I'm too old to fight, just some good-natured ribbing.

 

My hot rodded 355 started life as a 1979 l82. Forged crank and rods with a factory windage tray. The car rag magazines were bragging up

Hypereutectic pistons. What a mistake. They have a feet per minute limitation that they didn't tell you about!

I had the bottom end finely balanced, align bored, blue printed for mains and head studs, fluid damper, crane double roller chain with billet timing gear, bored .030 for 355 ci. 1 5/8th headman long tube headers and 3 inch exhaust pipes, Weiand "Team G" single plane with 4 hole wood spacer, 750 edl carb VS. I actually learned how to use online calculators for area of the jets and rods to determine the total flow of a given rod and jet combination. Once you do that you finely make A/F ratio changes other the very few poor choices given in their manual that might be 4 or 6 %. Got the VS to open very easily and lighter springs on the rods so they react very fast. K&N 3X14 air filter. I had a built th350 and built 3.55 rear end because I already had a posi unit go bad.

My dilemma was what cam to run with ported 200 cc heads with 2.055/1.6 valves 1.6 steel roller rockers. So I kinda wanted max power right over 6000 rpm and good power out to about 7000 and use a rev limiter set at 7200. I still have the Crane billet cam. It was a Crane street solid roller with 232/236 .600/.600 with 1.5's and street friendly 114 LC angle. Very little over lap. Actually it was so well tuned that it was a 20 mpg vette on 4500 mile round trips. Very solid 12.06 second machine with 10 inch goodyear slicks.

232/236 114 Valve events I BTDC 7 ABDC 45 E 57 -1 1.6 rockers lift the valves to .640 inches to really let the heads flow

I used the .015 steel shim head gasket with spray on copper sealant. For .040 quench on the flat top pistons. You end up with the max compression on 355's something like 10.6 and no problem with 91 octane fuel because of the big cam.

Never dynoed, but it was powerful and max power was right about 6400. Later on I geared it to be at 175 mph at 6400 rpm so it could power up to max speed with an OD tranny.

I've used SRP forged pistons, Probe, Mahle, and Wiseco. They are all good.

Buy a forged rotating kit and have it finely balanced, SFI damper, Smaller diameter march aluminum damper pulleys to gear down alternator and other items. SFI 22 pound flywheel 168 tooth with 11 inch clutch and mini starter. Your rpm air gap will work with a 1/2 inch wood 4 hole spacer. I would buy and install Morroso back of the block oil restrictors and drill them out to .110 through the center and the side. It forces about 1/2 of the top end oil to the mains. Plug the block oil filter bypass and run a Melling high volume pump. get a kickout oil pan for about 7 quarts with a 1 quart filter. Run high zinc oil like Valvoline racing oil You have to do this to make the solid roller lifter work.

I can dig out that cam and make you a deal on it. Billet steel sleeved on dizzy gear for standard iron dizzy gear. Low lash cam .014/.018 hot So you actually loose that on valve lift.

232/236 on the left being replaced in my first 383 with a 236/242. I tried it on my 383 because i didn't want to go over board and ended up with detonation problems because of higher compression. Oh you want to install 7/16th studs and a stud girdle because of the 200+ pound on seat closed springs.



If you look close at the two cams. The street roller lobe on the left is NOT as aggressive as the lobes on the right

I use the Crane HR6 CD ignition. now known as F.A.S.T.. It's a digital with a super coil with dials to set the rev limiter. With good heads you kinda pick a red line. Like 195 or 200cc big valve heads. I've run as big as 230 cc circle track ported on my 355. If you have faith in the forged parts after break in you could set it 7000 or even 7500. Any roller cam makes a motor impressive. I just always wanted more!

My headlights were just slow opening, but the brakes were fine. It seems to me that at the 1000 rpm idle it had about 11 inches of vacuum. dual plane might raise it a somewhat.

 

Max carb on the 355 was a 830 race demon with 230+ cc heads. Someone convinced me that my Edl carb was holding me back and I needed a real big double pumper. Kinda funny now that I think about it that combo out hell raising is when the pistons smeared in the bores. When i slowed down it sounded like massive rod knock. Time for the trailer and a 400 mile ride home. It had 4.11 and racing 700R4 with 3200 stall 9.5 inch with 5 lockup clutches.

 

A billet piece made in china the wholesaler buys for 4.99 Vs using the OEM piece, a 50 cent pipe plug and a tap? Sure billet stuff is cool, but I beg to differ, there is absolutely nothing wrong with taking the spring and plate out of the stock bypass filter adapter and plugging it. Why spend $35 bucks on something you can do for 1 dollar. Believe it or not the real engine builders had no choice but to plug them for many years, now if they can make 10-15 bucks profit out of a shiny part that will get the average dumb *** all googly eyed.. you bet, they'll take you're money and sell you the part!

One of my family friends I've known for years has been building 355-357 small blocks for circle track use for over 40 years and jokes his pipe plugged filter adapter has been on 5 engines in the last 30 years, everyone of them over 12:1 compression and ran 4000-7000 rpm, all making well over 600 hp. This is an engine solidly mounted for 1/4-1/3 mile asphalt circle track racing. And spanning decades where they used to run cast crank 2 bolt blocks with looser tolerances than they do now with higher oil pressure to keep the things alive. Funny how things have changed, anyway, If you want to waste your money on billet that's never seen it's your thing, but for the typical wet sump engine a stock bypass adapter that's plugged is fine.

 

^^^^this^^^^

 

The guy who built my motor has been building motors since I was pup and I'm getting old. I told him what I wanted and turned him loose. He didn't disappoint. I'm pretty sure all the tooling he used was about the same age as my car. But amazingly he still builds the best engines in the region hands down. Sometimes old guys just know things. He does a lot of motors for the vintage race crowd and street rodders. Mine was pretty mild compared to some of his stuff. I would have just built it if it was stock or mild build, but there is a lot to know about making hp and making it last I don't know and you only get from experience.