Yes, its not a thirdgen, but this site has so many knowledgeable people and Im having trouble finding a second gen site that can compete with this one. so here goes....and by the way its more engine related then car specific....

Just bought this car, only its no longer packing its turbo 301, not sure if thats a good or bad thing. The motor is supposed to be a Pontiac 326. Car was bought with the intention of driving it around with the 326 for awhile, but since the previous owner failed to tell me it was packing water with no antifreeze and its currently frozen up...its engine swap time. I have a little experience as I have dropped a 355 into my 1983 Cutlass.

My plan is to go with a Chevy smallblock. 350 or 400 whichever I come across first. The engine needs a set of affordable heads. I like the price of the Vortec heads, but people say they suck with a cam over .450 even if you change the springs any comments here welcome?

The cam I was planning on, comes from summit. Its their brand of cam. They have a 214/224 or a 224/234. The car has a 3.08 posi and I was not planning on a stall convertor, so I am guessing the 214/224 cam would be better for a street motor. Car may see some drag time though, not looking to be the fastest at the strip though. How beneficial is a stall convertor, does it affect drive-ability? may consider one if it will really effect timeslips.

Car has the pontiac motor, so more then likely the tranny is BOP bolt pattern only. Turbo 350 can easily be bought and rebuilt with hardened parts for $400-500. I however have a 700R4 from an 84 Trans Am. Got a quote for $700 to rebuild it with everything that pro-built offers in their $550 rebuild kit. Im scared I will toast the 700R4, and its the early, not late style. Comments welcome. sorry for the winded non-thirdgen.

 

Dave,
It's been awhile. Let me see if I can help. I'd ditch the 700R4, although it's nice to have an overdrive tranny. Try to find the tranny out of an old Full Size Pontiac. Odds are, it will still be in good shape. If you go with a Pontiac 400, your performance parts are going to be more expensive. I might be missing your point here, so I'll try to cover you.

You can never go wrong with a strong TH350 behind a mild 350. Good for reliability, good for some power, and parts are cheap and plentiful.

Good luck,

Chris Payne, (former owner of your firebird)

 

I am just trying to get a little info on what to do for a motor/tranny buildup, there's basically a budget of what money I have at the time, not really setting a limit, only limited to what I make every two weeks. My Cutlass was involved in an accident on Christmas eve and today I went for an estimate. Total came to $1900 and the car blue books like 1500. I have about 4K in the motor/tranny/car even though the car was originally purchased for a mere $400. Leads me to believe that the car will be totalled and I will probaly use the motor from the Cutlass in the Trans Am...with some new heads and cam. Just looking for opinions and suggestions from people.....thanks.

 

Personally i would go with a 400 pontiac, it will be a direct bolt in and everything will fit right up as its allready setup for pontiac, also the 400 pontiac has the same bore/stroke as the 400 chevy and 400 pontiacs are easy to find and for dirt cheap unlike the 400SBC, also the performance parts are about the same price for a SBC, with all the money you would have to spend to convert over to SBC you could have put into the 400 to make a powerhouse.

 

My first car was a 81 turbo Trans Am.It was my moms first new car.You could go with an art carr 200r4.I know alot of the Grand National guys use them in there 10 & 11 second cars.I also
had a th350 behind a 455 olds in my 87 442.I would go with a
200r4 the overdrive makes life so much better.Good luck and take
care of it.

 

are you sure it's a 326? get the poncho 400. period.make sure the heads are from a 75 & up mill so you get the hardened exhaust seats. If you really want a 455 (or more), bore the block .030, get a NEW 4.25" crank ($500) reuse the origonal connecting rods (prepped) and order a set of standard 455 pistons. you will now have the same bore of a 455, and have .04" more stroke than a 455. get a TH400, from say like, an old Bonneville and go to town. When I finish the 'bird, this is my next mod for my bonnie, it's good to have an extra engine to work on. If you want overdrive, DO go with the 200-4r from a buick or trashed TT/A. direct bolt up with some fine tuning for the throttle valve.


p.s.
Going with this brand engine will also get you a lot less dirty looks.

 

What are you intetions for the car? Restore or drive? If you are going to restore this car, I'd say drop in another 301 turbo ( don't flame me for this guys ) just don't expect it to be a pavement pounder. You could probably get one cheap ( lots of people looking to unload these engines, their following is smaller than CFI ), they can be tweeked to deliver a little more power, and this car will be rare someday ( when was the last time you saw a Turbo T/A nicely restored driving around ? ). If you want to drive it, drop in a 400 or 455 and enjoy.

 

BTW, if you do decided to go with the Turbo 301, that engine has some Turbo only parts. This engine came up a while back, somebody actually built one up if I remember right. Nearly every N/A engine can make 1 hp/ci, so that Turbo motor should be able to make 300 hp. The factory boost was only like 3 psi, with stronger internals and well tuned carb you could crank up the boost. Porting the heads and adding a cam would help too. Will it go as fast as a SBC, I doubt it, but you could definately suprise someone expecting a wheezing, 18 second slug .