I have been sittin in the house all day, bored, done a lot of reading on a lot of message boards bout people building 305s and 307s, everyone else says build a 350, be honest wouldnt you rather bust some @ss with smaller inches? Im just curious how many of yall are running less that 350ci and run well? post em'.. right now im in the midst of building a 496 and a 355... the 496 is very pricey and will be my pride and joy, but im having more fun pickn out parts for the 355... I'd rather have a 307 though, just because every one dogs them.. any one else agree with me??

 

380hp-305cui

 

Since all the SBC cost roughly the same to build, why build a small engine if you want performance? Build a 383 and tell everyone it's a 305. You can build high HP small engines but it costs less to make the same amount of HP from a bigger engine with better street manners.

307 is a garbage engine. Worse than a 305. It has no performance potential, that's why nobody likes them. Go build a 265 if you want a small V8 engine and see how many times you get beat by a 350 or V6.

I have a 540 and it's hard to keep up with the 572 and 632 engines without adding a power adder.

If you want to try something really different and don't care about the cost, build a 350+hp 2.5L Iron Duke 4 cylinder engine. It's doable if you have enough money. Turbo it like the imports do and make even more power. You could probably build 2-3 350's in the same power range for that price.

 

i guess when people build engines they do it to make their ride better, me i like to goof around and try odd ball stuff... as far as cubes go like u said about keeping up with 600"s, i know a dude that has a chassied berreta, only 477" running 5.30s all day, with only 1 small plate..some times smaller cubes can bust some @SS..

like if you took a 305, and did all u could, light crank, even knife edge it, completly blue printed, exellently matched parts, im thinking a 7.oo 1/8 pass is acheiveable.

hell im just bored and talkin smack! lol i've set all day and done nothing...

 

Like I said, you can build high HP small engines but it will cost you more than building one with more displacement. A high HP small engine also isn't as reliable as a bigger engine making the same amount of power.

A 305 running high 10's in the 1/4 is achievable but doing it without a power adder, you won't be driving it on the street very much if at all.

 

"Odd ball" and "different" are another way to say, "Spent more money and went slower."

I have nothing against upgrading a 305 to make more power. But, when you start doing ANYTHING to the block or rotating assembly, you are now flushing performance $'s down the toilet.

For the record, a 307 has slightly more performance potential than a 305 (very slight) because the larger bore doesn't shroud the valves quite as much. The factory never did anything but base-V8 2-bbl lo-po heads & cam with the 307, so it has a poor performance reputation. However, in 1974, I went to a car show in Boston that had an econorail with a 307 in it that ran low-9's - it can be done, but you'd better have a pretty doggone good reason for doing it (weight/CID for a particular racing class is one reason).

 

 

I'm running a 283 in my '85 TA. The 305 was shot, and the 283 was available. I'm not looking for a lot of power, but I hope to get decent mileage out of it. The little motor was originally built for another project with the idea being to have a very mean sounding small block that wouldn't brake transmission parts. All said, it will still run better than the stock 150hp 305, and I've only got a few hundred dollars in it.