Guest gbvol54 Posted November 12, 2001 Share Posted November 12, 2001 After a couple of years of reading and reading again the JTR manual and reading posts here and at Zcar.com I'm ready to bite the bullet and do the Chevy 350 conversion. I've got a solid '73, body work almost done, rebuilt front end and a goal of high 4 sec/low 5 sec 0-60 times out of a daily driver. I'm guessing this would be possible with 300ish HP. My question for you guys is what is the most cost effective way to get there. Is a running junkyard core rebuilt with flat top pistons, cam and of course the shortie headers a reasonable approach? Gary Byrd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Shasteen Posted November 12, 2001 Share Posted November 12, 2001 Hey Gary, Congrats on the beginning stages of your swap; wish I could say the same. 300'ish horsies should be a breaze & should pleasantly wake up the performance of your Z. A "Best of Hotrod" magazine article I have did a budget build & compared 3 bare bones camshaft grinds from Summit. They picked a 350 block out of a wrecked nova on "New Years Day" so they got it for nothing...had minimal machine work done & used the cast iron cylinder heads which were bone stock except for milling which broght the comb.chambers down to 76cc. The cam they chose had spec's of 224/234 Duration at .050 .465/.488 lift and a 114 LSA. They also searched & found a complete rebuild kit for the cheapest price available. The pistons used had 4 eye-brow reliefs in them. All in all they spent $1367.15 in parts & machine work while using their own labor. The dyno run of the cam mentioned made 343 lbs.ft @3900rpms & 304 Hp @ 5200rpms. Vacuum at 800rpms was 12.7 In-Hg. BTW: this was done w/out decking the block which gave them @ 8:4.1 Static Comp.Ratio. If you wanted about 50 more horsies you could use the same cam & deck the block to increase the comp.ratio....or even buy some GM alluminum cyl.heads; not the expensive ones but the poor mans alluminum cyl.heads. Make sure you go w/a AOD trans or a 5spd if its a manual trans. Kevin, (Yea,Still an Inliner) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grumpyvette Posted November 12, 2001 Share Posted November 12, 2001 ok this will work and it will give you lots of hp for dollars spent; http://www.sdpc2000.com/cart.asp?action=prod_detail&catid=130&pid=383 then add crane cam #113821 and find a good dual plane intake(like the edelbrock performer rpm) that way you will have a new engine that produces about 345hp (get all the small parts like oilpans and valve covers, brackets, etc, at the salvage yard ($175 will easily buy everthing includeing a carb if your carefull although you may want to just get a new 600cfm edelbrock for $200)the intake plus headers and cam will get you the hp you want. BTW this might help too; http://www.goautocenter.com/377_stroker.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gbvol54 Posted November 12, 2001 Share Posted November 12, 2001 Thanks guys for the nice detailed information. I've considered a crate engine but may want the satisfaction of rebuilding one myself. Either way the info you both provided is valuable and appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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