Well guys, summer is coming up soon for me. I get out of college early May and start working, and plan on making 5000$ after taxes this summer. Half of that, I want to devote to my car which is an IROC 350 TPI, pretty much stock other than exhaust, and a shift kit which I will be installing this weekend hopefully.

Right now I have three options:

Option 1) Heads and Cam, port the hell out of the intake, and maybe pick up a set of SLP runners and siamese the hell out of those as well. Dutweiler Trick Flow heads, and a cam with close to .500 lift.

Option 2) Get a cheap crate motor with no intake, such as the one here http://goautocenter.com/320hp_alum__head.htm (also, scroll down, there is a 400hp engine for 2500$) and put my existing intake on it. I know that the HP numbers would be off thanks to the intake, but it would be relatively in the ballpark I think.

Option 3) (I just learned this today) Pick up an LT1 out of a 93 Trans Am and drop it into my IROC for next to nothing. The motor I can most likely get for less than 500$. The issue with this is that the motor has a rod knock, so I would end up rebuilding the entire bottom end, and doing piston rings while I was at it. That, I believe would wake the motor up a bit and have her running well. This idea is actually my favorite, since I will essentially be getting the motor and rebuilding it for under 1000$ (minus the can-o-worms fund).


Which option do you think will be the smartest out there to do? What kind of numbers can I expect from an LT1 (maybe get headwork done and a new cam =) ) after a rebuild? Any other opinions?

_Clark

 

Is getting the trick flow heads, doing the LT1 intake conversion, and camming it with a custom PROM an option?

 

I kind of wanted to stay away from the LT1 conversion just because it's a little out there, and I was thinkinging of going HSR instead, but the idea is open, yes

 

Any other thoughts?

 

up for the night