honestly. do a FULL tuneup and then see how it runs. dont waste your time and money on a car when you have no idea how it actually runs. if it accepts those things well, then start doin mods. gears, suspension, exhaust certainly makes it sound good too.

 

alright everone thanks for all your feedback. if i did break my 500 dollar limit and i bought a 350 what would it take for an engine swap?

 

not a ton for a 3rd gen, especially if you go with a carb motor/trans combo. you may want to look for a crappy 350 car with a good motor and just make swaps. you could probably pick up one fairly cheap w/ a bad body

 

there's a guy close to me that sells 350's for about 750 bucks i believe he just rebuilds his racing engines. so would i be able to keep this thing within at least the 1000 dollar range?

 

That depends on several things. You CAN keep it within $1000, yes. That's providing you are going to use the transmission you have, and are going to swap to a carburetor. The TBI for a 305 isn't the same as that on a 350, so you would have to change that; same with TPI. That wouldn't leave much room for new exhaust however, so you would be waiting on that. So, you CAN keep it below $1000 if you want, or you CAN go above that if you want to go with a bunch of performance stuff all at once. I'm getting off easy with my 350 swap because I already have a good 350 to swap in, I don't have to pay for it.

 

if its a tbi car, you can drop a truck 350 into it for about $300 including the electronics and tbi unit. its not much more hp, but the torque will pull the car harder with whatever gears are already in it