Well, I'm diggin in now and I'm getting ready to tear into this thing and beef it up a bit. Here's the rundown...

Pretty much a '74 auto/stock 350 with original dist (points etc) and stock intake. I have a mechanic buddy who's helping and advising a bit but he hasn't done any mod work in a long time so he's not too up on what's out there with regards to numbers/specs etc. I did replace the Q-Jet with a Holley 650 cfm with elec. choke on about a month ago on his recommendation and it definitely helps out alot.

The intake has a small leak (nothing major) and needs to be taken off and re-gasketed. Since I'm gonna have it off anyway, I thought I'd look into replacing it with something beefier that won't require a new hood. He tells me that if I'm going to swap the intake I may as well throw an HEI distributor on as well and it might even be a good idea to look into replacing the cam to get what I'm looking for.

I'm not looking to build a race ready engine, I just would like to liven it up some and get some more juice happening. Right now, it's pretty sluggish and I'd love to have the low-end power to jump on it and have it toss me back into the seat a bit more. Off the line quickness and decent torque for just driving around town. I rarely get it over 4000-5000 rpm so a huge top-end boost doesn't seem to be needed. Am I right?

I've been reading as much as I can but am not sure about which parts I should look into. The cam info I've read makes sense but I don't want to buy one and go to the trouble of putting it in only to find it doesn't help deliver what I'm looking for. I'm browsing thru catalogs but it's all abit overwhelming for a newbie!

Can anyone give some recommendations for a more powerful set-up? Which cam would I be best off with and which combination of intake, cam and HEI distributor would work best together? He tells me they all have to work together for optimum performance so I'd like to get a package together of parts that will be compatible.

If I do all this is there anything else I should swap as well? (lifters, heads,etc?) I have the time and luckily some cash to play with so I'm not afraid of spending it to get the desired result. I don't want to go crazy but a few hundred bucks and my time would be a nice price to pay.

Anybody want to point me toward a place to find some more concrete answers? Thanks for the help.....



Pat

 

i think the original intake is actually not so bad, its heavy though and probably has some smog crap on it...your biggest gains will be in a different cam, good heads, headers,dual exhaust, and get that carb tuned by Lars. thats probably $1400 bucks worth of stuff if you go with cast iron heads from Summit, like their version of the double hump fuelie heads if you add some more$$$$ theres lots of new tech heads out there and a new intake is an extra $175, yur current HEI set up is fine send it to Lars with the carb for a rebuild you will not be sorry.

 

This all comes from Jegs.

1) Headers #289-85008 (Dynomax) or #500-68300 (Hedman).
DO NOT PUT THIS ENGINE TOGETHER WITHOUT HEADERS. Finish the exhaust system out with at least 2 1/4" pipe and some good low restriction mufflers (NOT FLOWMASTERS). Dynomax makes some good ones.

2) Camshaft #270-100052 (Crane). This is the largest cam you can use with stock compression and still keep some driveability. If you want more low speed torque (that's a good thing for a street car) use #270-100032 or #270-100042.

3) Intake manifold #350-3701 (Edelbrock).

4) Carburetor #561-35002 (Jet). This engine really deserves a good Rochester.

5) Ignition #650-501 (Mallory Unilite conversion). I never had a minutes trouble out of mine.

6) If you just gotta have new heads get #350-60999 (Edelbrock)

BigBlockk

Later.....