OK heres the thing, My mechanic needs to replace my CAM and Timing Chain.

The previous owner i recently purchased the car from said its a 350 so thats what im going with until i can find out. (still not great mechanically but im getting there in time) Also has a Edelbrock 4brl Carb. and dual exhaust.

Im trying to gain HP and Torque good price. So what can i do at the point hes at where he wont have to take anything else apart and how much (estimate) HP it will gain and price per part.

As of now hes charging me $650 parts and labor for the Performance cam and Timing chain. Ive got $1000 to spend.

 

Weather you have a 305 or 350, the same general rules apply.

The first thing you need to do is make sure you engine is running properly with a good tune up and tune. No point in spending money on the engine without having the basics done (wires, plugs, ets).

Most restrictive part of these cars are the exhaust manifolds. Look around on the boards and find a set of used headers to work within your budget. If that's too much, go to the junkyard and find an L69 Camaro H.O. and grab it's manifolds. They are a bit larger than the factory ones.

You're intake is fine.

Port/Polish heads is free minus the machine work to rebuild them. I paid $200 in labor for tear down, 3 angle valve job with bigger intake, and reassemble. You should be replacing your springs and what not anyway with a new cam, so while the heads are off do a home port/polish.

Of course the biggest bang for your buck is nitrous. Get a good plate system with a 100-125 hp shot and you'll be golden. Feel free to ask any questions.

Here's a link to my build to give you an idea of things https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...ml#post5116609

 

Sounds like you've already made quite the mistake.

The car WILL ABSOLUTELY NOT pass inspection with that on it. Period, paragraph, end of story. Buying that car was a BAD IDEA to begin with.

I'd suggest re-thinking the entire project. There are few things in life worse than shooting your entire wad on something (say, PAYING somebody to put a cam in your car), then discovering that you CANNOT POSSIBLY use the car AT ALL. Which is what WILL happen here. Because, when that car's 2 year interval for smog inspection comes up, it WILL FAIL, with 100% certainty. It CANNOT POSSIBLY pass with that non-OEM carb on it, which means that you CANNOT POSSIBLY get a license plate for it, EVER, in the state of CA.

DO NOT spend a dime on that car until you understand your state's laws better than you seem to understand them right now. GET RID OF IT. You will lose money, more than likely; but you will lose less if you cut your losses RIGHT NOW than it will cost you to find out that I'm telling you the truth, the hard way.

Yes I used to live there; in N SD county specifically. I know the CA laws on this subject well.

Incidentally, the word "cam" does not need to be typed in all-caps.

 

Lets just say it already passed last month.

 

Man-

 

Let's just say...

That 2-yr interval comes around quicker than you might think, especially since as seems to be the case, you've never dealt with it before; and it'll seem EVEN QUICKER now that you'll be forced to COMPLETELY re-install the computer-controlled carb THAT YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE, and single exhaust w cat, AND get it to be all there and hooked up properly, AND blow the number on the rollers.

Sell the car. NOW. Cut your losses NOW before you sink EVEN MORE money into it and are EVEN DEEPER IN THE HOLE before you finally wake up and realize that you bought a pig in a poke from a crook who took advantage of your lack of experience and knowledge.

 

Lets just say, i didnt change anything i i made it pass.... lets just say i will make it pass again.

 

Let's just say we answer his questions and not give a flying fawk whether he passes emissions or not? That's his problem, if it is a problem and he may deal with it as he finds fit. In two years from now, if he asks how to make it emissions compliant, than we can tell him all of that stuff.

We also understand that you have been there done that and are only doing your best forewarning. Noted.

There?

 

LOL Thanks Andrew, I do appreciate that he warned me, it was just in a bad way, I already stated that i smogged it.

LETS HERE WHAT I CAN DO TO GAIN SOME HP!

 

Take that 650 dollars your "mechanic" is trying to charge you for a cam swap, buy the cam yourself (with research) then spend the 4-500 dollars you saved on buying yourself some tools, do it yourself.

If it's not a roller block the cam would be around 100 bucks, if it's a roller cam then the cam would be about 350 give or take.

Air-filter, is a good cheap way to gain a couple HP, not sure which intake manifold you have, but they are relatively cheap and easy to install. Header back exhaust?

What rear-end do you have? Changing out the gear ratio wont add HP but depending on which gears you have, you could gain a good bit of fun by swapping to something better.

 

Get rid of your pig-in-a-poke and use the money to buy a car that won't create headaches and cost gobs o money on down the road.

 

So your saying in all of Calli there isn't one car of a guy that figured a way around the smog test??.The percentages of that aren't very good.How about 10 guys given all the cars there??.Maybe 100...........1000??.How about guys that live in a state border city of another state and get their license from that border state??.How about the age of his car being "grandfathered"??.

So you see there isn't a absolute answer.

 

For those of you who have never lived there and are therefore ignorant (ahem Gary....) here's how it works out there.

In CA, smog tests are administered in state-licensed shops. There is a video camera pointed at the inspection bay that can be viewed at any time by someone in Sac.

The first thing they do is pull into said bay with said camera, open any of a number of approved reference books for emissions control devices (a mfr of replacement ones such as B-W, Sorensen GP, Std Ign, etc. is typical) and verify that EVERY one shown in the catalog is present, all tubes and wires are hooked up, and everything is free to operate (can't coat-hanger-wire the EFE valve open for example). They verify that all of certain parts (carb for example) are the correct factory parts #s, or if not, they have a CARB EO #. They look at the exh sys to make sure it's the same configuration as factory; single vs dual, presence of cat, manifolds vs headers, etc. All headers, intakes, air cleaners, and various other things, if not factory, must have an EO #. If it doesn't pass any aspect of this "visual", you're out of there, before the car is even started up.

The next thing they do is to start the car and let it idle for some period of time. During this time they verify that the SES light doesn't come on. They verify before starting it of course that the light itself works. They check the timing with a light, and a few other equally simple things. If any of this fails, you're out of there.

They then remove the gas cap and check that it holds pressure. If it doesn't, guess what happens. If it's a "test only" station (the only kind you can use for certain things) you gotta go get one and come back. If it's a "test & repair" station, they might sell you one... at a favorable price no doubt).

THey then move it to the chassis dyno, and run it through a prescribed sequence; something like, let it idle for 30 sec, run it up to 15 mph for 1 min, then to 30 mph for 1 min. It's been awhile so forgive me if I have the exact #s wrong, it's the principle that counts. The exh gas contents are checked at a couple of points in the sequence. If any of them exceed the factory limits, .... you do the math.

There is no such thing as "grandfathered". Cars from before about 73 or thereabouts (can't recall the exact year but it's somewhere back there) are exempt from testing altogether. Cars from whatever date on up, are subject to these tests.

OBD2 cars have far less physical inspection required since the ECM can confess what it finds wrong; parts that don't pass the start-up tests, emissions exceeding limits, etc. They can check those with a scanner and bypass various parts of the process.

As you can clearly see, these cars are all new enough that they MUST pass inspection, and old enough to not have OBD2 (96 being the 1st year).

If the state catches a shop fudging the tests in any way, they can impose all sorts of penalties; yank their license, fine them, even prison time. The whole time I lived out there, I never saw or even heard of ONE SINGLE SHOP willing to risk its livelihood on some lop-eared kid with a hacked-up old POS slipping through somehow. Which is why I don't believe this "let's say it just passed" BS: it didn't happen, and if it did, it isn't repeatable or sustainable.

Long Beach isn't on the border (unless the Pacific Ocean grants licenses), although it might be theoretically possible for the OP to have a relative in Nevada or some such, and license the car there. However if he's ever stopped, and the address on his DL doesn't agree with his plates, he might find his license revoked by the court until he licenses his car where his DL is located... in Long Beach presumably. At which point of course the car has to pass CA inspection.

So you see there IS an absolute answer. Only ignorant people who don't know what they're talking about would claim otherwise.

 

I'M GOING TO TELL YOU AGAIN.YOU WILL NOT,DO NOT POST LIKE THAT TO ME.SOME MIGHT PUT UP WITH THE NAME CALLING,BUT I WILL NOT.

I have a very close friend that lives in Calli with a 1994 Astro 355 powered early style Edelbrock fuel injection and a high tune on it driving it legally.HOW do you explain that??.

Now lets get to the core of the matter.It doesn't seem to matter where you post.You insist on always being right.Over the yrs being on a number of sites like this one,people who do that seem to think they have something to prove because they don't have much hands on experience.It doesn't take very long to recognize that for me or for that matter any logical thinking person.Actually readers of those kind of posts(like yours)learn to ignore those kind of posts as being invalid.So it isn't necessary what you post,but how you post that reveals what you know or not.Learn to respect people and your points that your making might become more accepted.

I have turned in you post to site management.

 

Appreciate that!! Lets em know I'm keeping the conversations devoted to FACTS and not some kind of fantasy-land BS including breaking laws.

Yes you're excatly right, I'm generally right when I post; because, unlike some other people, I KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT unless I'm pretty sure of the facts. Which in this case, is passing along, in spite of PEOPLE WHO DONT KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT, some useful information about what the inspection procedures are in CA, so that hopefully any advice they give to the OP can be something he can actually put to use.

Yeah you say that to me all the time, basically every time you make a fool of yourself. Tell me as much as you like. Doesn't bother me at all.

Meanwhile, if we can get rid of the talk that doesn't apply to CA, the best thing we can do right now for the OP REGARDLESS of what he's thinking he can get away with, is to help him be aware of THE LAW he has to work within; and what the consequences of itare for the "project" he foolishly took off of somebody's hands. Which is going to be basically impossible for him to ever license in his home state.

Best thing the OP can do to help those of us out here WHO ARE TRYING TO HELP HIM, is to tell us in greater detail what he's REALLY got; what size the engine ACTUALLY is, what heads are on it, what other stuff has been hacked and sodomized maybe, stuff like that. So we can point him in the direction of (a) making his car better, and (b) doing it in such a way that he can actually get to use it in his home state.

 

You win the prize..............The biggest poser I have met on the net in 20 yrs...........................

Yeah you do need this format to validate.........It's all ya got.

 

he said he wanted hp, i dont see anything about passing emmisions there. so lets help him out there. if he has a good mechanic he can point him in that direction or we can wait till he ask. my sugustion buy a computer qjet for emissions testing when your done with that unplug it and swap carbs.

now livly id go with a simple cam swap for now but keep it simple and it might take some research bur for the emmisions sake of things find one with a CARB # (californa air research board) that will pass for that car.

 

...

 

Only carb that will pass CA inspection on one of these cars, is one off of one of these cars (or similar, such as a MC SS). There are no aftermarket ones. Gotta be the computer-controlled Q-Jet.

Pretty tough to be swapping all that stuff on and off... that's a computer-controlled carb, computer-controlled dist, all the sensors and solenoids and wiring and hoses and whatnot that goes with that whole system; not trivial at all.

As far as what can be done to the engine internally, a great place to start would be, find out what's in it now, FOR REAL. Don't believe some PO monkey-spank about "350". An astounding (or maybe not...) number of these cars have been bought with a "350" in them, that somehow magically reversed the "5" and the "0" when the new owner got them home. That'd be the first thing to check. Next thing would be, the head casting #s. Get those, then we can talk about cams that would work in conjunction with the carb and associated system that's going to need to go back on there.

 

Okay, let's take a breath and calm down.

sofa is right. OP, if you got your car to pass, we pretty much know how. Expecting to be able to do that year after year is foolish, and can end up being expensive (for both you and the inspector "passing" your car).

Legally, you can put a computer q-jet on it, a crossfire setup on it, or get the whole thing upgraded to a later factory or C.A.R.B.-certified EFI system. Nothing else is legal. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Back to your original question: Exhaust upgrades. Spend your $1k on that. Save up for something else later.

You now have your answer, so we'll just call this case closed.