HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT MY CAR LIKE THAT! IT IS HIGHLY DESIRABLE!!!

j/king of course.

I know it's not one of the top desireable but I do have people that have offered me money for it on the spot that surprised me. Especially when they found out it was a numbers matching Z28 Type LT. I kind of wish I had taken one of the offers a while back as it was over twice as much I paid and hand in the car at the time.

I'm not really too worried about the heads and cam anymore. One of the guys I know has a 73 RS that had a stock bottom end and Pro-Topline heads with 220 runners and a cam with lower lift and higher duration and it had gobs of low end with the 3.73's in it.

 

I'm sorry if I hurt your pride. I was speaking relatively. ie: 67-69,70-73, 2010. Jeez 220's are a hellava lot of volume for a 350. I'm not saying its impossable to find the right combo with that big of head. What are the flow numbers for the Pro Toplines? I bet there in the same ball park as a 195cc AFR or Canfield.

 

P.S. I do like your car. I'd like it more with a 383. LOL

 

I'm with 77Nomad on this one. Doubt most will have their cars 30 yrs. from now. (doubt I will even be around then!) But if you do it will be highly collectable, regardless of how the engine is built, providing it's as clean as it is now. The key is keeping everything looking really nice no matter what direction you take.
From what I've seen of earlier collectable Camaros they aren't going a whole lot cheaper because of changes made, as long as those changes were well done!

 

Nah, no pride hurting at all, I'm pretty thick skinned and I was joking above.

Pro-Toplines were really awesome heads and were bought out by Comp Cams and integrated with their RHS (Racing Head Service) company. A lot of people search them out to find places that still sell the old castings before Comp bought them. These that I'm talking about were on an 11.52 second 72 Camaro with a modified 355. They flow extremely well and have had extensive work just like the Darts I have now (valve/port work done by the same people). I didn't buy mine pre-built, I bought them bare and had them built from the ground up specifically for my cam by a really amazing shop. Better results that way as most manufacturers will build extremely in the safe range as far as valvetrain setup. They do it to cover a large amount of different cam setups out of the box.

@1971BB427: Yeah, good point about the older first gens. I plan on keeping mine for a while and hopefully in the family for long after I'm gone.

 

Right now I can buy a set of brand new forged pistons, rings and cam bearings and build the 355 with 10.1:1 compression. For around the same price I can get a cast 383 internally balanced crank and a set of hyper pistons with 10.21:1 compression.

The 355 would be all forged.
The 383 would be all cast/hyper with my pink rods.

What would you guys do? Do you guys think the 383 be worth going after over the forged in your opinion? After talking with a couple of people about the manual transmission and rpm loading I started looking at forged pistons more. I've never rebuilt an engine with anything over 9.5 compression. With this 10.25 scr and an 8.21 dcr I should be good with 91 and higher pump gas from what I understand. But with a manual transmission a couple of people have said that it's a little more unforgiving for detonation due to having to pull the RPM from low rather than have a converter catch at specific RPMs.

 

I'd go with the 355 setup. You can always use a slightly thicker head gasket to change that compression slightly and drop it down around 10:1.

 

With the 355 and the pistons I was originally talking about it would be 10:1. I'm actually thinking about upping the compression a bit to around 10:3 and with my cam I'll have a dcr of 8.28 give or take a very small amount. Still under the supposed 8.5 dcr for pumpgas.

 

Yeah man,keep that stock crank and just slap in a set of new pistons .030 with your top end kit.
Wham bam thank ya mam,it'll run plenty-O chit,n,git,fo the street and put a smile on yer face without putting a big hurt on your wallet.

 

at 36 yrs u have an antque car. over 25yrs old. keep the numbers matching. come on guys in 30 yrs the car will be 66 yrs old. lol. now thats old. to bad your so far away, i have a 69 4 bolt main 350 block in the shop looking for a home. at least im pretty sure its a 350. lol. been setting there for 10 yrs now. i say keep the block close to stock. look for a block to build in the meantime. can always switch top stuff when ready. weather sucks here, blowing 50, raining and the power is out. got the generator goin.