I have trickflow heads which I believe are the twisted wedge series. How much performace increase do these provide? I'm asking because I will pulling my engine and gettinga total rebuild at
Ledford Performance. I have have already told them that I want 400-420 horsepower. No problem was the answer. As for the internals I have in there now I haveno clue. I will be finding all this out when the engine is being built.

 

They are good for about 50-60HP over a stock head. I am not a big fan of the TFS Twisted Wedge heads because I see a lot of them cracked and most have valve guide wear issues.

What cubic inch are you going with? Getting 400-425 HP is pretty easy to do these days.

 

Taking the 350 out of the camaro and taking it to the Performance shop and will let them do there thing. $995 for upgraded cam, cast pistons, and rotating and balancing the assembly. I told them I wanted forged pistons and paying the difference wouldn,t be a problem. I will sit down with them and go thru it with them. I have a $3,000 limit. I have yet to find a crate motor around that much for what I want.

 

machineman, correct me if I'm wrong but out here in the west, you won't get 425HP out of a 350 unless you do all of the assembly yourself.

I could be wrong, but most decent machine shops will charge in excess of that for a decent freshen (WITH LONGBLOCK ASSEMBLY).

69, be prepared and willing to do most of the assembly yourself....Just a thought....

RM

 

Have been talking with this performance shop going on two weeks now. They specialize in race motors and all sorts of rebuilds.My friend got his motor rebuilt at a shop out of Abeline, Texas and his horsepower to the ground was 400. So I know that the shop I'm talking with will take on my project with no problems. I have already done little things like new exhaust, cutouts, padding with carpet, grille, subframe bushings, radiator core support. When it comes to the engine I want experienced hands working on it. I have sone little things on engines in the past. When it comes to the internals, nope.

 

In Abeline? Probably a friend of mine named Eddie Browder's shop. Good engines from him!

ALWAYS let the pro handle the job regardless; it is worth the extra money.

 

Let me say this about that. I love it when a customer wants to put their own engine together because I make more profit. The biggest loser (profit-wise) in my shop is engine assembly. If you know what you are doing, you will spend twice as long putting an engine together as opposed to someone that does not. No typo there, you read it right.

However, I always recommend that we (or any good race engine shop) put the engine all together because it will be right. That means less tears for the car owner and less headaches for me. Unless a hobbyist or part-timer is really into it (and has a lot of money to spend), they will not have the proper tools to measure clearances, volumes, etc.Plastigage will only get you into the ballpark. Just a short dial bore gauge that will measure the cylinders is almost 2k from Sunnen. The extra long one for doing main bores is a little more. You need a depth mic to measure oil pump gear depth, another style to bridge over the cylinder to measure piston height, magnetic base dial indicators, cam degree tools, a good torque wrench (anything that does not click preferred), etc. It costs a lot to do this right. On a complete engine, we spend at least a full work day or a little more just getting it intake to oil pan. I know guys (nobody in my shop) that put them together in about 2 hours but they return for more repair work quite often.

 

The only thing I will be doing to the engine is taking it out and putting it and the transmission back into the car. Don't get it twisted that I will be building the engine. That is why I'am taking it to the Performance shop so they can build it and it will be correct and right. I'm into minor stuff like body panels, interior, small electrical, small engine stuff. When it comes to building the engine, I will be glad to pay a professional to do the work. I will be dropping the car off at the paint shop while the engine is being built at Ledford Performance. Machineman, it might be Eddie Browder's shop. The name sounds familiar when I was pulling the engine out of my friends camaro and shooting the bull with him. It was the first time pulling an engine and transmissionfor the both of us and it cameout easy. Thank goodness for ziplock bags and my digital camera. Everything nut and bolt was labeled.

 

We use video and digital pictures all the time; especially on stuff we do not see every day. It is a great idea to do that.

 

Glad I took pictures of the replacement of the radiator core support. After putting the car back together. My driver headlight was dim and not like the passenger. I looked at the pictures and found out I was missing a ground wire. Found it and hooked it up and the headlight was fine. We both took a bunch of pictures when we removed the engine from my buddys car. And I will do the same with mine as well. Thanks bro.