Hello, I am 18 and my first car is a 78 Camaro
Now my question is how much can a 350 put out?
I am looking forward to rebuilding mine and trying to put as much into as I can. Also I know a 78 Camaro is a heavy car, they're are these kids around where I live with Honda's and VW and think they can beat a Camaro with ease, and I know they are being much lighter than a Camaro they have an advantage. I kinda want to prove them wrong, how would I build my engine where the weight of my car wouldn't really matter?

Thank you!

 

Hello and welcome to the forums! The 78 was about 3457 pounds.
Your stock block would put out around 220hp & 260ft/lbs torq.
Your Power:Weight Ratio is 1 : 15.7
Look around on here to see what other members have done. Most would be more than happy to help you with any questions you might have.

 

Welcome to the forums!

What you want to do with it depends on a few things. First off, do you care about MPG's? Second, which is related to the first, daily driver, weekend warrior, etc? And the biggest question, how deep is your wallet.

Easiest thing you can do to it is cut weight where you can. Delete the a/c if it has it. Move the battery to the back. Light weight wheels. Manual transmission, lighter flywheel/flexplate, sub frame connectors. Drag racing is more than just who has the most power (though that helps) but weight and traction play a BIG part.

For the engine, bigger carb, better intake and heads with port/polish. Headers, catback. If you wanna go big, stroke to 383. If you wanna go nuts, stroke to 396. Get lower (higher numerically) gears, 3.73s and 4.10s are common. Gotta git rid of that 10 bolt too. Best bet is go with a 9 in.

That's just a few things to thing about. Like oldman9 said, look in your generations section to get an idea what others have done. Also, a lot of those Hondas and VW's weight close to as much and fart cans don't add power and that's the only mod.

For example, my friend Bauer, owns a 2001 VW Jetta 2.0L I4. 115 hp (though he'll say differently) stock, 5 speed. His car weighs in at over 3400lbs. and he believes he can keep up with my Z. My friends 2900lb Ford Escort ZX2 S/R 2.0L I4, 5 speed, with full exhaust and CAI barely kept with me.

Again welcome to the forums! Look forward to seeing you build this car up!

 

Welcome to the forum. My suggestion is don't even try, you're young and too much HP is going to get you in trouble or even worse. Build it so it's reliable and will get you where you need to go and back. Save the racing for the track and when you get a little older.

 

Thank you you guys, I plan on making it a Weekend Warrior, in the process of getting a beater car right now, and I will definitely look into other forum even though you answered all my questions pretty much lol. Also I don't plan on like going around the neighborhood and racing everyone I see lol, I just wanna have something I can be proud about and scare everyone that doesn't own a muscle car lol but ill be safe with it, I love my Camaro and plan on keeping it forever, thank you all!

 

This is all that matters. Welcome to the Forums man, and congrats on your "new" 78 Camaro. now lets see some

 

Welcome to CF. Feel free to ask as many questions as you want in the tech section, you'll get more traffic there too.