Although I'm going to ask how much this setup will make, this isn't a "how much will this setup make?" post. I'm finaly rollin' in a little bit of cash now to start buyin' parts, but I want to figure out the whole setup first to get it right.

Right now, I'm running a mostly-stock LO3 w/
- Ultimate TBI
- Custom CAI
- Cat Delete
- Full Cat-back system w/ Flowmaster and 3" pipes
- MSD Blaster Coil
- 8.5mm sparkplug wires
- 160* thermostat
- AIR system Delete
- tbichips.com chip (I know, I'll burn my own)

I plan on runnin
- 454 TB
- VAFPR
- Hooker shorties w/ y-pipe
- March underdrive pullies
- Cooler fan switch
- 350 heads
- Edelbrock Performer intake manifold
- Cam (I have XR264 and 264HR written down, I have to figure out exactly what I'm gettin', but thats the size)
- Alluminum roller rockers

pretty much everything but the bottom end.

I had a few questions tho (semi-random)-

1) How do you tune a VAFPR?
I can tune a carb by ear w/ my dad or someone to help there, I can tune a carb by ear with someone there to help, but I'm sure it's safe to assume that this would be quite different.

2) Will my stock fuel pump be enough to handle this?

3) Vortec heads or worked 350 heads, what would be cheaper/ easier to get ahold of?

4) Will widening the gap on my spark plugs show any improvement w/ the blaster coil and advanced timing?

5) Does anyone make a high-flow power steering pump for thirdgens? All I've been able to find them for is LT1's and LS1's.

5) Of course, how much power do you think this is gonna make? Hopefuly somewhere close to 300.

6) Anyone got any other recomendations/changes?

Thanx,
Dalton

 

When you start burning your own chips you will really be able to make use of a VAFPR. I would consult with Fast355. He runs/tunes VAFPR with great success.

I wouldn't count on it. Once you start increasing the fuel demands and injector sizes you will need a lot of fuel. The stock pump won't handle it. I would lok into a TPI or Walbro pump. You can have a Walbro pump delivered to your door for $97.

Which 350 heads? What are your power goals? You can make almost 300hp on untouched stock heads. With port work you should be able to support 300 hp. The porting will cost you time and tooling but you will not have to pay for heads. Look at the recent swirl port head discussions to make that call for yourself.

All stock GM casting (minus Gen II and III) are lift limited between .460" and .480". To run a cam with lift specs greater than that will require you to have the valve guides machined. So becareful what cam you choose and be prepared to have some head work done. In addition you may not want to run the stock style pressed in studs if you go with a cam over .500" lift. You risk pulling them out unless you have them removed in favor of screw in studs.

Swirl port heads do not necessiate a lot of inital advance. I would stay around 0° to 4° of initial advance and spark plug gap (.035").

Your stock pump should be fine but many opt to swap out their stock steering box for a quick ratio unit found in various 3rd gen models.


It will all depend on your ability to tune. Dewey316 made almost 300hp with stock heads, cam, lots of fuel and tuning, and a fll exhaust. I would look closely at his as well as Fast355's various combos.

 

RWHP?

 

Crank. We even think he could have increased that with a different cam.

 

I'm lookin for 300 or just short at the rubber. After doin a little research, this is what I'm lookin at...

Heads-
After lookin' some, I'm definitly gettin' rid of the swirl-port's. I'm gonna go with vortec's. Reletivly cheap for such a good performance head, and I will be able to use them on the 400hp 327 I plan on building later. I can get a set of complete, brand-new vortec's from Jeg's for ~$500 so that isn't bad at all. I was wondering though, do the heads from the 5.3L engines have smaller combustion chambers? If they do, are they as good as the 5.7 heads with the 64cc chambers? I'd love to not lose my compression.
Also, will vortecs hold more than .500" lift?

Cam-
I've been looking at Comp Cam's Exreme Energy cams, and I found these, XFI (extreme fuel injection). How do they look to ya'll compared to the XE? I'm just learnin' about this cam stuff, so teach me. I like the way the XE 264 looks. The XFI 268 looks like it may be a bit to big for a daily driver? It says it's the largest cam you can use with the stock converter (I have a T5 tho, so I make my own stall). And to me, streetable means pretty much you can make it down the road w/o too many hiccups [my car is currently interior-less and let myself freeze to death in the winter and sweat all summer to keep her cool and comfy]. So let mek now wat you think. This also Isn't gonna be a drag-car ever, so I need more than top-end, straight line power to pull around and out of corners and such.

XFI 260
Operating Range: 1200-5200 RPM
Duration Advertised: 260° Intake / 270° Exhaust
Duration @ .050'' Lift: 210° Intake / 218° Exhaust
Valve Lift w/1.6 Rockers: .560'' Intake / .555'' Exhaust
Lobe Separation Angle: 113°

XFI 268
Operating Range: 1800-5800 RPM
Duration Advertised: 268° Intake / 276° Exhaust
Duration @ .050'' Lift: 218° Intake / 224° Exhaust
Valve Lift w/1.6 Rockers: .570'' Intake / .565'' Exhaust
Lobe Separation Angle: 113°

XE 264
Operating Range: 1200-5200 RPM
Duration Advertised: 264° Intake / 270° Exhaust
Duration @ .050'' Lift: 212° Intake / 218° Exhaust
Valve Lift w/1.5 Rockers: .487'' Intake / .495'' Exhaust
Lobe Separation Angle: 110°

 

Why is that? Both Fast355 and Dewey made 300hp (Fast made more with a larger cam and porting) with SP heads.

The 5.3 heads are Gen III and are not compatable with your motor. You want the Gen I iron vortecs with 64cc chambers. They are lift limited, like any other GM cast iron genI head, between .460" and .480".

 

I don't have the equipment to do it, and I cant afford to have my car down forever why I try to figour out how to port heads in my spare time. I was thinkin about buyin' another set, but if I'm gonna buy some, I might as well get something better that I can port out later to make more power.

 

You'll make good power with the Vortecs and have good upgradeability with them as well. Get the guides cut so you can run a bigger cam and get screw in studs put in. As long as you can tune it well, I'd say run something like a 214/224 or so cam with somewhere around .500 lift and a 112 lsa. this is all ONLY if you can tune the chip right.

 

300 to the wheels is nothing to take lightly. LS1's do it stock, and they put down near 400 at the crank. Your just not going to make 400 at the crank with a 305, vortec heads and a streetable cam. That combo with a 350 and a cam with around 220* dur. cam makes around 300 to the wheels. You can expect about 250 to 260 at the wheels with a 305.

The hard part is going to be tuning, your car won't make it out of the driveway without lots of tuning done by you. You'll need a 454 TB with 90 lb/hr injectors. I suggest you get the tuning equipment for around 150$ and learn now on your stock motor before you dive into something serious. It sounds like you just want to bolt on some parts and drive away into the sun set, it just won't happen with TBI, it takes time, effort, and determination to do it. TBI will make 400 HP, it just requires a lot of work.

 

I have gotten just shy of 300 RWHP out of a 305, it was not easy. Some would say that I cheated since it was done with open cutouts, no air filter, and with the TCC forced locked. It required alot of research, alot of time spent porting heads, swapping cams, DD2000 simulations, Engine Analyzer simulations, analyzing cam sheets, flow-bench work, intake selection, exhaust selection, header selection, TBI rework, and the ONE thing I cannot STRESS ENOUGH the CHIP.



It is a horrible feeling, after a cam swap, when your engine will only pop and blow black smoke.

BTW, you don't have to have 90 lb/hr injectors. My 68#s work just fine at feeding 270ish RWHP. They just run at 32 PSI.

The stock TBI assembly will flow about 420 CFM which will feed about 270 FWHP. After doing the Ultimate TBI mods, they will be adeuate up to about 320 FWHP.

Take note, that tuning a cam of 224/224 @ .050 with 1.6:1 rockers in a 305 is possible, but pretty difficult. (L82 cam that I used to run)

 

Man fast, where do you get the time to build all these motors? I don't think for one moment that it isn't possible to make 300 RWHP with a 305, I just don't think it's possible with stock vortecs and an under 220 deg cam. I've seen 230 deg cammed 350's with stock vortecs only make about 410 HP at the crank, so subtracting 50 cubic inches is really going to make things difficult.

I just get the sneaky suspicion that drifter wants to swap some good parts on over a weekend turn the **** on the VAFPR and drive to work on Monday kicken the crap out of 4th gen F-bodies, and that is just isn't realistic.

 

Hell no. I'm gonna get the equpment to burn my own chip and all and spend the $$ to take it to the dyno and tune it further.
I realize that this isnt gonna be a weekend project, it's gonna take longer than that to get the heads on alone, let alone everything put back together and tuned. You insult me! Well, I'm not realy insulted, but I do know a little bit about nuts and bolts.
Since when do we lose 100hp to the drivetrain? An LO3 is rated stock at 175hp, so does that mean Camaros came stock with 75hp pushing them around? And I thought LS1's spun 350 FWHP? This doesnt make sense to my little head.

Yea, I forgot about the 454 TB, I'll add that to the list too.

So, those cams I listed are all dooable? With a good amount of tune-time, of course. Are they going to be good for the power tho? (with tuning, of course)

 

I'm sorry, my post was a little harsh, if I had a 1$ for every "I want 300 HP" post I'd be rich. I base the LS1 observation on dyno test of the crate motors in the magazines. You can deffinately account on losing 20% through the drivetrain. Which means you need to make between 360 and 375 at the crank. Your combo with vortecs should push your car into the high 13's which is around 260 to the wheels and 300 ish to the crank.

 

That is A LOT of lift.....I didnt even opt for that much on my 347 in the stang. Hope you like rough idle....(Im talking the numbers areound .560+)

This is a 5 speed or an auto? If its and auto you better get ready to invest in a Torque Converter.

 

Those huge lift numbers are with 1.6 rockers. I would probably run 1.5 rockers to keep the numbers closer to .500".
It's a 5-speed, so I don't have to worry about the stalls, I getta pick em.

300WHP was just a target number. I'll get a hardon for more than 250RWHP. I was figurin' I should try to make about 340FWHP to get close to 300 at the rubber. If I installed a aluminum/carbon driveshaft and/or a lightened flywheel do you think it would get me closer to losing only ~45ish hp?

 

I wouldn't waste my money on a lighweight flywheel. I had a friend with a SN95 stang that put one on along with 4.11 gears and drag radials. He was running a 14.1 before with 2.73 gears and ran a 14.1 after the swap. The problem was he couldn't get the piece of junk out of the hole. The lightweight flywheel just didn't store enough energy at the line to get the car moving. He was launching at around 3500 before and ended up launching at 5500 with the lightweight flywheel and it would still bog. With your 5-speed and 10-bolt you can expect about a 15-18% loss. The money you would spend on a light weight flywheel and carbon drive shaft would buy you a decent 350 long block and pick you up a solid 50-75 HP.

 

I would consider a light weight driveshaft if you could find one from a stock GM vehicle that would fit.

Take my 1983 G20 for example, it had a 2 piece driveshaft, carrier bearing, 3 u-joints, and the whole setup weighed like 50 lbs. I was able to swap a lightweight driveshaft from a 1993 G20 straight into place. I pulled the driveshaft from the rear-end of the 1992, pulled the yoke from the transmission. Did the same with the 1983 one, put the 1993 in its place. The 1993 driveshaft weighs maybe 5-10 lbs.

I also eliminated a vibration that I had when I was in OD doing about 2,000 rpm with the TCC locked. With 3.73 gears the shaft would start "Beating", a horrible vibration that would get so bad that the dash would shake. I had already changed the U-Joints, Carrier bearing, and had the shafts rebalanced. The vibration was still there. Swapped to the massive 5" diameter lightweight shaft and it went away.

Just somthings to consider.

 

There are way to many veriables to give a good number. That is why people tend to go with some sort of percentage.

You always have x amount of weight to accerate, but depending on gearing, the rate of acceration of the weight changes, and so does the percentage loss. Basicly you have two losses, some of them are basicly static loses (accerating X amount of rotating mass), others are dynamic. So a clear cut ammount is not accurate.

In reality you losses look more like, you always lose 45hp thru your tranny, plus 5% in dynamic losses. (note: I have no idea if those numbers right, I just made up some numbers to show how it works).

 

I understand that, I just had a hard time chokin' down that my car will lose 100hp to the drivetrain.

 

if its a TH400, probably more. I have seen cars that engine dyno over 400 hp, put down 250 with a TH400. Some tranny hemorage HP.

 

I guess I take magazine dyno test with a grain of salt because most of the time they use an electric water pump and no accesories. Most bare bones LS1's do put down around 400 HP on an engine dyno. It all adds up, if you lose 45hp through the trans, 15 through the rearend, 20 through the power steering pump, altenator, and water pump. There's 80 hp, which is kinda funny because F-bodies usually put down between 305 and 320 to the wheels, and automatic cars put down about 20-30 HP less.

Fast, my mom had a van that had one of those composite drive shafts, those things were friggin LIGHT. Pretty neat the most unexciting vehicle GM made got one of the most high tech drivshafts of any vehicle made. I'm pretty sure it was used to dampen torque through the drivetrain since most carbon shafts twist a good bit.