Hey everyone
I just bought an 89 Camaro RS that has a rebuilt 305. The engine only has about 20,000 miles on it and the previous owner great care of it . Now here come my 2 questions:

1) Would it be cheaper to add mods to the 305 or just buy a crate 350 from jegs or summit (roughly a little under $4,000) to make about 330 hp?

2) The Crate engine I am looking has recommened parts. One of these recommened parts is a carb. Now I was wondering would the TBI setup work with this crate engine? Would it work well? And if not, what would be involved in switching my TBI setup to a carb setup?

I browsed a lot of the engine swap message boards and also the TBI boards but found nothing dealing with this. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough or maybe I'm just dumber than most people and everybody else in this world knows the answer already , but if you could help me out, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike

 

it's going to depend on what your ultimate goals for the car are. you can have a lot of fun with that 305 if what you want is a daily driver that's fun to drive and runs pretty quick.

while i think it's crazy to put money and effort into a 305 shortblock when 350s, 383s and 400s are so plentiful and cheap, i also think it's crazy to throw away an engine that's running well. for example, my 305 has 90,000 miles on it and is in great shape, with good oil pressure and compression. i'm modifying it as i go, with the caveat being that i won't go into the shortblock. if that ever goes, i'll swap in a 400.

until then, i'm trying to avoid buying any parts that won't swap over to a 400 at a later date. i'm researching heads, for example. the easiest swap would be a set of world products s/r torquer 305s, but they won't swap over to another engine. i'm leaning towards a set of vortecs instead, as they will.

this board offers a wealth of information. spend some time reading past posts and educate yourself on tbi, then look for advice.

before you do anything, i'd suggest you take a look at your 305 and see what you have.

change the oil, carefully checking the oil that comes out of the engine for grit and particles. is the oil pressure good? l03 305s have lower oil pressure stock than what you might expect as gm even dropped the oil pressure to improve economy and emissions. mine makes about 25lbs at idle.

pull the valve covers and see if there's any sludge in the heads. mine were absolutely clean.

do or have done a compression check and a leakdown test. this will tell you what shape your rings, valves and seals are in. if you can't do it yourself, any goodyear store can do it for you.

if the engine gets a clean bill of health after those tests, i'd recommend playing with the 305 till you use it up before swapping in a 350. again, search this board, there's tons of info on what mods will work, what order you should do them in, etc.

swapping in a 350 with tbi can be challenging. you'll have to change a lot of your sensors, go to bigger injectors and have a chip burned.

the only issue you might have with a crate engine is the camshaft. tbi uses a map (vacuum) sensor, so you have to make good vacuum. i'm pretty sure camshafts with more that 210-215 degrees duration @ 0.50 and less than 112 degrees of lobe separation generally won't work.

again, there's a ton of info on this right here on the tbi board. when i first got my car, i'd never messed with tbi before, so i went back to the beginning and browsed/read all the posts to educate myself a bit.

 

http://www.goingfaster.com/spo/modthel03.html check it out worth the read, im prob gonna keep my 305 for a bit. For not much money I can get around 300 hp from the tbi minus the chip tuning I will have to learn, but thats part of the "adventure" of building a performer car.

 

Thanks a lot guys, yeah, i decided just to stick with the 305, since it's going to be my everyday driver and i don't plan on taking it to the track at all. I just want to add some more power so i can really blow the doors off those hondas with the bumblebee exhaust and groundeffects that think they're fast...(i know some of them actually are...but not up here where i live). I just want a mild engine so that i at least have a little GO with my SHOW. but thanks again guys.

 

Again! I'll be damned lol

 

Thanks for that website link, it's very useful and has a lot of good info. This is definetly going to make my venture for a hi performance LO3 easier.

 

i'd suggest being careful with his info. there's a lot of good info there, but he's a little "enthusiastic".

it's like he's on an "l03 jihad" or something

 

lmfao... no, seriously its like these guys can smell that website on you when you come in. i thought after reading through his site like 5 times that i was educated on the "mighty" LO3. wrong, i was chewed up and spit out, lol. that site can give you some good stuff i guess. only good thing i got from it though was TGO. these guys know thier **** dude. since your already here then you dont need his BS IMHO.

 

Could you point out any particular issues that he may be "enthusiastic"? Oh, I PM'd you with the same question, but im not sure how well the pm thing works so i'll just post it.

 

Nick, in your sig you say you've got an open element...and logic has it that all you're doing is sucking in hot engine air....so i have to ask, do you have a cowl hood...or just regular open element with the stock hood? How is it working for you? I mean, if you have just a stock hood, did you notice a difference from just putting the open element on there, or is it not very noticeable?

 

IMHO, it sucks. but im sure its better then the stock housing...choke...lol. im looking around for ideas on ram/cold air. lots of good ideas here. im sure from seeing everyone elses setups ill have something in the works soon.

 

yes...

not goona work on a EFI 305. period. if you can dune a 244 duration cam on a 110 in a 305, you should be working for GM. that is quite the cam to get running with a carb. it is FUGGIN huge. and by no means computer friendly. his biggest mistake is assuming that TBI is can be used as a direct replacement for a carb on any application. that just isn't true. the cam in the engine has to be somewhat computer friendly or else it is never going to be able to run right. the tbi needs certain things going on in the engine to detirmine how much fuel, and how much spark to add. and those things are very much determined by the cam specs.

 

i myself have tossed around the idea of cutting into the firewall, and tying a nascar style cowl aircleaner into the vent ducts and getting cold air from the cowl. its just really hard for me to make that initial cut into the firewall

 

I really like the ram/cold air setup on this post

Ram air TBI

I'm thinking of trying to come up with something like that myself... with the dual snorkle L69 air cleaner lid thing (the whole idea is posted by me in that thread). anyways, i was wondering if going with an aftermarket/larger bore intake manifold using the holley TBI adapter plate would be ok with the stock TBI setup, until I get a larger TBI unit to go on that. let me know, thanks

 

Well as of right now, cams and other internal engine stuff is way in the future....All i'm worried about right now is opening up the breathing and exhaust....and I will study up a little more on cams and lobes and all that when it's time to do it.
I was wondering, since I'm an avid Jegs/Summit reader, if anyone knows of/has and aftermarket exhaust that works really well? Obviously the catalog says that every single one is the best, which leaves novices like me clueless on what to be looking for on exhaust systems, can anyone help me in finding key points that would make an exhaust work really well? What I'm looking for is an exhaust system (minus headers for now) that I could put on now, and have it still be satisfactory after I get completely done with the engine and it's putting out a lot more power than it is now.

 

one more thing...i copied this from that website...and does this seem accurate, or logical if i want my engine to be reliable and a daily driver?:

If you've got it, stroke it! Your final step is to stroke your 5.0 liter. That's right! Drop a 400 small block Chevy crank into your 305 and you get 335cid! This one modification alone, as done by Super Chevy magazine, with a plain old factory Q-jet carb installed on a Edelbrock Performer manifold, a set of headers, and a mild, mild cam, running 5.0 H.O. heads and a mild stock compression ratio, made for almost 100 horses over stock!

 

there is more to it than just dropping a crank in. if you are looking for cubes, it will be much cheaper to go 350/383.

for exaust, they are all fairly similare for cat-backs, just make sure it has a 3" manderal bent i-pipe.

 

it's crazy to put the money into stroking a 305.

you can buy an entire 383 shortblock from wheeler automotive for 1,300 with arp rod bolts, 4 bolt mains and hypereutectic pistons. their 350 shortblocks are around a grand. it'd cost more than that to stroke a 305.

as far as exhaust, the stock exhaust manifolds are incredibly restrictive. putting a good cat back on won't show much improvement till you do something about those manifolds, too.

if you're determined to do your exhaust without headers, make sure the cat back system you put on the car will work with the headers you'll put on later.

there are a lot of options. make sure whatever you put on utilizes a 3" cat (if you stay with a single cat) and a 3" intermediate pipe. i'm putting headers on my car now and have to scrap the whole flowmaster cat back because it has a 2 1/2" intermediate pipe.

one option that looks inespensive and cool (if you don't mind the noise) is an slp loudmouth cat back for a 4th gen. 4th gens share the same rear subframe and floorpan. that's why rear ends, front and rear seats, etc. bolt right over. if you go to the exhaust section and do a search on "loudmouth", you'll see a number of people who've done it.

whatever you do with your exhaust, you have to plan with the final version of your car in mind. i'm in the process of installing slp 1 3/4" shorties, dual 2 1/2" random technology cats and a 3" random technology cat back. this is wayyyy overkill for my 305 (it may even hurt torque in the short term), but i plan on putting a 383 or 400 in the car and don't want to do the exhaust twice.

hey dewey, there's an AMAZING hood for camaros you should look at. go here http://www.glasstek.com/ and look at the 2" cowl for 82 - 92 camaros. i saw a camaro with this hood recently and was blown away. it's the only one i've seen that looks exactly like the original 67-69 camaro hood, and it works with the accent lines on the hood! they can build it with an airbox so you can have true, functional cowl induction, too. i'm going to have them make one for my firebird. it's going to be expensive, but i have to have it.

 

a small cowl would be nice.... if i go the roots blower route, i am going to need a 3" cowl to try to hide the whole bit. although the turbo bug keeps biting at me, so i **may** go that route (going turbo, i will be going away from TBI though ) but i would run a dry TBI unit and have a 4bbl manifold drilled for MPFI. so it would still be closer to TBI than TPI

but that hood would look hot on a bird, the only draw back is the ridge down the middle, while it looked hot on a 1stgen , on a 3rdgen bird i think the line would be out of place.

 

they make a 4" cowl for a bird with a ridge that duplicates the stock one. because the slope of the hood is different, they're going to cut down a 4" cowl to 2 " rather than try to adapt a camaro 2"cowl.