Well Lets give the Particulars of the car..

1989 irock T-top Black ( last year of the MAF) WC-T5 3.08 rear 305 of course...
So far I have installed AFPR and 24# inj
3" Cat back ( no cat ) Flowmaster and found the happy spots of calibrating the car..

Kinda a nice compliment to a 305....But now I need a 350 which is lots of fun..

I started the swap with a bare block and choose a 1987 truck block from a 6500 chassis ( canada KG ) that was a 4bolt main engine with the 1 piece rear main seal.. So even before I started to rip anything from the car I already bought a Block and heads.. The Original motor was roller hydraulic so I wanted that.. I bought new Rollers , so make no mistake everything is new.. the only thing I used from the old engine was the accessories and the intake.. I scavenged everything else.. the heads I am using are not the greatest set of heads but they will work.. set aside of the usual rebuilding procedures make sure you do the following...

1. Remove tappered plugs from block and heads that require sensors..
2. remove the Flywheel pilot bearing and install a needle bearing styl;e for manuals only..
3. Hog-out th material in the plenum and upgrade your inj and pressure regulator..

Everything else is a walk in the park.. I for some reason when ordering parts got the water pump and it was 30 thou away from the crank pully.. That was wierd, and I dont know why...So underdrive pulleys I bought.. then I noticed the Ballancing I did was dependant on the harmonic ballancer and the crank/pistons/rings/rods/pins and lastly the flywheel.. Well untill I was actually assembling the front of the motor I noticed that the Serpentine TPI system usues a 6 3/4 harmonic dampner. Well I had a 8 " truck dampener already ballanced to everything.. So after A Little research from GM Direct I will say this as a WRitten in stone fact.. " the Externally ballanced post 87 motors are ballanced cranks to except the ballanced flywheel. which is weighted for certain cranks but interchangable with 305 and 350.. the Harmonic dampener however is Neutrally ballanced and does not matter. Its bigger for the trucks built for torque and smaller for the cars. " . the other oversight was the timing cover which was aligned for a 8" ballancer. Big deal the timing marks still lined up only there was a 1 1/4 inch gap between them..
So after all that Nothing else was a problem other then I needed to add the roller-style to the engine... Well you need to order the short pushrods not the standard style and try to get hardened type..these rods are about half an inch shorter.. Then you may or may not have to get all this stuff...

Cam retainer plate
roller retainer plates ( 8 )
roller retainer tension plate ( 1 ) AKA the SPider PLate
16 roller style Pushrods Hardened one side only ( gm recalls )
rocker arms which are roller or self-aligning stamped.. ( 16)

After that its all basic rebuild to your ideas..
I slightly ported the plenum throttle base for the extra castings that are purposely placed there to turbulate the Exhaust Gas REcycler ports for even mixture.. This mess's with the intake CFM and can be ground out to allow way better flow patterns. So porting at the intake runners and plenum is a good and cheap thing to do in your spare time..As in any engine you will need to recalibrate the TPI for the 350... These include the Base idle set screw and the TPS and the Fuel pressure.. and lastly your timing..
Its a fun project to start its the bumps along the way that make it interesting.. Unlike most of you I have a eeprom Burner and the facilities to make my own Chip.. Otherwise good luck tuning..

Also the cam design I was going to use was the Comcams extreme energy xr269hr 218/224 design but went with a dual pattern 222/238 12.5degreee ground on a 50rated rockwell steel shaft.. I would have choosen the compcams for sure but they are outa stock of cams and I would have had to wait way to long..

So how is it laa working ... I haven't had time to finish the install yet. but all I have to do is Pre-oil the engine and fire it up now..
Tell ya guys how it went next weekend..

 

sounds like a good engine your building!