Building a tough 350

[Bermo]

Year?

[Mr Ed]

He hasnt found anything specific yet and I think hes trying not to get his heart set on anything till the 323 sells.

~69 would be sweet but theyre arent many round for the money hes looking at spending, next gen you get alot more for your money.

Hes not just looking at Camaros, anything decent of that era. I just like them and tend to encourage the purchase of one. :p

[Greg Rust]

Off topic but are 350s known for blowing headgaskets between cylinders? Mate at another workshop keeps having problems with this and it is a pretty decent engine.

Normally pretty good as they are equipped with 5 bolts per cyl as opposed to the Ford with 4, but since they have two exhaust valves in close proximity they can get hotspots and localised boiling leading to burnt valves and or headgasket issues.

Not my personal experience just a bit of random water cooler banter with engine guys in the past.

[Coffin]

Was hoping TK would pipe up in here, but alas not yet. ... Set of forgies doesnt seem that expensive, and I already knew the cost of the small 177.

Bermo, Ideally what I'd like to get a car pretty much identical to 6000SUX's Early 2nd Gen Camaro, 70-73 model, as it cant be tooo modified coming out of the states to get import approval here. Budget for the car initially will be 20kAUD plus shipping etc etc.

If the right clean 67-69 comes up, I'll certainly look at it, but I think you get more car for your money with the early second gen.

Will also look for a nice Nova or Chevelle, but ideally the 2nd Gen.

Shipping of crate motors isnt too much of an issue, as one of my clients imports containers worth of stuff very frequently

[Coffin]

http://www.summitracing.com/search/m...-Gen-I/?RC=100

And

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/WND-6512-1/

So you'd be at least looking at for the main things;
Forgies
rods
heads & rockers/lifters n shit (remember I'm a rotor dude)
cam
carb

What kind compression do they normally run? can you run big comp and e85?

[chartreusehj]

decide what you plan to do before spending a cent.

My useless and ill informed input is this (assuming that we are talking 500hp at the crank):

500hp NA is a 383 stroker kit with cast hypereutectic pistons, I beam rods, and a cast crank with OTS alloy heads and a mid/high 240@ 0.050 solid FT cam, probably shift around 6500, trap it at 7k and it will love it.

A 2 bolt cast iron block thats not fucked with a deck/bore-hone/line hone and studs top and bottom.

any half decent manifold, a stock 750hp carb and a HEI ignition, pipes to fit the car.

If you wanted a 177 blown 500hp engine, id leave stroke at 3.48", any half decent rod, and probably stay with cast pistons (if the tune is reasonable the cast pistons will be fine, forged pistons are for abusing engines and salvaging parts when it all goes pear shaped and 500hp is a bitch motor)

Smaller camshaft (maybe mid 220's for a bit of lope, even a hydraulic would be cool), probably wouldnt do anything else different except boost reference the carb to get some part throttle niceness.

If you want to get greedy later, spend the money now on real good crank and rods, forget forged pistons (you can always change them out later, rehone, rebalance and reassemble) and do a 4 bolt block.

factory 4 bolt blocks aint great, since its a sbc youd be nuts to build a 11ty year old junker when SHP blocks are cheap as fuck unless you just want a nice street engine such as the above and dont plan on 700hp later.

500 GENUINE horsepower should run 10's at about 125mph in anything under 3500lbs, if it doesnt then the car is a dog or your dyno is lying.

(i only bring that last point up since you mentioned straighline performance and there are 10 times the alleged 500hp engines than actual ones at the track )

If you have more money to spend, or have specific goals in mind then the game changes but the above is a fairly "budget" build that will work ok for a half decent streeter IMO.

[Coffin]

decide what you plan to do before spending a cent.

My useless and ill informed input is this (assuming that we are talking 500hp at the crank):

500hp NA is a 383 stroker kit with cast hypereutectic pistons, I beam rods, and a cast crank with OTS alloy heads and a mid 240@ 0.050 solid FT cam.

A 2 bolt cast iron block thats not fucked with a deck/bore-hone/line hone and studs top and bottom.

any half decent manifold, a stock 750hp carb and a HEI ignition, pipes to fit the car.

If you wanted a 177 blown 500hp engine, id leave stroke at 3.48", any half decent rod, and probably stay with cast pistons (if the tune is reasonable the cast pistons will be fine, forged pistons are for abusing engines and salvaging parts when it all goes pear shaped)

Smaller camshaft (maybe mid 220's for a bit of lope, even a hydraulic would be cool), probably wouldnt do anything else different except boost reference the carb to get some part throttle niceness.

If you want to get greedy later, spend the money now on real good crank and rods, forget forged pistons (you can always change them out later, rehone, rebalance and reassemble) and do a 4 bolt block.

factory 4 bolt blocks aint great, since its a sbc youd be nuts to built a 11ty year old junker when SHP blocks are cheap as fuck unless you just want a nice street engine such as the above and dont plan on 700hp later.

500 GENUINE horsepower should run 10's at about 125mph in anything under 3500lbs, if it doesnt then the car is a dog or your dyno is lying.

(i only bring that last point up since you mentioned straighline performance and there are 10 times the alleged 500hp engines than actual ones at the track )

Cheers, ... yer I guess I wanted to know the costs of a built NA 500hp engine, ... but more than likely I'll end up running a small blower on it.

Small blower is ok on cast pistons?

Not necessarily looking for a 10 second car, ... but high 11's low 12's in something like a camaro I'd be happy with

[chartreusehj]

cost NFI, start pricing shit at summit etc and see where you end up, at that level i reckon youre better off sourcing u.s.a for parts and building local.

It wouldnt bother me one bit with cast pistons for a blown engine of that HP level but i treat my stuff nice and keep a close eye on things that kill parts.

Like i said, decide where youll end up, not where youll start and that will dictate parts and pricing

[brasher]

what about ITB's on LSX.

[Coffin]

The end product is planned to be a blown SBC.

ITB's ive thought about, ... but would only go that way if i was building a grumpy NA,

[Negative Ghostrider]

thanks for your wonderful words of wisdom ... want a nice cruiser that will make the right noises and some form of acceleration in a straight line

You can have a nice cruiser and make the right noises with less than 500 neddies, and the $$$ needed to make it.

Mate has a 480RWHP HX Holden which makes way too many noises, and it goes in a straight line so hard the diff needed to be locked.
It is a user unfriendly mega thirsty garage queen that the local highway patrol in the area is foaming at the mouth to put off the road, impound, and crush.

Yay muthle kars.

[Coffin]

You can have a nice cruiser and make the right noises with less than 500 neddies, and the $$$ needed to make it.

Mate has a 480RWHP HX Holden which makes way too many noises, and it goes in a straight line so hard the diff needed to be locked.
It is a user unfriendly mega thirsty garage queen that the local highway patrol in the area is foaming at the mouth to put off the road, impound, and crush.

Yay muthle kars.

I have a Century Roadster for easy cruising, this is not what I want a camaro for.

It needs to have grunt as coming from a car with 500+ rwhp in a 920kg shell will be boring for a weekender. .... I can live with thirsty, it currently gets about 50L/100 ..... so please keep your comments out of this thread

[Coffin]

So if I was to go an "economical" blower build starting with a 177, cam, carb and heads ... keeping boost less that 6-7psi ... what are good heads to be looking for?

[morerevsm3]

http://australianspeedway.com/showthread.php?t=41382

bargain of the century, use the heads, rods and cam off that on 350 4 bolt bottom with suitable pistons and you should get an easy 600+hp on pump

[Momus]

What you want is a SBF with some inches. It's easy to get 450" plus from a 9.5" Windsor base with all the advantages of small block compactness.

A 9.2" 4 bolt Dart block, ($2k), an Eagle 4.1 or 4.25" rotating assembly- 4340 crank, 4340 rods, forged Mahle's ($2k), CHI 225 heads (these have 625" lift capability), complete ($3 k), or 800" lift capability, complete ($4k). CHI manifold to suit; around $700.
With a mild to warm street roller cam this would easily top 600 hp. With a good camshaft up around 700 hp at 6500 with tremendous torque.

You could build a good driveable, carburetted 450" plus engine for 12 grand if you are hands on.