hey guys, just joined today. I have a 94 camaro that had the 3.4 in it. It locked up on me a while back. I decided to put the old school 350 and turbo 350 combo in. Its going along fairly well im almost done with it. I plan on putting paint and window tint on it when i get done and then building it to a 350-400 horsepower motor. I know that i will have to beef up the transmission and rear end. I already have a 9in. housing that only needs the gears that i choose and brakes. but my main question is as far as the motor goes, what would be the best way to reach my goal of 350-400hp? right now the motor is pretty much stock except an edlebrock 600 carb, edlebrock low rise intake and possibly a cam. I do know that its a 4 bolt main and i was thinking of going .40 over, getting some dart heads a matching intake and going with a holley 850 carb. then putting in a nitrous cam in and going with a 150.....maybe 200 shot of nitrous. is this the correct way to go? im wanting something that is still nice to cruz around in but can do very well on the strip. I also know that if im going to do nitrous i have to build the motor to handle high compression but with just the motor it needs to running at a lower compression. If you could please fill in the gaps for me and let me know what the best way would be to go. please keep my wallet in consideration lol.

Thanks, Brian

 

heres one of a few threads on the site https://camaroforums.com/forum/93-02...ictures-68220/

 

I know how Im doing my build, im almost done with it. I just need advice on what i should do to build the motor once i get paint and a little body work done.

 

What are your plans for the car. Is it a daily driver? race only? Cheapest way I know to get to 400 dependable street friendly HP is a LS1 swap. That why all the guys with older cars are do it.

What is you budget?

 

I want street friendly and very well performance on the strip i want to keep it around $2200 for the motor. if you look at the original post, let me know what u think about building the motor like that. minus the dart heads and put in vortec ones. i just looked at the prices on new dart heads lol

 

save more money,,, for 2200 your not even gona be able to do a good rebuild. lookin at 2-3k to do the block right for nos.

 

I'm curious as to how you solved the distributor issue. Please post a bunch of high res photos so we can sticky them for others to see.

Honestly, by the time you are done, you would have spent less buying a 98-02 Z28

 

I'd consider the "hatch method", down through the top of the dash. Hey, if it's good enough for a fuel pump, it's good enough for a distributor. Not to mention, it makes timing adjustment "on the fly" a breeze!

 

Pictures!!!!

Summit Racing® Cast Iron Cylinder Heads for Small Chevy SUM-152123 - SummitRacing.com Here are some cheap heads from summit, maybe get the intake runners ported. the bigger chambers should lower your compression ratio. throw in some forged iron flat tops with that and you'll be good I think.

Here's a nice big cam and nos friendly Summit Racing® Cam and Lifter Kits SUM-K1106 - SummitRacing.com

Again, please post some pics of your progress! I think I am speaking for everyone when we I say I would like to see what you have done so far.

The main thing I have learned so far is that with these big motor swap projects is nothing is wallet friendly. You replace one thing, then you have to do the next and so forth. What K member are you running?

 

As crabby said just rebuilding stock motor can exceed 3K but is almost always over 2K unless you own a machine shop. The last thing you want to do is build a “performance” engine with out of round cylinders, out of round crank journals or a bad line crank bore. You want all this stuff checked and to be fixed better than stock.

Stock motors are easy to build. You just follow the factory specs and rebuild everything.

Racing motors are easy to build. You design the whole car for a single purpose. You would say I want the car to run strongest from 5500RPMs to 6500RPMs. Then you calculate the air flow needed and design your trans and rear to work in those ranges. If the car will not idle below 1400 RPM who cares, if it has no power at 3000 RPMs you put in a 3500 Stall converter or dump the clutch at 4000 RPMs.

Combining the stock feel and a racing motor is a challenge even for an experienced engine builder. There is give and take in the design process. Most guys I have helped error on the racing motor side and they are happy with the car at first but they tire of the rough idle and hard cold starts but mostly fighting with the car to get it to drive slowly in a parking lot.

The first controlling factor is how much can you spend on the bottom end. Low RPM motors are cheaper to build. Higher RPM motors are costly, but it is a good way to hit 450 HP with a small block. 7500 RPM 327 is very impressive. What gas you are willing to run control the compression ratio limit. If you are planning to keep the RPMs on the lower side a 383 stroker kit is a good idea. Bottom end kits are a good idea any way you go. It is also a good idea to talk to your machine shop about which kits. They will tell you which ones are as complete as they say they are. It is nice to buy the kit from the machine shop so if you have an issue during assembly they don’t star pointing fingers.

Next you want to take you Max RPM decision and your displacement and calculate max flow you will need. This will help picking heads, intake and CAM. This is where the give and take comes into play. Anything that can run extremely high air flow will flow very slowly at low RPMs. Think about drinking a soda thru a straw. When you are super thirsty a big straw is great but when you just want to sip the big straw is hard to use, now image trying to do a quick sip with a 1.5” straw. That is what a race motor is like below 4000 RPM. You can hit 450HP on a motor but if the engine and transmission are not setup to put you in the right RPM range and you are on the highway going 70 MPH. 70-90 MPH could be slower than stock.

There is a lot of decisions and research needed to redesign a car, do not hesitate to call manufactures of parts you are thinking about but you are going to need the above “design” before you call.

With older tech you get one way to tune your carb and one timing curve. With a compute control engine you can program a different timing and fuel curve based on how hard you push the gas. You can have the car retard time and drive in grandma mode at 10% throttle then stitch to mean mode after 50% and go ***** out at 80%. This is why I said the LS1 is the way to go. 400 Street friendly HP is a no brainer with LS1 tech. It will be challenging in a SBC.

FYI your carb is perfect for a 427 running 7000 RPMs. It is way too big for a small block unless you are planing 9000 RPMs