I just bought a 1983 ???Berlinta??? for $500 bucks. It has 180,000 miles on it but mechinacly the car is great, the engine is strong, runs a little rough(sat for 5 years, will fix with tune up).
The car is all stock and has the following
305 V8
4 BC quadjet
3 Speed Automatic with overdirve
Stock Exhast, stock every thing

Well I have another $400-500 bucks to spend. I would like to increse the horse power. I dont want to make a 300-400hp monster, maybe some thing with about 230-260 HP. I live in Texas and when I get my vehicles inspected they dont check emissions so I am probley going to rip off the smog pump and the catalic convertor. I would like to get a dual exhast system with glass packs but I am not sure thats legal. So what should I do with $400-500 dollars to get to or close to the HP range. Please list the brand and the approx. price of the items I should buy.

 

You're not going to get 80 more HP out of that 145 HP motor for $400.

It's the LG4 motor, so you need to do all the usual stuff that motor needs. Its main problems are the exhaust, the cam, the heads, and the compression ratio (pistons), in that order. The first thing you need to do is rip every single piece of its exhaust system off of it, from the heads all the way back to the street, and put a set of application-specific headers and exhaust on it that's made for some other motor in one of these cars. I'd recommend getting the stuff for a 350 TPI car, like a 88 or 89 or something; it will all bolt up as a package, but if ANY PIECE is compatible with the stock LG4 exhaust, it will render the whole exercise futile. Don't bother with dual exhaust, there's no room for it, and a 305 isn't going to need more than a 3" single exhaust anyway; and glass packs will cost you power, besides sounding ghetto and making everybody around you hate your car. The next thing is a cam. I'd suggest a pocket port job on the heads while you're there.

That's alot more than $500. But that's what's wrong with that engine, so if you want to improve it, that's where you need to start.

Resist the temptation to waste your money on easily-accessible stuff that bolts onto the top of the motor, like intake and carb. It is futile until the other restrictions have been cured. Think of the engine as being like a series of pieces of garden hose of various sizes, all strung together in a chain; if you want to increase the total flow through the whole string of them, you find the smallest ones, and make them larger. Changing out the ones that are already larger than the others won't improve the overall flow. In the case of that motor, the exhaust, cam, and heads are the small garden hose, and the intake and carb are large ones.

A better air cleaner will also help alot. The best one is the L69 dual-snorkel cold-air one. An open element is better than what's there, but nowhere near as good as the L69 setup, because the open element will draw in hot underhood air instead of cool dense outside air.

 

Yea what Reb said.
I downloaded the dyno program at www.engineprosoft.com/ just to get an idea of what the 355 I put in my firebird was close to, very dissapointing but I ran the previous engine, 305 in the same program and came up with some great results for an engine that was only 145hp from the factory. With the stock heads and pistons and mods as follows, performance intake, comp 270H cam (dont try this cam it's rerally too big for a 305) and a performance exhaust system the numbers are 242.7hp@4000rpm and 314.6tq@3500 rpm. It shows 15 more hp for a cc advance system. Thats 97hp over stock and 149 more tourqe.
That isnt too bad for a smogger engine.
That 355 I built only shows 281hp and 390tq.
SSC

 

Agreed, I'd start with headers and a cat-back. This is the first mod that should be done on these cars. I'd recommend the Edelbrock headers since you aren't going for serious HP and on a budget. Forget the dual exhaust idea, it get's pricey I hear with modifications. Plus, with the HP you're aiming for, you don't really need it. You can still get a glasspack if you like, but I'd recommend the Hooker cat-back. I have a sound clip in my signature.