Hi,

I just purchased a 73 camaro lt/rs it has a 350 4bolt and edelbrock intake 650cfm holley 2.02 heads and 400 crank motor has been bored out .030 with flat pistons. Still has original tranny turbo350 and 3.73 posi rear end. SO now it's supposed to be a stroker 383. Now with that been said I'm amazed that I don't have any power in the car at all. The origianl owner said that the motor was just redone and has about 20k on it but the tranny has never been done. Now does this mean that if I get the tranny done would it solve my problem. What do I need to get this baby humming.

And with this kind of setup does anybody know what to hp should be at roughly? I know the stock motor was about 150hp.

Any help would be apprecaited greatly thanks in advance.

 

Try porting the heads a bit, get a nice high-rise intake and finish it off with a heavy cam and you should be seeing 500 hp easy.

 

better intake and bigger carb.

 

also a bigger carb such as a 750 double pumper

 

None of that will help if his tranny is going south.
He says he has no power and asks if rebuilding the trans will help.
Hmmmmmmmm?
Sounds like more info is needed here,a 383 should have pretty good power even if it's not optimized,he's asking about the trans and saying he has no power so WTF is really going on I wonder.

 

If I had a Camaro with a 383 stroker and it had no power I'd start from the basics. Even with a 650 Holley it should have a good amount of power. Might starve out on high RPM runs, but it should really have great low end power, so changing to a bigger carb and manifold wont help.
First thing to do is check compression on each cylinder, and if they all check even and around 155 then move on. Next check the timing and advance. It's possible that if the cam was changed when they built this engine they may well have gotten the marks off TDC, and it may be too retarded to develope proper power.
Of course check the basics like point gap, spark plug gap, proper plug heat range, cap, rotor, wires, etc. before going towards upgrades. You might also spring for a dyno tune, as they will be able to locate a lot of horsepower that's hidden with a good tuner.
And of course get that tranny checked! It's not a big deal if it's the original tranny, but if it's never been rebuilt it's way overdue, and may well be the root of your power loss.

 

I was planning on rebuilding the tranny and was thinking about a smaller torq converter instead of staying with the stock one maybe a 9" one would that give me more power off the line and would that decrease my top end speed or will it not hurt it.