The shop got my block bored and cleaned($130) today. They are grinding it for larger crank and fixing it for all roller parts now($80). I know that I going to go with a set of P&Ped Vortec heads. Still not sure about the cam though, any more ideas? I going to have to use some dish pistons to keep the compression at 10 or below. Flat tops would put it at 11.4, and I think thats too much for pump gas, huh? I got the 700cfm 4bbl Holley TBI unit from Howell($250). It looks nice,I really think it will feed the motor. I think its going to be like 388ci with the .060 bore. I think the rotating kit I'm going to get will be a 3.75 Scat crank, the rod are recons, and the pistons are dished Federal Mogul($650+$180 for balancing). I still don't have a clue about what intake to use, any ideas? Oh well just a update on the free motor I got out of the sunken boat. Still got to take the other motor that was in the boat apart and clean it for future use. Someone give me some ideas on the intake and cam. Also any good places to get a better rotating kit? Thanks, Bobby

 

Sounds like it's going good, this should be an interesting project. Good luck with it, I want to see how that 4 barrel setup does with this combo.

 

Just a couple thoughts:

Before you select you piston dish size make sure you have a head gasket and deck height selected.

The pistons in a SBC normally sit .025" in the hole at TDC (unless you have the block decked).

Since you want to maintain roughly .040 - .050" piston to head clearance at TDC, for good quench, this narrows your head gasket choices (.015-.025" thick). If you have the block decked, your options change. It's really gonna depend on what the shop likes to use for head gaskets.

The bottom line is you don't want to buy pistons that force you to use a thicker head gasket to keep your compression ratio down because that results in greater piston to head clearance and spoils the effects of quench.

Make sure the dish in the piston is a "D" shape that mirrors the combustion chamber. The other type tends to spoil quench as well.

If you have $35 to spend you may want to check out Vizards cam recommendations. I have no experience with it but it would certainly be interesting to see what he says.

http://www.davidvizard.com/camshaft.html

 

I'm using Vortec heads, they have kendey shaped combustion chambers not the old bath tub or D shaped chambers.
Does anyone know about using a LT4 Hot Cam with a 388ci, will the base circle clear the rods/bolts? Might even go with a Comp Cams grind simaler to the Hot Cam. I'm wanting to have all Comp Cams valvetrain.
Anyone know how the Vortec heads flow with 2.02 & 1.60 valves? I'm hoping to get around 400hp and 450tq, do ya see this happing?

 

Sent off for the rotating assembley today. Heres what I got: Scat 9000 Series Nodular Iron Crankshaft 350 mains, 3.75 stroke, 2 pc seal. The rods are: Scat 4340 Floating Pin I-Beam Rods, 5.7" length. The pistons are: Speed Pro Hypereutectic Coated Skirt, 4.060 bore and 10.7:1 cr with 64cc heads. The harmonic balancer is a Jegs 8" external balanced with 360* timing markes. The flexplate is a B&M external balance SB-400. When it comes(the pistons they said would take 4-6 weeks to get) I'm carring it all to be balanced. All of these parts come from Jegs and Scoggin-Dickey Parts Center. I think this will make for a strong 388ci short block. What do ya think? After this it will be a while before I get to finsh it seeing how this is putting me back about $1100. But I think it will be worth it in the end, huh? Does anyone know about putting 2.02 & 1.60 valves in Vortec heads, will it work? See Ya, Bobby

 

I'm not sure about the valve question, but I'm sure somebody over on the engine swap board could help ya out.
Also, as far as the LT4 hot cam goes, a buddy of mine is ruuning it in his 383 TPI. The cam is definetely not too big, as he makes awesome lowend power, unfortuantly no chip tuning has hurt his top end-timing an fuel definetely need to be adjusted.

I run the comp cams 305 in my 383. Check my sig for specs. If I could do it over again, I would have gone with the CC 306, as would my buddy in his. I believe the specs on the 306 are .510/.525 lift 112 LSA, and a larger duration (something like 228/240, but not sure).

All I can say as far as the intake goes, is DON"T BE AFRAID!! I was when I built mine up, and origionally went with a performer. Was running 105+ in the traps on the origional "stab in the dark chip". Slapped the rpm airgap on there, and I am litterally speachless. I kid no one when I say that I WILL be trapping 110mph+ when the track opens again. Granted, the difference is felt greater for me because of airflow details, but I am not going to go into that. Story told, match the cam to the intake.
If you do go with something like the lt4 hot cam, then definetely think about an rpm performer or even a single plane.

 

Yea like I said above I going to call Comp Cams Cam Help Line and see what they recommend. I feel sure they are more knowlageable than most of us(I hope). I've decided to go with all Comp Cams valvetrain.
R90CamaroRS, who has been doing your chip tuning? You know I got the 700cfm Holley 4bbl TBI from Howell, huh? They say they do tuning, but I don't know about them? http://www.pcmforless.com has did all my tuning in the past, but its been for my '97 Z28. Any good ideas?
Also I've got to get a cord for my laptop so I can use the WinALDL program that I downloaded the other night. Do you know where I can get a "good" cable that will last and not fall apart? Thanks, Bobby

 

As far as the winaldl cable goes, if you are confident, you can build your own. The info is on JoBy's site that you downloaded the program from.

Brian at tbichips.com does all of my chip tuning. I can't say enough good things about him and his work. Awesome to work with, fast, reliable, communative, and the list goes on.
I just wasn't able to make any changes to that initial 383 chip because sooo many other problems kept popping up, it was rediculas, so needless to say, unfortuantly I didn't get to data log all that much.

I am aware that you have a 700 cfm Holley TBI (and I am jelious as he!! lol). That's why I mentioned the whole airflow details thing. Not gonna go into it now, but basically it is why the 2bbl TBI can and will benifit from a single plane so much. There just hasn't been enough 4bbl tbi experiance out there to make a call on the intake issue however. Anyways, that's a different post in it's self.

 

Yea I don't think I could make a good cable. I read the page that told how to make one but I would like a real durable one. Know anywhere?
I've been wanting to go with the RPM Air-Gap,not sure though. It sure does look nice though. The 4bbl TBI has to be used on a square bore intake.

 

I'm not sure, but I think tbichips.com offers the cables now.

Also, if you're gonna hold off on the intake for a little while, try to keep up with the boards here, I'm thinking about starting a thread about single planes, and why they will work. I will go into it when the thread is started, but so far a couple people seem to be having success. I know Pablo is running one, and he is making awesome numbers, and va454ss has gone to one as well and having much success with it so far. I have an "open" adapter on top of my rpm airgap, thus kinda making for the a single plane effect in that each cylinder has access to air from both bores instead of one. It pulls much harder than before. But I realize your situation is different, as you have plenty of airflow from the tbi due to it being a 4bbl, so I'm not too sure if you would benifit or not. But hopefully conversation on such situations will take place. Should be a good topic and worth paying attention to.