I have a 87- 305 14093627 block and 14102187 heads
where do I find the most likely cam that was fitted to this engine and the data (lift , LSA, duration,) on the net,
I did see once but cant find again.....engine is not in a vehicle.

Also where do I find part numbers for this engine so to search for a replacement or there upgrade eg. valve springs, flex plate, cam,

Cheers
Brett

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/generaltechdata/

 

Not worth upgrading or worrying about what *might* be in the car 35 years later. Just get a 350 to build.

GD

 

@paulo57509 thanks thats the info I was looking for ( I did see somewhere else but same info)

@GeneralDisorder I understand what you are saying But I have a job for a small bore long stroke engine Id like to try,

Can you help me ID these heads ? says they made in Mexico but cant find white sticker number anwhere

 

Do an internet search for the casting number - 14014416. You should get specs; chamber volume, runner volumes, valve sizes, eyc.

I thinkt hey're the same as the 081 heads but with perimeter bolt VC's.

 

Those are 416. VERY common on early-mid 80s 305s.

They are different in several respects from 187.

• Perimeter valve cover bolts, compared to center bolts
• Slots in the casting for the push rods to guide the rockers, as opposed to large holes in the heads and self-aligning rockers
• All 6 intake bolts are parallel and perpendicular to the surface of the head, as opposed to the center 2 being more nearly vertical and not perpendicular
• Reasonably good intake ports, as opposed to the ultimately crappy (for performance) swirl-port design of the TBI heads

The white sticker came from some "rebuilder". No doubt, whoever cleaned them up and put them in a plastic bag. It means nothing as far as identifying them.

 

Thanks guys, i understand about the 416 heads but wasnt sure about the remanufactured part and made in Mexico ...
So they flow a little better due to no swirl port ? on a 305
there are so many mixed comments one site says "prone to cracks" are they the light heads.....
if the swirl heads are ok under 4000 rpm im ok with that vs cracking heads,
more pictures

 

MANY GM parts are made in Mexico. Costs are MUCH lower down there than in the US or Canada. Many parts get "remanufactured"; they hardly ever are very much improved by any of it however.

416 doesn't have a "cracking problem" any more than any other SBC casting. That's not something to get all worried about.

The intake bolt angle and the rocker alignment mismatches are FAR more significant matters.

On a 305, I doubt you'd be able to detect much difference between swirlies and decent heads in any case, especially with an anywhere near stock cam.

Remember, you're not the first person in the world that's ever screwed up and built a 305. I know we all like to feel like we're doing something "unique" and "original" and "special" and "one of a kind" and all such as that, but the reality is, making the mistake of spending money building a 305 isn't ANY of that. It's just a mistake. And that, coming from someone who made it once himself, and would hate to see you spend a wad of cash and come up with a disappointment on your first engine build. Not a good way to introduce yourself to this hobby.

 

@sofakingdom,ok great, the 305 is about 1/5 cheaper here for the same reasons where you are.......
Been away from my v8s to long hence the questions and id never researched the 305 ,
I should not be disappointed.....Plan is to remove a common rail 163hp 4cyl diesel that you cant get parts for that easy with a 163hp+ Beautiful sounding Chevy v8 that even in NZ
we have heaps on after market parts ,
Can the intake holes be slotted to sort that out if needed ? and rocker missmatch....is the not sitting out the valve head

Brett

 

Yes the intake holes can be slotted.

Yes you can change the rockers. There are 3 commonly used methods of guiding them found in small block Chevy motors (well, 4, if you count $$$$$$shaft mount$$$$$$), of which ONLY ONE must be in effect at a time. The 3 are, the narrow slots that fit tight to the push rods, such as those 416s have; guide plates, which bolt on below the rocker studs (which the heads are machined for) and similarly grip the push rods; or self-aligning, in which the rocker tip has 2 little nubs, one on either side of the tip, that center it over the valve. One AND ONLY ONE must exist. If more than one is present, they invariably "fight" and try to align the rockers slightly differently, and SOMETHING will bind up, break, wear real fast, shed metal chips, and otherwise act unhappy and make the owner even unhappier.

187 heads generally came in motors that used self-aligning rockers and had large holes in the heads to allow the push rods to go wherever the rockers required them to. You CANNOT use those on 416 heads unless you enlarge those slots into holes. Or, you have to buy rockers.

That ONE piece of machine work or parts purchase ALONE can entirely overwhelm the difference between a "free" 305 and BUYING a 350 core.

Valve covers of course are cheap, especially if you get junk stock ones, which is what I'd recommend. Aftermarket ones mostly SUCK, especially KROME ones.

 

Good luck trying to get any good comments about a 305. These (put your own bad word here) will keep telling you to get something else disregarding what you want. They don't care about your thoughts, they only think they know what's right. So whatever you do, do what you want with the 305 and never ask these ( again, insert a bad word here) anything about a 305. You'll never get someone to listen to what you want to do.


Bad Wolf

 

Let the owner do what he wants. He wants his 305, why do you feel the need to tell him what he wants. Did you buy his car for him? If you did, then you can tell him what to do. If you didn't.....STFU!

 

You still have 304 questions to go!

 

@@sofakingdom I wish I could get junk parts like you say thats not possible here, no wrecker yards with chevy parts here nothing.....ever....zero....core 350 here are 2k +
why cant the 416 heads in the picture above be used as they have the self aligning pushrod hole and no guide plates.

@ @DontBlnkBadWolf I think this comes down to also where you live and what is at your finger tips.....you guys a lucky having a great choice
Yep its not worth the BS to talk about which is better just tell me the answers......

301 questions to go.....

 

Never understand why people bash the 305.
yeah, if your going for hp or MANY other reasons, yup, 350. But come on... let's stop being so bias towards the 305.

Hahaha.

 

They can be used.

 

If you are wanting to try a 334 (305 block .030" over combined with a 3.75" stroke crank) DON'T DO IT !!!!!
I have been there - done that. Please don't make the mistake that I did.

 

seemed the easiest way to get high compression for a dedicated propane engine and dont need it to rev was the main idea,
as they already come with small chamber heads..... unlike a 350 which here id have to spend a extra 650.... thats if I could find them...like the heads in picture above

 

It costs a lot of money to build the 334 combo. You need the crankshaft, possible block clearancing, new pistons to work with the longer stroke, and everything else that goes along with those changes. This is not just a "bolt a bunch of parts together" build. It gets expen$ive quickly. You will end up spending MORE and getting LESS.

BTW, you can bolt the smaller chamber 305 heads onto a 350 to increase the compression.

 

yes but I thought you would need to buy dished pistons and even then you would be around 10.5 ish to 1 where as the 305 just plane the block/heads re ring and your there ?

 

If you set the engine up as follows you'd be a smidge over 10:1 compression:
-0 deck the block
-.039 head gasket with a 4.15 bore (if you can find one get a smaller bore)
-stock stroke, stock pore
-58cc heads, -5cc pistons (flat tops with reliefs)
-Stock stroke, 30 over piston

If you milled .028ish off the heads (you'd want the intake done too) you'd be at ~10.6:1. If you add a 3.75 stroke to this you'd be at 10.5:1ish without any of the head work. For what it is the difference in output is within 1-2% probably so I don't know that I'd sweat it a ton. Do the above stuff and you should have a nice running engine. The dual fuel stuff I've worked with ran on what was probably 8:1 compression. That said performance wasn't spectacular by any means. Out of all the stuff above I would consider getting the deck height right probably the best for performance. Then again I wonder if it matters near as much not running a wet fuel too.

 

Bore, stroke, rod length, and all that business...... sounds great on paper and the internet arm chair engineers will tell you all that crap matters but in the REAL world, what REALLY matters is displacement. Pure and simple displacement. It's not really important how you get there. The 305 SBC vs. the 302 Ford for example..... everyone will tell you the 305 is crap because the bore size, chamber's limiting valve sizes, and all that crap. But the reality is not so cut and dried - if one build a max-effort 305 with really good heads (there's no so many of these available for comparison unfortunately) and compares that to a max-effort 302 with the "magical" four inch bore what you find is that they are very nearly the same in performance. The Ford's typically have slight edge due to having better heads available to them. But in large part what dictates power is cubes. The whole "stroker" concept and idea that it increases torque and all that business is pretty much bunk. The camshaft and especially the intake manifold play a MUCH bigger role here. Like 100x more role.

Now in the SBC world the 305 is looked down upon because GM produced a LOT of 350's. So many that they are absurdly cheap. My fully dressed 350 L31 Vortec pull-out was $200 and the guy loaded it up for me. With the price of 50 extra cubes being so stupidly cheap, doing much of anything with a 305 is economic suicide. And the side benefit of being able to continue to drive my 305 while the 350 got built up on an engine stand for over a year in my garage certainly was nice. And the swap took about two weekends and I was back to driving and ready to tune. Time spent on a 305 is time lost having fun with the 350.

Like DracOnic - I too believe that proper deck height, head gasket thickness, and quench is one of THE most important, and often neglected, measurements that need to be addressed. Keeping every cylinder at the same quench and compression ratio ensures that the engine will be able to take advantage of the leanest mixture with the most timing before any specific cylinder goes into detonation, etc. Keeping the gasket as thin as possible keeps the most rigidity and presents the smallest gasket cross section to combustion. Same reason I don't bore engines if I can help it. That's just needlessly removing material and therefore rigidity and strength.

GD

 

He mentioned in NZ it's 20% the price for the block. I don't know that I'd stroke but I'd certainly take the parts that are there add a few bits and build a respectable engine. I think the US people take for granted other parts of the world where the economics of a 305 vs 350 aren't the same.

Quite frankly if it was me I'd be considering adding some form of forced induction if the price for a block is that different; A China turbo or a diesel turbo on even a 305 with a mild cam and stockish heads will make one not miss the 45 CID extra of the 350 except in the most extreme of circumstances. As you said yeah it makes a difference but in the grand scheme how much especially for something that is likely not an all out racer?

 

I took this as NZ prices are 20% less compared to the USA.

 

Aaah, that sounds sensical. For 20% I'd probably step up to the 45 cubes especially considering the price of a crank to get a 335. Those heads will work fine on a 350 as well if you have the right piston setup especially at LPG compression ratios.

 

@@Drac0nic thanks for post #21.... had yet to do my homework as I broke my mates Burette he had given me it was 30 years old .....F***.......so got a Acrylic one on order

was also wondering with compression how important it is to included dynamic ratio ? with a good mild cam else My planed 10:1 ish will never get there and found this interesting info
https://bit.ly/2BiVmJT

Yes in New Zealand a rebuildable 350 engine is 1800-2500 and a 305 can be found for 500-600 bucks some times from what I have seen in better condition on std bore.

recap ...not looking for power more to test propane setup and a easyer way to get 10:1 ratio without buying much...more than say zero decking like you say .....
those heads in picture the guy wants 650 bucks....more than a engine

 

No problem.

Yeah for some reason 305s seem to be in good condition in a lot of cases with really high mileage. If that's your circumstances I'd look for a flat topped 305 preferably roller, disassemble it, 0 deck it, shave the heads a bit and call it a day.

http://www.csgnetwork.com/compcalc.html

This is handy to play with it'll give you an understanding of what you need to do to get compression where you want. If the pistons are about .025 in the hole another strategy may be to use this HG:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/f...make/chevrolet

With no head shaving that'd get you to 9.8:1 with a flat topped engine. If you shaved the heads about 2CC you'd end up just over 10:1. Don't try to get frisky and go under .039 quench (HG+deck height.)

Also in regards to your original question I wouldn't want to run hardly any of the original cams that came in these engines if I was going to the trouble to ensure I had 10:1 compression. if in a car I'd want something like a 268H and a truck a 262H. After intake and exahsut tract work it's the simplest way to gain power on a small block chevy of virtually any lineage excluding perhaps a few 60s performance models where head flow is because they already had radical cams. An XE series cam will increase your dynamic compression ratio over the stockers because of the more radical lobes and that's worth noting too. Pontiac guys tend to like to go that route on smog era engines because it's harder to get good heads for them without spending $$$ and the pistons tend to be flat tops in virtually all models of them stock.