So I got an ol 87 w/305. It had the quadrajunk I put an edelbrock on it (que the haters and the "just put a 350in it" guys"

My question is how bad is the stock intake? Would doing a little port work shine it up or would it be waisting time. I can put a edelbrock performer on it. Im not expert port n polish guy but I know my way around a bit and can shine up the casting flaws and open up the intake/exhaust and try and make it flow a bit more.

 

Edelbrock performer is about the same as stock maybe a little better, probably wont offset the HP loss from the edelbrock carb that replaced the quadrajet

 

Maybe it was just the quadrajunk was not tuned properly. I dunno. The non computer ones are pretty ok I like them. This one was computer. I had alot of help tuning it from guys who believe they are the best. But the butt dyno says edelbrock is more fun.

 

Performer gains about 20 hp compared to the stock LG4 intake. Performer RPM is closer to a 30 hp gain. The RPM is very noticeable, SOTP.

 

Q-Jets, even the computer ones wipe the floor with the Edelchoke carbs. The computer only controls the primary metering rods at part-throttle on the feedback carbs. WOT is still purely mechanical. The mixture control solenoid is disabled at higher throttle angles and the Q-Jet is exactly the same as the older mechanical ones.

I have put a CCC Q-Jet car in the 12s.

 

I recommend you focus on the maintenance aspects and longevity rather than performance with such an engine.

You can easily port match the intake to the head but the only reason I would do this is for experience, not performance.
Don't try to squeeze any power out of a naturally aspirated engine. It isn't worth your time other than to gain experience. In other words, once you have the experience of a master tuner and master engine/transmission specialist, you will not fool around with naturally aspirated anything anymore unless you are very old school (Old aged) and stuck in the old ways. A semi- ancient LS truck engine variant, for example the $400 junkyard special 2002 5.3L LM7 when turbo can support 800 horsepower with all factory internals. That is what is in the car in my sig right now.
That is maybe $0.75 per horsepower in terms of engine cost (after gaskets or whatever) at OEM Like reliability of 200,000 miles or more. Now compare that with anything naturally aspirated and see where your time and energy is going... Thus I recommend you learn *only* and wait in anticipation of such a superior platform as that 20 year old engine can offer from 2002-2007, at such a low cost.

 

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. And as opinion, it's difficult to say one is right, and one is wrong.

That said, in my opinion, there's a lot wrong about this line of thinking, in relation to what the OP is asking.

Look, it's a small block Chevy. It responds to all of the speed tricks SBCs have been responding to since 1955. As a small cube / small bore version, there is proportionately LESS bang for the buck (horsepower returned Vs dollars and effort spent) Vs a larger displacement / larger bore version, but not ZERO bang for the buck. If, for whatever reason, someone wants to keep and tinker with their original engine (305, or other SBC), there is no reason not to do so.

The OP seems realistic in asking about the flow of the factory intake, the value of attempting to port it, or just replacing it with a quality Edelbrock piece. He did not ask for maximum return for every penny spent in terms of horsepower produced.

The LS family of engines are amazing, a nice technological advance on the original small block. Supercharging in all forms (roots, centrifugal, turbo), EFI, and electronic engine management have grown by leaps and bounds in the last 30 years. Nothing wrong with going that route, if that's what you want.

But there is NOTHING wrong with warming over an SBC, if that's what HE wants.

 

Call me old-school. I'm stuck In my ways. I'm 23 lol. Im not making a LS killer. A coyote killer. Anything killer. Built to have fun not to be fast. And talking of low cost. Few grand to get 700hp. Or 20 for a set of intake manifold gaskets. 11 for a 6 pack. Maybe double if I have a buddy over. And get paid to do the work. Paid in knowledge. That ***** priceless. I want to learn the old tricks and ways. Before you could just buy 900hp. It's a 305. It'll never make the power a 350 will unless I drop ten dimes into it. I look at these old cars. Rusting in a backyard. Parked outside and forgotten. Old carb on it. And my eyes light up. I don't care if it has rust.l or looks good. I wan to make it run. Drive it from it's grave and do a burnout in it. Push the limits of a extreme budget 305 and run the hell out of it. Don't need to squeeze every bit of power out of it. Just make it fun for me.

 

What i see is a low milage 305. Ain't no reason to rip out a good motor. Do some tricks or whatever make if have what pep it's step has and have fun on a budget. I love old carbureted things. I actually just got done doing head gaskets on a 83 v65 magna. Why spend time modding something old and outdated to get more power? Because it's fun. I want to learn it. Old school things. Keep it alive. F the TT LS guys. I want to build a 350 with dual hollys and a shiny blower atop it.

 

i have done a LS swap. Over hyped and inflated IMO. Unless they are boosted they are DOGS!

 

I'm not saying don't modify it. I literally suggested he go forward and do the job. DO whatever you want to it, that is fair game.

What I am saying is don't expect a big return for $$ vs HP. I'm saying don't hit the dyno every other week after changing parts chasing some number.

Don't worry about what power it can produce- ever. Modify for fun, not to race. If you want to actually win a race you will need to step up to a forced induction setup because even 2L (122 cubic inches) engines since 1995 can produce over 500hp. The 1995 Toyota 3L 2jz-gte Engine comes factory with over 450rwhp capable setup, for example. And those are very cheap and commonly used at over 800rwhp with stock internals. Similar to an LS setup.

Displacement doesn't matter. Porting doesn't matter. Cam, heads, valvetrain, expensive parts that can be overcome with a little boost, are not worth your time or effort in terms of numbers on the dyno or race track unless you are trying to go for a record or something.

 

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​​​​​​ Naturally aspirated motors. Going faster than alot of turbo LS guys I've seen at my drag strip. Seems like with the right heads, cam, intake do matter. And how can you say porting doesn't matter in a boosted application. Or that cams heads valve train ect doesn't matter. You do realize that a motor is still an air pump right? Even with a turbo you wont make the power you want untill you match it with the right internals. That's why the make turbo grind cams. And you still need to flow air. That's why you see people upgrading intakes on their boosted cars. Upgrading heads for flow. Upgrading valve train to handle an aggressive cam made for boosted applications.... Sorry mate. You're kind of wrong here. If expecting to make power to the wheel comparable to the common drag setup forced induction motor on the quarter. You can't just grab a junk yard special LS, slap a turbo on it, and expect to compete. Maybe run against some stock or exhaust and tune cars. But thats it. At my local strip I see naturally aspirated vehicles beat blown and turbo cars because of the mindset of just boost a stock motor and call it a day.

 

Ah, you miss the point me thinks. I never said you can't build a 50,000hp naturally aspirated engine. That is not the issue here.

The issue is that for $500 you can get a 700hp engine to drop in, ready to go already broken in and guaranteed to be good. No machine shop, no down time, no waiting. Dime a dozen.
And if you are willing to spend $1300 instead of $500 on the engine I can tune out 1600hp from an L33 variant, a gen3 engine from like 2005 is the best chevrolet engine ever produced so far IMO. The absolute cream de-la creme of daily driver and 1200rwhp for $1300 core charge that can achieve 200,000 to 350,000 miles, we've yet to see the limitation on the L33 in terms of mileage at high power.

Thats one hell of an offer and nothing in the world of combustion engines can beat it, will ever beat it. There will never be a better option for sub 1200rwhp builds, ever. The prices of L33 will rise and eventually be just as expensive as a built engine because its the last of a dying breed and we are fortunate enough to live in the time when gasoline and computer aided design allows us to witness the peak of daily driver power houses for lowest cost possible.

 

My brother in laws well maintained L33 did not make 210K naturally aspirated. Had lifter issues at about 150K. Put a cam in it and around 210K, spun rod bearings and locked up. LS is not that great! Seen plenty of them as well as the LM7s and even the little 4.8s with rods hanging out of windowed blocks. Years ago saw a LM7 van throw a rod at 34K.

I have also seen an engine known to often go 500K and beyond (VQ40DE), throw a rod at 7 miles. Just never know with a well timed and orchestrated time bomb known as an internal combustion engine.

I have seen a LY6 break the crank keyway with 3 miles on the odometer and put every valve into every piston.

 

0. In statistics, a sample size of 1 failure is meaningless without knowing every detail, how all the work was done and verified somehow, and even then we would want to see 5x or 10x of them with similar failures in varying conditions. We should take a much larger population to compare reliability and mileage. Such as, the LS reliability and forced induction threads strewn all over the internet. I am not getting into that right now but I've done analysis in the past and quite satisfied, enough to put my money where my mouth is and drop $$ on an LS forced induction setup before even ever owning an LS engine beforehand. No issues when done right in good hands, confirmed in my case, and countless others that I've had the luxury of tuning since putting mine together as a demo car with the cheapest dirtiest LM7 I could find for free. I have yet to see a failure I couldn't explain by mis-use, and you can say the same thing if you realize how many trucks are out there with completely OEM 5.3L engines approaching 300,000 miles with terrible maintenance and so forth. Its in the millions. Less than 0.5% to 0.1% of them have longevity issues, it might be even less than that but I am being generous. And if we are playing the stats game that is so close to 0 it practically is zero. It means that somebody such as myself who is an master of inspection and details can easily find 100x engines with over 100,000 miles and guarantee that 99 of those 100 or better will make it an additional 100,000 to 150,000 miles over whatever they already achieved. Confidence interval of 99% success similar to Toyota and Nissan engines of 1992-2002 year range, which share similar statistics and internal makeup as the LS platform does from 2002 to 2007. In other words I have inspected around 1000 Toyota and Nissan engines, then cleaned, installed, wired, tuned around 10% of those into various cars (around 100x engine swaps) and RARELY have any issue with those engines due to their design and factory installation, as long as nobody has modified them, which was the main problem, people doing 'upgrades' without understanding what they are doing. Even an aftermarket air filter generally ruins one of those engines, but I digress.

1. There is no superior engine ever made for the cost and application (engine swaps) so it even if it isn't perfect there is still no alternative, nothing else is better or even comes close to the L33. The LM7 is half the engine that an L33 is and weighs 120lbs extra but still an incredible deal due to low cost. Mine was free for example.

2. Spun cam bearing is due to improper installation, pretty obvious when it happens after a cam swap. I don't see any factory LS spinning their cam bearings until somebody opens it and gets their greasy fingers all inside it. Often they use the wrong cam as well. The engine will not tolerate much lift above .550 to .580 for long and people do not understand that. Another issue is People don't use gloves and handle their engines properly using a clean room technique and trash is the result. Same goes for Toyota and Nissan engines. It comes down to cleanliness and procedure and parts selection and intended use... not a surprise

3. All OEM 02-07 LS truck engines have "lifter issues" even from brand new. Even mine has a lifter tick with over 200,000 miles. This is not a problem as the engine still runs fine and makes power if you leave it alone. The tick is the result of lifters bleeding down too quickly at idle and bottoming out at idle with thin oil that the LS engine prefers; it is not a reliability issue.


What matters is experience and knowledge. 99/100 people will not be clean enough to perform a cam swap or any internal modifications in any engine and just get lucky, or not.

 

lets talk Bearings for a minute because I want to be super clear about this.

The main reason I Like 92-02 toyota and nissan engines from Japan (sr20det, rb25det, rb26dett, 2jz-gte) and LS engines from 02-07 (LM7, L33, LQ4) is because after an cursory inspection of moderate mileage units (80k to 200k) I can guarantee the engine will have mint bearings and that they will stay that way if I tune the engine.

Not everybody is a master tuner and understands mechanics of materials combustion theory and control applications. Not everybody understand that they need to measure their crankcase pressure and log it using a 2-bar map sensor to keep the bottom end happy. Very few people will run an OEM style paper air filter on their engine and use the correct PCV valve (hint: its a Toyota Supra pcv valve, not the GM OEM unit). And not everybody understands clean room technique for opening and performing surgery in these modern engines with tiny orifices.

Failures are always due to improper tuning & handling and the like. Any engine that spins it's rod bearing or mains was due to debris or mis-use, it won't make it 10k or 20k let alone 200k. The issues start after somebody opens the engine improperly and doesn't know what they are doing. I know this for a fact and I can and will with 99.8% confidence walk into a junkyard and cursory inspect almost any of these aforementioned engines coming from an all OEM vehicle and point to specific units which guarantee that the bearing systems will look mint because the way the engine is setup from the OEM keeps them mint for 300,000 miles and longer when they are maintained, that is how they reach 300k in the first place. Any bearing issue will show up within 10,000 miles or around that, not 200k not 300k but around 10k, around 3% to 5% of the engine lifespan, an engine which is wearing away cannot last long so the bearing MUST be wear-free to reach those high mileage numbers. Proper bearing systems do NOT wear any appreciable amount and this is how they are designed to operate, without wear.

Now a story. There is a fellow named Matt who runs a site called "sloppy mechanics" you probably already heard of him. So forgive me if you already know this story but I love telling it so hopefully its new to you.
Matt had a high mileage 6L 04~ LS engine and added a turbo, and did it kind of "sloppy" re-using headgaskets and head bolts and doing things you aren't supposed to do.
Well he took that engine to his dynojet and made 500rwhp. Then drove the truck for many months and went back and made 600. Then 700. Then 800. Then 900. Then 1000rwhp, over 1000hp. After hundreds of dyno passes and I don't know how many years he finally had a wastegate issue and the engine over-boosted and broke a rod.
He opened the engine and all the bearings are mint condition. Even the factory rod bolts still held the broken rod to the crankshaft in place.

If you can open a hundreds of dyno passes 1000rwhp engine to find mint bearings that is statistically significant. The engine wasn't magical or a one-off. It wasn't a coincidence. It is a fact that if you know what you are doing and know how to tune one of these engines it will basically last forever.

 

I have seen more than one 6.0L camshaft bearing walk out of the bore and make a cam swap impossible without a complete tear down.

The L33 lifter failure my brother in law experienced cause the engine to miss on startup. SES light flashing, lifters tapping away. Rollers on 3 lobes destroyed themselves and ate the cam.

I would take a L31 350 Vortec or a VK56DE over a junk 5.3! I have seen both go over 500K on the normal and some examples over 1 million and seen both over 800 hp on stock internals.

I have actually considered a VQ35HR with twin turbos and a 6spd behind it in an older C10 setup for autocross.

 

3L can do 800rwhp from 1995

that is nothing special. Toyota SUpra 1998 with 250,000 miles and 800rwhp is a regular sight to behold and you CAN look that up.

Oh 500,000 miles you say? 1 million miles? Well I have seen an LM7 go 7,000,000 miles brah true story. NO I dont have any proof and not going to post any proof tho.

The L33 is a world record holder and you can look that up easily. Those other engines, not so sure. Never heard of them million mile wonders. You can use whatever engine you want- In fact the whole point of me going on the internet and saying how good the L33 is to make people not want to use them so I can buy them for cheaper prices.