hey, i know everyone heres favorite saying, why the hell you wasting your money on a 305 you can't even get much power out of them. In my instance this 305 is all I have and its what I'm going to hafta work with. Everyone says you can get a 350 block for 100 dollars at a junkyard or there everywhere, well my luck hasn't been as good in finding them so i'm stickin with my 305. Now for the modifications to be made.


A friend of mine is a retired guy who sadly has cancer. He is 58 years old and loves cars. He has a very nice shop at his house, with sealed engine room and all the special things a car fanatic likes. He told me that he wants to do this and this and that for me to my car basically for free except parts, which some of it he already has so I mean who can refuse an offer like this even if it is for a 305.


Right now I have a 1991 305, Edel Intake - 600CFM carb, HEI distributor, 700R4 tranny automatic, flowmaster exhuast. He said he will put in a cam, lifters and that whole works, headers and Y-pipe, modify the vaccum advance so theres no vaccum advance its all done manually, he says it is so much better then those damn vaccum advances, says every car hes done it to has turned out awesome, dropping the tranny going through it and inspecting all of it and replacing the overrun hub and clutch, while in the tranny he will be installing a corvette servo, shift kit, bigger pump and he said he will modify the tranny and fix her up so she will never break again as he said. I mean this guy has spent his whole life working on GMs and has figured out all its little secrets, he works at his home in his garage he built no business, he builds stock cars, and he is very generous and his time is coming soon and I'm good friends with him so he just up and offered to do this all to my car. What do you all think ?


Also I won't be seeing or talking to him till next weekend and thats when hes going to start on my car, so he told me to go ahead and get parts rounded up. So what I'm asking third gen is:

- what shift kit should i purchase B&M or TransGO
- what cam, looking at high energy hydraulic cam, Dur 260, lift 440, 100 RPM - 5200 RPM, complete kit 279 dollars -- what are your thoughts on that cam should i go with that or step it up to a 1500 - 5500 RPM cam, which is right for my application or should I go to a totally different type of cam ? ?
- a friend of mine wants to sell me his headman headers, he jut put them on this summer and is taking them off for long tubes, they are 2 1/2 inch heads with Y-pipe on a 90 or so.. not sure on year but its a Firebird Formula 350 TPI.

I apologize for the length of my forum and really hope to hear from some of you soon as I plan to order parts this weekend yet.




nathan vetter

 

Afriend of mine have the Trans Go shift kit, works really fine.
I also have a 305 tpi and im trying to get as much horsepower from it as i can.

 

Yeah get the transgo shift kit. I have heard that the B&M is not that great and will decrease the life of your tranny.

 

Get another set of heads while you're at it. Those TBI swirl-port heads will kill off any of the improvements you're considering. LG4/L69/LB9 heads are highly superior. 1.94" intake valves and some basic bowl area porting and gasket matching will do wonders for them. Upgrade the springs. Screw-in rockers studs always a good idea.

I'll ditto the Transgo vs. B&M.

The Xtreme Energy cams are a little better. Stick with a roller and you can reuse your lifters & pushrods. If you go flat-tappet (which is what I assume is this "kit" of which you speak), you'll need different pushrods, and that's a downgrade, anyway.

Exactly what brand of carb do you have? Regardless, the mod he's suggesting is a receipe for bog-city. It's poorly-advised: Get a real double pumper if you want mechanical secondaries. Hearing that part makes me suspecious about what all the guy really knows, unfortunately.

Headers are usually a good idea (it's "Hedman Hedders", by the way ). Hopefully, the y-pipe is half-way decent. And, I assume it's 1-5/8" primaries and 2-1/2" at the collectors.

 

Hey,

Well five7kid, you and Manny *the guy whos helping me* must think alike, I talked to him the other day and he goes 'Ya as soon as I left your place I was like OH MAN! all that work isn't going to pay off due the those heads and all that crap, he said just forget it all and go with a 350. I said to him well I can't ever find a 350 block or any of that crap. He said hell I have like 30 of them at my shop, along with a room full of heads, cams, cranks, pistons, some blocks that are bored out, rear ends, transmissions. Any GM part basically and he has it plus about five more. All he does is buy old junker cars or things like that and pieces them out, and for a living builds stock car motors. Man, he does an excellent job. If any of you from Iowa or around here have seen the car number '22' race in the Pro Stock, Street Stock division. The car won regionals and now placed in the top five at nationals. Hes the mechanic behind it all, and I believe he has his **** straight when he comes to motors. Well anyways he said he is going to look around the shop and see what he can through together, and then hes going to get me a 350 and pull my 305 and install the biotch. Once he sees what he all has hes going to send me the specifications on the motor and everything. Hes also going to rebuild the transmission so the sucker is indistructible, and put in a shift kit along with a corvette servo and all that. Right now I have a 700R4 transmission. Then hes going to put a new rear end in for me or just change the gears in mine to step them up from stock. Also hes going to modify my HEI distributor so there is no vaccum advance. It is all done mechanically and it is a ton better he said.

My questions, what kinda of **** kit would all of you recomend ? ? B&M or TransGO ? ? What should I change my rear end gears too, based on the fact I will have a 350 with 700R4 transmission ? ?

Thank you everyone for you guidance, as you can tell I am very excited about getting the new motor and I can't wait for the finished project.

Nathan Vetter

 

Eliminating the vacuum advance is unessessary and ill advised
on a street driven car.

Nothing wrong with tweeking the mechanical advance curve
but you want to retain the vacuum advance.

This is not a dirt track motor. It's a street car.
There is a big difference.....

Tell him he can quicken up the mech adv but you want to retain the vac advance for better mileage while cruising.

Just be sure you,ve both clearly made a plan and a budget.

The road to......... is paved with good intentions.

You could use your 305 as a base for a budget build up but find a set of better 305 heads than old TBI heads. (thats likely what you have now)


Find a set of 416 (carbed 305 HO) or 081 (305TPI) heads to work with.
Put in larger 350sized (1.94x1.50) valves and port them. Have them shaved about .060" to increase the compression ratio.
(he may have a set of these laying around.)
These heads when modified have a lot more power potential.

Show him this 343HP budget 305 buildup.
http://www.hioutput.com/tech/343hp/343hp.html

As you can see from the dyno test this motor makes peak hp at over 6000rpm.
You'll want to change the rear gears to a 4.10:1 minimum.
4.56:1 is better.

You can still cruise nicely in OD with this gear.
A high stall torque converter is required. Higher the better.

Add sticky tires and this motor should run strong 13's

 

woops

 

I would go with 3.42 or 3.73. Don't believe everything you read like that Lunati 305 and the car craft 305. Go for the 350 if its cheap.

 

350's are getting rare around here also, I cant touch a builder for under $250 anymore if any of the bone yards even had them.

If you stay with the 305 try to get 416's or 601's to replace the swirl port heads, heck get some aftermarket heads if you can swing them. I personally build truck TBI and some carb engines with the same or similiar swirl port heads all the time havent had any complaints about not flowing the desired amount of air as of yet. They seem to do fine on idle-5k applications which is plenty enough to get in trouble with on the street. As far as cam choice A good mild roller made for tq will work fine, non roller dirt cheap MTC-1's wake up 305's like nothing else. Back when I had the 305 I used an MTC-1, stock 416 heads, holley 600 VS, action+ intake, 3.42's and had no problems with whipping up on most "performance, full race, 3/4 race" or any other BS built 350's, never once lost to a rustange either.

 

If you are to stick with the 305 get a nice set of vortec heads and bore it over to 310 there's soem really 305 power!! If you can get the right combo of parts. Also if you are going to rebuild make sure you stick with the same name brand parts. Because if you mix and match you won't get the max horepower you can get We all love ponies and thats just some words to the wise

 

Also I wouild run 3.73's in my opinion so you can get yourself a nice launch with at least a 2500 stahl. I have a B&M shift kti in my tranny and it has shift frim for the 3 years i've had it in. I guess it's all in your opinion what name brand you want.

 

i've used that peticular cam in a 305 of mine and it worked really well. there are better one's out there, but oddly enough it works well. for the trans, i recomend a superior products shift kit, .500 boost valve, 13 vane pump kit, superior products billet super servo including the 4th gear servo, raybestos blue plate clutches, raybestos kevlar band, koelene steels, 3-4 w.o.t. shift sleeve, larger low/reverse boost valve and sleeve, updated reverse input piston, updated sun shell kit (g.m. version), and 5 pinion planetary. i do happen to agree that the transgo kit does far excede the b and m.

 

hey everyone, thanks for all the tips... I do believe I'm getting a 350 for sure now. So now I just need to decide on how many Ponnies I want he said. But on the transmission thing I was talking to him about it and,,, well you know all the ***** in the tranny, what are there ? like 10 or 12, I dunno for sure but he pulls all but two of them and then he like bores the holes out bigger, kinda know what i mean... he just makes that pit that they sit in bigger then puts them all back in and it makes that tranny indestructible.... anyone ever heard of doing this or what ? ? I mean I trust this guy and everything and I know hes awesome at what he does both street and race wise but just wanting to see what you all thought about this....

 

I never personally heard of it but hey u learn somehting new everyday lol if it makes them indestructible I may do the same thing on my next rebuild just to see what it would do and if any extra performance is obtained

 

Yes heard of it, most transmission shops do that when they re-build a tranny, add thier special mods does it make the trans last longer, no. It will increase the flow of oil. If the guy knows what he is doing then just get a transgo kit and let him have at that.

 

there are a few holes in the spacer plate that get opened up larger and it depends on the year of the trans as to how many are left out.