400 for a 305
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400 for a 305
I have a 91 Rs with the TBI 305 with its weak 170 hp.
My dad has a 68 camaro with a carbed 400ci. He wants a crate 350 for his car. I want to take the 400ci and put it in mine. Its from a 72 caprice it only has 170 hp too but i want to have it rebuilt possibly for more power how much do u think it will cost and is putting a 400 in for the 305 too much work? for not enough gain?
My dad has a 68 camaro with a carbed 400ci. He wants a crate 350 for his car. I want to take the 400ci and put it in mine. Its from a 72 caprice it only has 170 hp too but i want to have it rebuilt possibly for more power how much do u think it will cost and is putting a 400 in for the 305 too much work? for not enough gain?
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Joined: Jul 1999
Posts: 18,457
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From: Loveland, OH, US
Car: 4
Engine: 6
Transmission: 5
Putting the 400 in is nothing.
Taking care of all the things that make it only have 170 HP now, and will make it have even less in your chassis, is another matter entirely.
Take the heads, cam, intake, and exhaust off of the 400, and throw it all in the trash. Take the entire 305 and do the same, plus every piece of the exhaust from the heads to the street. Do not even think about using TBI on a 400 no matter who tells you all about magazine articles they've read about it, it's inferior, period. You'll go faster and have less trouble with absolutely anything else. Then figure out how fast you want to go, and how much money you would like to spend; when you get those 2 things to agree, you're ready to make the next move.
On the 400 that usually lives in my 83, I have a set of old double-hump heads (soon to be upgraded); a Holley 800 CFM 4-barrel carb; a Comp XR282HR cam; and a few other goodies. It's, um, a pleasure to drill Mustangs at stop lights with it, by several car lengths per gear.
Taking care of all the things that make it only have 170 HP now, and will make it have even less in your chassis, is another matter entirely.
Take the heads, cam, intake, and exhaust off of the 400, and throw it all in the trash. Take the entire 305 and do the same, plus every piece of the exhaust from the heads to the street. Do not even think about using TBI on a 400 no matter who tells you all about magazine articles they've read about it, it's inferior, period. You'll go faster and have less trouble with absolutely anything else. Then figure out how fast you want to go, and how much money you would like to spend; when you get those 2 things to agree, you're ready to make the next move.
On the 400 that usually lives in my 83, I have a set of old double-hump heads (soon to be upgraded); a Holley 800 CFM 4-barrel carb; a Comp XR282HR cam; and a few other goodies. It's, um, a pleasure to drill Mustangs at stop lights with it, by several car lengths per gear.
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Thanks I will have about 2 grand by the end of the year to work with. If i take it to a shop to get it rebuilt can i have them put better heads and cam on it. I want to go with a carb just because the tbi does suck. The 400 alreayd has long headers on it from the 68 camaro will they fit underneath my car? And if so wut do u do about the cat convertors. If you've done a 400 too what kind of heads should i be looking for and about how much?
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From: Aptos, CA. USA
If I were you I'd plan for about 400- 450 hp.
you could get a street rebuild on the 400 for $500 or so for the bottom end, nothing fancy but it'll be all you need.
THe block prep and labor could be about $1000 or more so you better ask lots of questions from the machinist.
You could be fine with a set of good iron heads in the $500 to $750 range.
THe exhaust will be a bitch, especially with long tubes, I'm not sure if the 1st gens will go in a third gen, call summit and ask on the PNs.
Long tubes will make it nearly impossible to run a "Y" pipe back to the cat location.
I have a set of good chrome shorty headers, heddman elites with the thick flange and ceramachrome finish that I can sell for $150, nearly new. they don't have air tubes though.
If you plan on smogging this motor it will be expensive to build the exhaust, figure at least $750 to $1000 for shorty headers with o2 bung and air tube inlets, you will need to upgrade to a 3" exhaust, hi flow cat, but you can use part of the stock y pipe with luck, but probably not.
If you don't need smog, you could run the long tubes back to just race muffflers and sidepipes, or run pipe under the tranny mount back to a flowmaster collector and keep it all in the tunnel, into a 3" catback.
if you put a cat inline and use a smoggable cam like an LT4 roller hotcam, you could pass smog, but to do that you will need to run the stock intake and probably a q jet carb and all the wiring off the stock computer so you will be killing all your hpdown to the low 300s, you could pass the sniffer test but not visual under the car. and you will need either stock exhaust manifold (the least expensive,) or smogable headers which as I said are pricey.
If you are asking about the cat already you are probaby going to be way over budget.
plus all the little things you will find out about along the way which will easily cost another grand.
So if you gotta smog you are probably stuck with the stock intake a 600 cfm q jet, all the stock wires and computer, and a stock appearing exhaust to keep the price down.
If you had money to burn, you could build it sniffable, put an LT1 intake and fuel injection, run a MAF computer from a 91 vette, go with AIR compatible headers, a hi flow cat and 3" or better catback and youd pass smog and still have 450 hp with 10:1 or 11:1 compression
This will be hard to do for 2grand in a smoggable state and
barely possible in a no smog state for under 2 grand I'd say closer to 3 grand if you can R&R the motor yourself
email me for more info if you need it.
Good luck
you could get a street rebuild on the 400 for $500 or so for the bottom end, nothing fancy but it'll be all you need.
THe block prep and labor could be about $1000 or more so you better ask lots of questions from the machinist.
You could be fine with a set of good iron heads in the $500 to $750 range.
THe exhaust will be a bitch, especially with long tubes, I'm not sure if the 1st gens will go in a third gen, call summit and ask on the PNs.
Long tubes will make it nearly impossible to run a "Y" pipe back to the cat location.
I have a set of good chrome shorty headers, heddman elites with the thick flange and ceramachrome finish that I can sell for $150, nearly new. they don't have air tubes though.
If you plan on smogging this motor it will be expensive to build the exhaust, figure at least $750 to $1000 for shorty headers with o2 bung and air tube inlets, you will need to upgrade to a 3" exhaust, hi flow cat, but you can use part of the stock y pipe with luck, but probably not.
If you don't need smog, you could run the long tubes back to just race muffflers and sidepipes, or run pipe under the tranny mount back to a flowmaster collector and keep it all in the tunnel, into a 3" catback.
if you put a cat inline and use a smoggable cam like an LT4 roller hotcam, you could pass smog, but to do that you will need to run the stock intake and probably a q jet carb and all the wiring off the stock computer so you will be killing all your hpdown to the low 300s, you could pass the sniffer test but not visual under the car. and you will need either stock exhaust manifold (the least expensive,) or smogable headers which as I said are pricey.
If you are asking about the cat already you are probaby going to be way over budget.
plus all the little things you will find out about along the way which will easily cost another grand.
So if you gotta smog you are probably stuck with the stock intake a 600 cfm q jet, all the stock wires and computer, and a stock appearing exhaust to keep the price down.
If you had money to burn, you could build it sniffable, put an LT1 intake and fuel injection, run a MAF computer from a 91 vette, go with AIR compatible headers, a hi flow cat and 3" or better catback and youd pass smog and still have 450 hp with 10:1 or 11:1 compression
This will be hard to do for 2grand in a smoggable state and
barely possible in a no smog state for under 2 grand I'd say closer to 3 grand if you can R&R the motor yourself
email me for more info if you need it.
Good luck
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