jordo2114

didnt know where to post this so i put it here i finally got the moeny for my 3rd gen and I was looking at a 86 T/A the guy said he put a rebuilt 350 from a 70's van in it along with the old cc quadrajet he wants about 3500 for it with only 300 mi on it not even broken in yet but my question is is the 350 from a 70 van any good i mean it sounds alright but what were the heads like back then and isit gonna cost a fortune to get around 300 horse we were gonna try talkin him down to 2500 also if i do get it would i benefit greatly from switching to a holley or other plain carb thanx for any advice to this new comer to the 3rd gen world

AmorgetRS

iTrader: (6)

If he reused the stock 70's van heads they are probably pretty bad, at best. Switching the carbs on something that is probably as choked by the heads will probably net few gains, however I am not a carb person. Is it a descent value at 3,500 or 2,500? Since you said nothing about the body/interior it is hard to tell. People have paid a lot more cars in worse shape and a lot less for cars that are probably in better shape.

For 300 HP you are probably replacing heads, cam, intake, full exhaust system, very possibly the carb (not sure how far a Quadrajet will go), and probably rebuilding the transmission if it is original.

If this is your first car then I would suggest not building a 300 hp 350 and just driving it as is. There is more then enough torque and HP to get you into BIG trouble.

Douglas

jordo2114

thanx yea the body and interior are in great condition and your right i do plan on driving the car the way it is I meant someday in the future maybe a 350 build would be something to think about but as for right now i just wanted drive ability and better gas mileage which is why i suggested switching straight to a carb

FormulaL98

Yea that 350 out of the 70's van is basically the same as an L98 TPI shortblock wise. The only difference being Roller cams in most L98's. Yea the heads are gonna hold you back to a point, but 300HP.....easy all day long with those heads. All van and truck heads had the same size valves as an L98 just a larger combustion chamber, and port design is far from optimum. But at the end of the day 300 Hp is a small cam and a set of headers away. Wait on changin that carb, Q-Jets are great actually!! Just learn how to tune them, with thier small primary's they can get great gas milage, and they have way big secondaries so with a good tune they perform very well. And just so ya know the smallest Q-Jet ever built was 750cfm (trucks and vans did also come with 800cfm carbs sometimes its not uncommon!!), and q-jets were used on the majority of medium porformance motors buit from the 60's-70's, even 454's (up to 360hp) and 427's. (up to 390hp) not to mention the endless number of performance small blocks. Although Big Blocks did use a larger version of the carb

jordo2114

hey thanx alot I really thought their was no hope but now there just may be so your saying keep the qjet because i didnt think the computer controlled ones were worth it but what do I know

FormulaL98

Just look around the on sites like chey high tech and car craft, they have some articles on computer qjets i believe. and hey if u dont have to worry about emissions, you could probably dig up a decent non computer qjet for under a hundred bucks (they're everywhere, just like small blocks !!). A Qjet was the first car part i ever worked on lol, my dad had me doin rebuild kits on'em when i was 14 haha, Shoot they even use qjets in many NHRA stock classes (some cars runnin in the 10's with em) and circle track racing, probably others too i would bet.


http://www.carcraft.com/howto/57178/index.html thats a Qjet article from Car Craft Magazine
https://www.thirdgen.org/quadrajet And theres one for a Computer Qjet (on this site non the less hah)

jordo2114

yea here in IL i dont belive theres any emmissions checks besides like grain trucks