engine was shaking. could it be motor mounts or maybe the incorrect harmonic balancer? would a 1993 vette harmonic balancer be the same as a regular f-body balancer? guy wants $5000 for the car.
THanks,
Sean

 

Y-bodies and F-bodies do use different harmonic balancers, but for fitment issues. Not likely the problem. Did you get to drive the car? If so, how did it feel?

 

There's not much diffeence between the engine that came in the Firebird and the Corvette, except that the Corvette block has 4 bolt mains where the Firebird block has 2 bolt mains - None of that is important except whether you realize that the Firebird pretty much already has the same engine as a Corvette.

Now if the guy really put a Corvette engine in there, maybe something else is wrong with the balancer or flywheel that he used if it is not LT1 specific causing the balance to be off. If the original engine is still in there, and the guy is just calling it a 'Corvette' engine because it basically is, then the engine itself may have some problem causing it to shake at idle, and it could be one of the problems you mentioned or a misfire or vacuum leak causng it to run lean or something else that goes wrong with a 14 year old engine... Of course, the 'Corvette' engine might have some run issues with it too. Who knows from the info you gave us?

 

the zero balnace damper will not matter other than the hub is a different length so the belt might fly off.

 

The car actually drives excellent! i just dont like the shaking. SES light is on so i plan to run by there tomorrow with my auto-xray and check the code. It just does not seem like its missing at all. i guess i will run the code and post up what i find.
Thanks,
Sean

Also i did notice that this engine still had the 93 style intake. What is needed to make the 93 intake work with the 94 style computer? Maybe there is something not connected or connected wrong.