Thread: V6 3.4 or 4.3 How can you tell

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Originally Posted by 1gary

I was alomost not going to post to this.Haft heartedly I am addressing the statement that 4.3's are only a cut down 350.The fact is the spacing of the bores,the split journals,and the offset of the rods makes it very different than 350's.

Yes, they're different internally, but the o.p. was looking for visual cues to identify a 4.3 and those are very much like a 350 V8. By the way, the bore centers of a 90º Chevy V6 are the same as the small block V8 engines. They addressed the split crank throw issue with narrowed/larger rod journals. The 3.8 Buick V6 did eventually get a "spread" bore spacing in the 3800 Series to eliminate the off center rods, but that's a horse of a different color.

Bob