87Red305

iTrader: (1)

I bought a 350 out of a '87 IROC-Z equipped with TPI. Complete TPI setup is for sale if interested by the by. My wheezy old 305 has been knocking for a while and I never had it running well enough to notice until late last year. At any rate, Ive got this stripped down 350 sitting in my garage and I'm looking to do a minor build.
I was thinking of going with a decent cam but not sure which one to go with. The price difference between roller and standard hydraulic cams is pretty steep so I would probably settle on regular old cam and maybe do roller rockers. I was thinking about swapping out my TQ converter for something with a higher stall but these also seem to be pretty pricey with the cheapest ones starting at about $350.
As far as freshening up the motor goes, I'm not sure if I should bother. The motor looks very clean on the inside and doesn't seem to have that much wear at all. I haven't pulled the heads to look at the walls but after pulling off the valve covers I was surprised to see how clean it was.
My intake setup for the car is a Holley 4160 carb with my Edelbrock performer intake manifold. I'm hopping it will mate up to my 350 (if anybody knows thatd be awesome)
Any other things I should consider for a mild build?

camaronewbie

What is YOUR car currently, factory carb?

87Red305

iTrader: (1)

yep, the 305 in the car now has a holley 4160 on top of the edelbrock performer intake

Atilla the Fun

Forget roller rockers for now, and invest that money in a hydraulic roller cam. It'll be easier later to do the rockers, especially with the 350 in the car. I've seen more than 30 horses from going roller, in 350s with streetable cams which had specs that should've given the advantage to the non-roller.

NAASBC355

I seccond that

~Couch

AlkyIROC

What kind of budget build are you thinking of? If you're just going to hone the cylinders and just refresh the engine with new bearings, gaskets and rings, a basic budget rebuild is going to set you back at least $1000 by the time you're done. Start swapping in new parts and getting machine shop work done and a better rebuild can easily reach $3000+. You can probably pick up a stock replacement engine already rebuilt and full of new parts with a guarantee for for about what the basic rebuild will cost. Swap out the intake and cam (keeping it within the limits of the heads) and you're done.

As for the torque converter, you do get what you payed for with converters. Don't let price be the selling point. As for the stall speed, it needs to match the cam grind so you can't buy a converter until you know exactly what cam you're going to use. Converters do fail. If you're looking for a junkyard converter that may have a slightly higher stall, you have no idea what you're buying.

There's nothing wrong with using a flat tappet hydraulic cam to cut down on cost. There are plenty of flat tappet grinds that will work well. It's when you get into more aggressive grinds that roller cams start to outperform.

Doom86

If the 305's heads are center bolt and the 87' 350 should be as well then the intake will work no problem.

I would install a Melling M55 Oil pump with a high pressure spring while you got it on the stand.

Mild being your goal your not far from it at this point. Assuming you have already trashed the stock exhaust from heads to tail pipe and replaced with something decent.

thomas1976

A used f body LT1 cam (roller) can be found for 20-40 $. Thats what the breack in additives and oil changes alone are going to cost for a flat tapped cam.

Atilla the Fun

Bull. We're talking 30 horses at 5500 rpm by trashing a new XE268H10 in favor of a GMPP LT4 HOT cam.

NAASBC355

With all the oil formula issues going on, and all the expensive additives you have to add to the oil you are going to pay either way. The roller cam has the advantage of being used many times over with the same parts. I wouldn't reccomend a flat tappet cam unless the rules of the intended class demanded it. Then I would reccomend running "off road only" racing oil. As of the last I checked Isky only reccomends using Kendall Racing (whatever it's new name is) Pennzoil Racing, and Valvolene Racing as being the only oils that have the needed high pressure lube no longer found in off the shelf oils. Go roller you only have to pay for it once, then it starts paying you.

~Couch

AlkyIROC

Sure but he never said anything about racing it or doing a huge performance build. A daily driver rarely goes over 3000 rpm. Making XX more HP at 5000+ rpm means nothing if you're never driving around at that rpm.

He's only trying to do a mild build which means he doesn't need exotic or expensive parts that won't show any or little gains at the low rpms used in daily street driving. A roller cam is nice but if it's out of the budget range, a flat tappet hydraulic will work just as well.

InfernalVortex

iTrader: (4)

I would recommend you skimp on heads or intake before you skimp on the cam. Get a roller cam, if you're not glad you did later, it's only because you dont know what you missed out on.

Maybe Im just paranoid with my car, but running all the additives and worrying about lobes getting wiped due to shitty modern oil formulations, not to mention the headache of doing the cam break in and just hoping for hte best, plus the gradual wear of the lobes and small metal shavings workign their way through your engine/oil for the life of the engine... all of these make me wish I had a roller cam. And then if you lose one lifter, you'll prob have to replace the cam and all the lifters. Flat tappet lobes and lifters are so finnicky and picky. Even under perfect conditions you're not guaranteed that they will work.

That said, mine went through hell trying to get it broken in. Break in didnt go well for it at all... it was stretched over 3 different sessions and I had some serious issues every time I tried, and it ended up only getting 15 minutes of break in time on it when it was all said and done, but it survived. But I attribute that to me putting cam lube on the lifters after each attempted break in session. I had to keep tearing it down, and I was gonna do everything I could to stack the odds in my favor while I was in it, so the lobes got relubricated. One of them had some ugly wear patterns on it after a few minutes of runtime, but ended up working out okay. But I still get the feeling you're somewhat playing Russian Roulette when it comes to flat tappet cams these days. I run 10-30 synthetic with break in additive as my day to day oil. Additive is $10 a bottle.



I dont regret going flat tappet, it's all I could afford, but if I had to do it again I'd use regular run of the mill 083 heads instead of my Vortecs and spend the extra moeny for a roller cam setup. It's easier to change heads than a cam in my opinion, and roller cams make more power everywhere.

Atilla the Fun

Point partially conceeded. Circumstantially.

87Red305

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for the weigh in guys! Cost is a concern as I still have plenty of small jobs to do on the car. All I'm looking for is something that can still hang with modern cars. I was hoping to whoop on my buddys LS-1 T/A but he's full bolt on so thats kind of out of the question without a full build. Once money is less of an issue I plan on doing the block over, honing the cylinders out, new heads and everything. What I should have really said is what are a few relatively inexpensive mods I can do to perk up the motor. The LT-1 stock cam would be a cheap upgrade. What about an LS-1 stock cam? What lifters/ rockers would compliment that? I am getting a new high pressure oil pump regardless, I will price out a Melling.
I purchased a Ebay exhaust system, here are the specs...
* Primary tube diameter: 1 1/2"

* Primary tube gauge: 18 gauge mandrel bent

* Flange thickness: 5/16"

* Collector size: 2 1/2""
I also have a nice Dynomax muffler mounting in the stock run. Only thing to fab up is the pipe from Y-pipe to muffler inlet.

Doom86

The oil pump it's self isn't high pressure you need to get a relief spring for it. The Melling M55 is a stock replacement pump. You want either "Mr Gasket 26" spring, or "JEG's 23625" (or equivalent) spring for it.

Dynomax makes a 3" over axle pipe for our cars that would probably help make fabbing easy as can be. You would just have to make the straight intermediate pipe with a bend at the end. I can't remember how much it set me back it wasn't much, it's been years since I bought it. I got lucky and found a stainless intermediate pipe years ago for cheap and ended up piecing my exhaust together.

Don't forget though JEG's and Summit both have "house brand" 3" mandrel bent exhaust for our cars and they aren't to hard on the wallet so don't invest too much into a hack job.

Once you have the exhaust sorted you are well on your way to your goal.

Not all roller cams are expensive, just nearly all the retail "big name" guys. Personally I wouldn't do a LT1 cam it's not worth the hassle IMO. The Trick Flow TrackMax (hydraulic roller 270 int./276 exh.) last I saw was 120$ on Summit and low enough lift for stock heads.

Atilla the Fun

LSx cams can't go in SBC blocks.

87Red305

iTrader: (1)

OK, so LSx cam is out of the question. What would be a streetable flat tappet cam that would compliment my mods? What specs should I be looking for? I'm thinking of doing roller rockers too. Whats the difference between ratios(1.5,1.6)? I want to replace the timing chain for something more durable any recommendations? I want to go with a high stall converter but not sure how high to go.

Apeiron

Save some money on the roller rockers, and just get stamped roller tips instead.

Atilla the Fun

roller tips are worse than non-roller, they add weight where you don't want it, and don't actually do any rolling. Look at LSx engines: roller fulcrums instead of pivot *****, but slider tips.
More fights happen here from converter stall than anything else, but it does need to match your cam, and your axle ratio.
Also, even if you do end up with 1.6:1 rockers, don't use them for the first 20 minutes of the new cam's life.

NAASBC355

Well i'm not going to argue in defence of roller tip rockers though I like that much more than I like stamped rockers, and have had good luck from using them I have no dyno sheets, or data I can use so I'll leave that alone completely, but one thing that roller tips beat MOST stamped rockers at is consistant ratio's. Most stock stamped rockers have an actual lift ratio of 1.43/1.44. So the only comment I'll make here is that if you do get stamped rockers get the best most researched stamped rockers you can. If you have or can afford 7/16" studs Elgin makes stamped rockers for those studs that are real tough just fyi for anyone who comes accross this later. Thats just my two cents. I get the theory of adding recipricating mass in places you don't want it, and agree with that idea, but i have circumstantial reservations about it. The LS1 aluminum full roller rockers add enough mass to float the valves real early in the rpm band in the place of the roller fulcrum pad tip stock rocker's So the argument has merit again I have reservations. I won't start a debate so i'll leave it at that. Oh and don't use comp flat tappet lifters use a good GM lifter. Just like the one in the picture above. Currently under the "Delphi" brand.

~Couch

Atilla the Fun

Couch just brought up a good point. Pre-'87 rockers do tend to check in at less than 1.45:1. The '87-up rail rockers mostly check in better than 1.47:1.
For a <5500 rpm street engine, I'd look to the Proform rockers. Above 5500, my loyalty is to the COMP ProMagnum rockers.

NAASBC355

Oh yes the rails are much better. Long storry short you need rocker arms the same way you need pushrods....WITH LOTS OF VIAGRA I'll leave it to your imaginations

~Couch