Well talked to my builder today and got a price to swap the top end and check the motor and put the 1.6 rocker on it. With the AFR 195 comp port heads and installing the 1.6 rockers I should be at 450 at the crank. We talked about stroking it for hp wise ans he has made up to 525 on a carb setup for the street.So with the super ram and AFR comp port heads I shoukd be right around 500 crank. He recommended the Scat 9000 series crank kit. Said he has never had a motor come backwith this setup. I believe him as they have been in buisness for many years and are well respected in my area.So is it worth the upgrade or not? Im so on the fence with this. I know the trick flows have to go, they are holding me back, but is it worth the cost to stroke it. With that come complete teardown and rebuild. Well would like opinions from other who have been on the fence with this. Thanka

 

For that hp range save the money on comp ports and get the regular street head. 383 will make more torque and wont have to rev as high to make power, and a superram likely will need ported extensively to support 500 hp. You can make big power with the 355 but it will be down on low to mid range power, thus requiring more gear and converter if auto trans. Superram will support peaks in the 5500-5800 range if ported well. That is enough rpm to make 350-400 whp depending on the cam. Thats near 425-500 crank

 

Do iiiiiiiit. with more cam...

Bigger cubes will tame any aggression that cam had in a 355. Smoother idle, power peak will be lower.

I would step it to a 230/236 or 236/242 type cam unless you building this for hours of city traffic idling.

Goodluck deciding! Hehe of course compression in the 11:1 range would be about right, not sure where the current pistons put you.

 

I second saving the money on the comp ported heads. Unless youre racing its a waste of money...besides the added cam you need to take advantage of them.

As for stroking...i wouldnt waste the efforr or money. If you want torque buy a 406 or 421. I dont think youll be as impressed as you think.

I agree the 355 is lower on torque, but is it worth it all for 20 lbs of torque?

Good luck!!

 

Most lt1 builds i have seen show about 20-30 lb ft more across the board with a 383 vs a 355 with same mods . Thats a pretty good chunk. My 383 picked up 20-25 lb ft with a dyno tune over my base street tune and i could feel the difference and saw better et/mph at the track. So you should feel the 383 difference over 355 when considering same heads/cam package

If you already have a good 355 bottom end i would stay with it. For what you are trying to accomplish, afr heads and porting the intake and a new cam will satisfy you. Lots of power left in those cubes

 

I agree with this 110%. That's exactly why I stayed with my 355 in my build.. that and my build is more radical than your average 350 in many respects, so I squeeze plenty of power that way. My next build up will either be a 434, a 496 BBC, or an LS2.

If you have the budget and the time, then get a 383. There's really no reason NOT to unless your seriously strapped for cash (like I was). If I hadn't gotten such a sick deal on my shortblock then I definitely would've done a 383 instead.

 

For these cars they arent super heavy so dont really need raw torque. Tpi build will make 406 type torque but never match the hp of a good intake on a big inch sb.

Seems harder to find a good 400 block these days, and you lose the 1 pc rear main, smaller flex plate and cheap lt1 starters, roller cam, etc. All nice features. Unless you get an shp block for 1800 machined and blueprinted.

I wouldnt build a 400+ unless you were looking for low 11's to 10 sec car all motor. 383-355 can easily get mid high 11's without alot of work.

Its whatever you have the budget for. My 383 only made 370wtq and 392 whp on its last hoooot dyno pull. But in a 3450 lb car it was really an animal. How much torque do you need? Lol 1.55 60's not even trying hard

 

Exactly what I was thinking on he cubes. I want NA, and always wanted a 400+ if I was going to go the rebuild route again. AFR actually recommended the comp ports. So you guys can see my dilemma. Swap heads and 1.6 rockers and fully inspect motor at machine shop for piece of mind. Fully port super ram in addition to AFR and maybe bump comp up 1/2 point to 10.5 My current heads now flow 220 at .500. Although great when they came out for street they are not optimal for what I want. I know ORR ran stealthram on your motor at one time, for the cost of porting this super ram I could buy a new stealthram and call it a day. Cam now is an LPE 219 lingenfelter cam which I want to leave in there, seen alot of cars run very well with this cam in an auto. Builder recommended a bigger cam, but I think there is a reqson to use the single pattern in the super ram setup. Another curve to throw into the mix is I have a forged 350 Cola crank sittng in a box in my workshop I never did anything with. A good foundation to a power adder motor. 4340 knife edged gun drilled top of the line 1 piece crank from the now defunct COLA crankshafts, was rated at 1000hp out of the box.
Keep the responses comming. Thank you

 

What power or et/traps does it turn as it sat with lpe 219 and trickflows?

Afr street 195's and ported ram could easily gain 50+ hp on same cam.

 

Motor ran a 12.80 @112 in another car. Stick formula. Things that are diff on this car: fully built 700r4 with 2800 stall vig. Lightned no ac and and aftermarket k and a arms, alum wheels , holley hp efi now running seq was a gm chipped ecu before, SW longtubes.. I was going to run the motor as is to see the changes, but its out of the car now and its eaiser to do anything while its out. I think you are right on with the 50hp gain with the AFRs with or without the 1.6 rocker. There is a big cfm diff between the two heads. Not 10-20cfm, more like 50 here are the specs on the two heads in question:

AFR 195 ---- Twisted wedge 180cc ---- AFR 195 Comp ported
.100
.200 145/119 -- 144/112 -- 151/125
.300 201/166 -- 187/150 -- 211/172
.400 274/197 -- 226/180 -- 260/207
.500 275/213 -- 229/196 -- 293/224
.550 280/218 -- .600 238/206 -- .550 304/229
---- -------------- -----.600 308/233

Opinions? Thanks for the sponses ORR

 

Depends on budget. 1.6's and afr 195 street heads on that combo is gonna go much faster. 112 is good with old combo, better than i expected. I dont see how you cant go 116 with new heads same cam with 1.6 rockers. Its gonna be stout with ported intake. Reallly need that intake ported to gain the most out of those heads

 

From what I have been reading and researching it seems like the base is the pinch point in the system. Let me know if Im off here but from what Ive gathered the super ram runners out of the box will flow around 290 cfm. The base on the other hand is around 230-240cfm unported. So If I can get the base around 260-275 I should be good. 25 -35 cfm I think is doable since there is plenty of meat in these out of the box. I ported one about 8 years ago for an 88 corvette, and it was a task to say the least. On a bone stock vette If i remember went 13.4-13.6 @ 98-99 mph. Not bad I thought, but I spent hours on it. It had no tune either just stock chip. Guy who drove it first time to track clicked off those ets.. I have someone now who can do the port work for me for a resonable price .

So here is what Im thinking now. If bottom end needs attention, ill use that cola crank and get some 6 inch rods and new .40 over pistons, builder said he would need to clean it up some. If everything checks out Ill run the 1.6 and keep the cam. I know a few here have said the streets version are fine, . Since AFR said I could go with the Comp version, what is the diff and why would I use one over the other? They are about 12-24 more cfm in the same ranges with the 195cc comp version vs the street.The cam will be .560/.560 with the 1.6 rocker so in that area there is about a 24cfm diff between the two on the intake and about 10-11 cfm on exhaust.

 

Comp port is only about 10-15 hp better on most applications but 600 bucks more. So its not really worth it. Its only considered worth it if you were building an all out race ap where you need the last bit of cfm and use an aggressive cam to get every last bit of hp out of it. I dont think you will tap into that extra hp potential until 575-600 hp and it would take well built setup to extract that power.

Id save the 600 and put it towards cam lifters and rockers...

 

Orr, Im most likly going to resuse all the valvetrain as it does not have many miles on it, but we will see as the machine shop will check wear. Cheapest price on the comp ports I see is around 1900 shipped. The street ports I have not looked into. Only thing about these heads I just found out, you cannot use self aligning rockers like the old style afrs, seems with the new 8mm valves you have to use guideplates and old style rockers. Im going to try to get this motor up to the shop on Sat and go from there. I will recoup some money on these trick flows and the gold crane 1.5s there in good shape, but already looking into porting them and even Total Engine Flow , who actually at one time hae a program for these dont do them anymore. On a mild build these would be a nice upgrade. Im sure they will make 375 +crank hp easy on a street 350. Any opinions on the lower manifold? Thanks

 

For this performance build i wouldn't use self aligning rockers anyway. Street ports can be had for 1260-1440 depending where you look and who is selling. Couple guys on here had or still have connections to afr dealer prices

 

Old thread I know but I have to know what happened with this build?