I'm looking to build a project car and it will primarily be a strip car, very rarely see the roads I will probably end up using some form of force induction.

The heads I'm looking at (planning) are the AFR 210/220cc Race heads. As I understand it both the 210 and 220 are not very well suited for street use, can anyone give me a better description of when it's time to go up from the 195cc streets to the 210cc or 220cc race heads? One thing is I would like to use a solid roller set up since I'm hoping to reach the higher power levels eventually (500+) , and IIRC the AFR 195cc are set up for hydraulic while the race heads are set up for solid roller. The vehicle I get will more than likely be 87 or newer, so if I went with the Race heads, what more would I need to make sure the solid roller will work besides the cam? And if I went with the AFR 195cc, how would I make that a solid roller?

Here's something similiar to the set up I would plan on using...

JE Extreme Inverted Dome pistons (4.030)
$672 from http://www.flatlanderracing.com/

Howards Ultimate Duty rods 5.7"
$750 from http://www.primediapowerpages.com/cg...0216&2D1007327

Scat 4340 Forged Crankshaft (3.48 stroke and 5.7" rods)
559 from http://www.flatlanderracing.com/scc-4340std.html

AFR 210/220cc Race Heads
1450 shipped from http://www.tenperf.com/

No clue about the cam yet

For the pistons, is there really a need for me to go to the extreme inverted dome or the the basic inverted dome be fine? I'm aiming for something around a 8.5:1 compressoin ratio give or take a little.


The plans are as follows

Power- Eventually 550whp-600whp would be nice but I may stop before then
RPM Range- I'd like to keep it limited to below 7000 for sure to limit stress, 6500 would be nice.
1/4 Mile- Eventually hit 10's consistantly
Tranny- 700r4 is the plan so far with shift kit and a nice stall converter

Thanks

-Andrew

 

On a 350ci based motor wether supercharged or not, where you want to keep the rpm range down you would want to stick to a smaller volume port. I'd look to a
sub 210cc port. The 195cc AFR stuff flows lots of air. Will flow more with some minor tweeking.
You will want to set up the valvetrain to match the cam u get anyways. You can order the heads prepared to any level you want. The catalog listing are just examples. But you have to know what you want/need when you order the heads.
If you were going with a larger size motor then the larger ports would show a benefit still with reasonable rpm. What supercharger are you planning on using?

On a project that will see very little street driving going with a overdrive trans with its higher cost and strength issues is a waste. A conventional 3 speed auto like the turbo 350 will use less power, cost less to buy and maintain over all. it also weights less.
A motor that has a large(er) cam in it will show no benefit from the reduced rpm at cruise speed that a overdrive trans allows. Mileage will be no better and possabily worse in overdrive.
I'd strongly recommend a turbo 350 trans.
A supercharged motor (with the power level you plan on building) will not require a big rear gear ratio anyways.

You should be able to build a 350based low compression
blower motor with flat tops if you select the large(er) chamber heads to start with. they are available in 70+cc range combustion chambers too. You can also enlarge them further usually enhancing the flow with some unshrouding.
Are you going to intercool this motor? are you going to run racing fuel at the track? You could adjust the boost level diferently for track or street use. and use different fuel octanes to suite. Most of the time your street driving will be cruising around. you can afford to give up some power/ boost. What I'm getting at is you could build a higher compression blown motor (say 9:1 or a little more) run good gas at the track, make more power and lower to boost/ octane requirement for street use where you won't use it any ways.
A dual fuel system with a small fuel cell under hood would allow you to "switch hit".

At any rate diciding what it important to you and then planing for it well before you start burping the wallet will
go along way to ensuring a successful project.
Good Luck

 

I'll have to do some research about the 350 turbo tranny as to it's power limits and gears. Both my Uncle and Grandfather have one in their blazer and they can barely hit 85 mph.

So you think the AFR 195cc will hold their own in this situation? I konw some people use the 195cc and get over 500hp, but how much farther they go? I'm just afraid if I hit 500, there won't be too much room to grow.

Also, does anyone know if those Extreme Inverted Dome Pistons are worth the extra money?

 

Well, I'm not sure what blower to be honest. I'm thinking about a roots type, and it will will stick out of the hood. I was saying a 8.5:1 CR simply because I'm 19, I'm dumping a lot of money into something. Just a safety precaution honestly

 

Your grandfathers truck has nothing to do with your car.
The gear ratios on a turbo 350 trans are 2.52:1 in first 1.52:1 in second and 1:1 in 3rd.
the gear ratio in *3rd* gear or "Drive" on a th700r4 is the same 1:1.
A turbo 350 is plenty strong. there are also many aftermarket hard parts available for more strenght a years of racing experience on what it takes to make one stay together. Much cheaper to build and maintain over all.
You need to do some more research concerning Horsepower/speed and rpm and the required gearing ratios required to make it all come together for ya.

500rWHP (rear wheel horsepower) will require about 650 gross flywheel hp. entirely obtainable on a Roots blown street/strip motor. Actually you can achieve your goal with either size port volume. as long as the flow is there.
wether you will need to get deep inverted dome/ dished pistons will depend on your actual build plans.
8.5:1 is a good cr for a blown street motor but will probabily still require some mix of pump/race fuel at high boost/power levels. Especially on a non intercooled motor. the most powerfull TRUE street pump gas rootsblown motors use a true 7.5:1 cr and more boost.
You can do it sucessfully either way but there is NO FREE LUNCH. And you don't want to starve the motor for nessessary fuel octane. Gets very expensive in a hurry.
I got the broken pistons to prove it.

I'd look at getting a 8-71 blower. Decide what fuel you'll be using and go from there.
You will need a good quality piston.

 

Why not go stroker motor? Get a 383 crank and different rods. 383 parts are typically built a bit stronger anyways to withhold the extra torque.

 

Well, I realize the two dont have much to do with the other. That was mainly an afterthought from me. The car will mostly be a strip car simply because it will be cheaper with less wear, and performance and reliability don't mix too well normally. And quite honestly because I don't intend to lowball the motor, and that will take a long long time to complete most likely. In fact, there's a good chance I will just build a block, then buy the car half way through or when the block is almost complete.

For fuel, I'm not sure if I'd want to go all out race fuel but premium with some added octane would probably suffice for a good while. And when I went to the track, I would most likely go ahead and suck it up for the higher octance.

And assuming a 20% paracitic loss 500 whp would be 620 horeses at the flywheel. But I am really uncertain as to how effecient the turbo 350 transmission is.

Thankyou for reccomendation, I will be sure to look at the 8-71 blower I'm not entirely sure about the configuration of the belt until I look it up and what not, I only started learning more about roots blowers today. I WILL for sure look into running that 7.5:1 if I can get away with pump gas. If there's any more information you can school me with, please do.

And I started doing some calculations about my rpm range, but honestly I dont know what size tires I will end up with. I know it's pretty lame, but I'm lazy about that at the current point in time.

 

I was/am considering bumping it up to a 383. That would (just about) mean I would need to go with a 3.75 crankshaft as opposed to the 3.48. Also mean I would be unable to use a 4340 forged crank, I would have to use the 4130 if I stayed with a Scat crank. And mating the pistons to have the 3.75 stroke. The 383 would have more bottom end power than the 350, but is there a con to it? I'm not sure which would be a better setup for a blower, but that's on my to look into list.

 

This site has a lot of good basic forced induction info Link you may already have this info but I thought I would throw it in

 

I was kinda hoping you would show up in this thread, you have a beautiful car man. Why did you stick with the 305, out of curiousity? I was checking out you site and I didn't see much for what you did for fuel set up, or did I just miss it?

I actually got that site yesterday and started reading it, ironically it was from one of your posts.

 

Thank you,
Well when I put the first blower on the car it was a little over a year old and only had 11,500 mi on it so I figured since I had a good block why not build it then move up to a 350 when it gives out............ 18 years and 56,000 mi later I am still waiting for it to give out

The fuel system is simply a Holley mechanical Street/Strip pump that was put on in the late 80's and two 500 Cfm Carter Competition Series carbs that went on in 86

You seem to be on the right track, forced induction isn't that hard if you do a little research and start out slow till you get the bad things figured out (not enough octane, lean fuel, to much timing) in other words detonation, detonation, detonation!!!!!! Just like F-BIRD'88 I also have a shelf of broken pistons so any help I can give to keep anyone from going down that road just ask.

 

well, one thing I've always been a little cautious about is that fuel injection is so much more accurate than carbs. A lot of people seem to run carbed blowers for quite some mileage without any problems though.

I was looking at your 383 8-71 page, what ratio is that pulley? And what exactly would I want to look into when selecting a ratio?

 

The motor I am building currently is a 355/8-71 and we have all the parts for the long block and all of the machine work done but we haven’t bought the blower yet because the guy that I am doing it for works for SBC and didn't want to buy the blower before he found out if they were going to be on strike. Since it looks like they are not going to be out we will probably be getting it in the next couple of weeks.

The pulley combo that we will be using is 25 percent under drive that should put us at about 9LBS of boost or maybe a little lower with the 200CC heads. For street use it seems like 9psi (mid 12 effective compression range) is the edge of where you need to start using more than 93 octane fuel when it is warm out (this is on 7.5:1 to 8.5:1 static compression motors) but every motor is different so you have to be careful when you first get it running till you find out how your particular motor is going to run.

As far as fuel injection I would love to have the BDS set up Here but number one it is like $3500 and number 2 they don't make it to fit my blower so I would have to modify it.

 

Go with the Turbo 350 if it's going to be mostly race, and limited street.

You wont need as broad a power range as you would with a 700R4. If you look at the jumps between gears you'll see where your power needs to be. The difference between 1st and 2nd for the T350 is 1:1, while the 700R4 is 1.43. You'll need a broader power band with the 700R4.

T350 2.52:1 1.52:1 1:1

700R4 3.06:1 1.63:1 1:1 0.7:1

Was reading about this in "John Lingenfelter on Modifying Small-Block Chevy Engines: High Performance Engine Building and Tuning for Street and Racing"

Seems to make sense to me.

That said, I'll probably be keeping the 700R4 in mine for highway cruising because I'll be driving the Firebird where I want to race it. And long distances at that.

 

Cool, thankyou for the information. Right now, I'm really debating between a third and second generation. It will probably be whatever I can find the best deal on. They both weight about the same. But we'll see how that goes.

flrtin1, so you're going to run a 25 underdrive for the street, what about track use? Or will you keep the same pulley on there. With the 25% underdrive what kind of numbers are you hoping to put down? I've decided to go ahead and drop the compression to around a 7.5:1, maybe a 7.7:1. And since I'm in Florida, it's almost always hot

So far the turbo 350 has a lot of upsides to it, and theyre much easier to find used.

So does anyone have any pros and cons for the 2nd and 3rd gen Fbody decision?

Thanks

 

3rd gens should be cheaper and there should be more of them. I've seen them go for around 500-1500 with only some surface rust. Depends on what your looking for.

Most 2nd gens I've seen are rust buckets.

Buddy of mine had a 79 Camaro that had a built motor in it. That was fun, but he ended up having to replace both rear quarters from rust.

I just like the f-bodies in general.

 

Well, yes I do agree with you. But it's the whole Classis car thing. But we'll see how that goes. But if I got the motor first and started building that before purchasing the car, I would need a motor that could the following years...

1970 (1970.5 if your one of those people) -1972 Fbody and from a 81-92.

The 2 peice seal seems to be the choice, it's got a bit more aftermarket on it. Does anyone have any thoughts about that? I know it begins to leak a bit easier though.


I think all of the motors should be interchangable between the years, so that's not too much of a concern. So how would I know if a block was a 2 peice or not?

 

I've always loved the very early 2nd gen. Both the Camaro and Firebird. Where are you planning to race, as far as sanctioning bodies... That may make a difference in your plans.

You'll want to look here, this has the block casting numbers. That's one way to find out if it's one piece or two. I think if it's a 86 block or later, it's going to be a one piece seal.

http://www.mortec.com/castnum.htm

Here's where you can find the numbers, including the block casting date.

http://www.mortec.com/location.htm

 

The current 355/8-71 project is going back into a mini monster truck so we are looking at roughly in the mid 600 hp range.

My setup is in the mid 500hp range and I am not setup for track use but more for street/cruising right now. I haven't had the car to a track since 88 and it had a totally different setup on it then. I have a good idea of what it is currently running but don't have any numbers but it does ok .
We just finished 800 mi of the power tour and got over 21 MPG and had no engine problems (broke a P/S bolt, killed a muffler and got water in the fuel but no engine problems) so the car running as fast as it does and still be able to drive cross country is exactly what I want.

Also the point about temperature is that with a forced induction setup the correct air fuel at 90* will be way lean at 50*. Here in Illinois in the spring and fall we have that big of a jump in the course of one day so you always have to be running rich to be on the safe side

 

In terms of plans, the car will mainly be my little toy in which I dump 40% of all the money I make. 40% has to go to the girl and the other 20% will be insurance and gasoline for the other car , that crap.

So I'm not going to have any problems putting a 2 peice rear seal on a 89 chassis? Cool, because that means I can go ahead and get a block started.

Cams...here's the one I started looking at, for 229 from
http://www.powerandperformancenews.c...&Store_Code=CC

Compcam 310BS-14 Solid Roller Cam (12-406-5), but I'm not sure if it's ideal. I know enough about cams to look around, knowing I want a large lobe interval, and a cam that performs better in the lower to mid valve lift area, but when it comes to finalizing it I just don't trust myself. So here are the specs.


Intake Exhaust
Valve Adjustment 0.026 0.028
Gross Valve Lift 0.54 0.563
Duration At 0.02 Tappet Lift 290 300

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Valve Timing At 0.02
Open Close
Intake 31 79
Exhaust 84 36

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These Specs Are For The Cam Installed At 114 Intake CL
Intake Exhaust
Duration At 0.05 255 265
Lobe Lift 0.36 0.375
Lobe Separation 114


I suppose during the summer I would just tune the motor to run best around 80* to be safe, and in the winter around 40-50*.

And I'm curious about your mini monster truck, do you have any pictures?

 

lol, it's not mine its a friends and I don't have any pics right now but when I get the motor done and get it back to him I will get some.....by the way he is lookin for two 2 1/2 ton front axles for 4 wheel steering if anyone has a couple in their closet let me know

On the tuning since you are planning on racing you will always want to be on the edge but when it gets cool be carefull thats how I broke pistons it only took less than 3 seconds of detonation to do this on the first cool night in the fall

 

Ouch....



Kinda weird, but from that angle it looks like a Helmet you would see a Storm Trooper wearing.

 

Alright, I need some schooling. I know this isnt exactly the right forum, but I'm too lazy to start a new post.

The third gen fbody came with either a 7.5" rear end (10 bolt), or a 7.75" year end, which was a Borg Waner. The Borg Warner was considered to be stronger, but it's also not nearly as available. The 2nd gen Fbody came with a 8.5" rear from the factory. Are these facts correct?

I don't think the factory 7.5" rear from the 3rd gen will hold up to kind of power I am aiming at, and I dont think the Borg Warner would either. Especially if I ended up with some drag slicks. So what are my choices, a Moser set up for 2000? Is there any possible way to mate a Ford 9"? Anything would be helpful at this point. And if I went with a 2nd gen, would the 8.5" hold up?

Oh, any comments on the cam?