was just wondering if some of you guys could help me out with my dilema. I have a 89 camaro with 350 tpi with 130,000 miles. i want to rebuild it or just get a new short block. but what my question is should i stay with the tpi or go carb. I want to use different heads cam and bore it out. The reason i am thinking of carb is because of the fact about getting chips burned and don't really want to deal with it. would love to keep tpi. so if any of you guys have any idea on what i can do to get around 350 horsepower out of my tpi with out burning a chip that would be great. or should i just go carb.

 

First, does the engine need to be rebuilt, or do you just want it to run better than stock?

130k miles is nothing these days. You may have worn or cracked valve stem seals, but odds are the pistons, rings, and bearings are just fine. So, a full "rebuild" may not be in order.

That being said, boring the cylinders is only good for rebuilding a worn engine. It doesn't have a significant effect on the performance of the engine. Boring a 350 0.030" over (the "typical" minimum boring done) adds 5 cubic inches to the displacement, which is a 1.5% increase. You can easily get a 5% power increase with other things (weather changes affect power by more than 1.5%).

So, if the cylinders, pistons, and rings are in good shape, leave them alone and concentrate on other areas.

Now, what exhaust do you have? Is it stock? If so, that's where you should put your first performance $'s. While they alone can increase power by 5-10% (much more than boring the cylinders), they will also help other changes be more effective.

Camshaft - it's easy to get a cam that makes significantly more power than the stock cam without having to change the computer tuning.

TPI - spend the $'s you would have to spend on the carb conversion you are considering on TPI hardware improvements. Again, this can bring results without needing to retune the computer. What kind of money are we talking about? Carb intake, $250. Distributor, $100 (for anything halfway decent). Carb, $450 (don't EVEN consider an Edelbrock carb!). Return-style fuel pressure regulator, $80. TV correction bracket and TCC lock-up conversion, $100-$200. Misc gaskets, hoses, thermostat housings, throttle cables, air cleaner, etc., $300. That's at least $900 to spend on TPI upgrades. Unless, of course, you want to roll the dice with used carb parts.

In my opinion (and this is purely my opinion, not the official position of TGO), it is completely wrong-headed to take off a perfectly good TPI system and downgrade to carb. Dumb, dumb dumb! It makes more sense to spend money having the computer tuned than it does to downgrade to carb. Plus, the upgraded TPI system will still be emissions-legal.

 

Hey, I'm too tired to give you the response you deserve. If you want to give me a call tomorrow, we can go through the pros and cons of both. See if we can keep you in fuel injection. There's a few options.