I'm looking to build the 350 in my camaro. The engine currently is an 80-85 truck engine bone stock. I was thinking of running a set of 416 casting heads I have, with a mild port-polish, and 1.94/1.60 valves. As for a cam I am going to run a edelbrock performer plus, with 1.6 rocker arms. I have my choice on intake manifolds, between an edelbrock performer, and a holley street dominator. For exhaust I'm going to run flowtech shorties, to cherry bombs, and out the back( true dual). The carb will probably be either a q-jet, or a holley 600 vac. sec. I am planning on running a summit prepped HEI for my ignition with accell 8mm wires. I already have most of the parts for this setup and was wondering which would give me the most hp, and around what hp im looking at.

 

run the holley street dominator. unless its a victor or an air gap edelbrock manifolds are overrated. but ids say high 200's what kind of trans are you going to back it with?

 

It will be backed by a t5. any suggestions to get a little more hp without spending to much money?

 

well i would suggest putting screw in studs in those heads the ratio'd rockers are going to start pulling the oem press in studs out. but as far as more hp little money your looking at bolt ons. under drive pulleys with an aluminum water pump. some type of ignition box. have your heads match ported to both the headers and manifold. if you are getting them ported try having a swirl port put in. K&N filter element with a raised base and a K&N filter top. go with a gear drive instead of a roller chain (unless you are against noise) if your not worried about gas go with the 4bbl holley but if its going to be a cruiser and you want that extra punch when you step in it then the q jet will work. unless the qjet is stock put the holley in. honestly if you want more power but dont have the money for a nice set of pistons or alum. heads. put some gears in it. the tranny and rear axel are where you lose or gain 40% of your power.

 

As far as power, I'm going to guess 250-280rwhp. My 305 with similar cam, intake, and carb showed 240rwhp at the track, but dynoed about 210rwhp.

 

Don't waste an ounce of extra effort on those heads - except the screw in studs like someone mentioned; they are not high HP type of stuff.

240hp is my estimate - mid 14's...

 

It sounds like a pretty good street strip motor, but someone told me once "I would not buy a comp cams intake or an edelbrock cam". It is not that the edelbrock cam will hurt performance, but I believe that Comp, Crane,Lunati,Etc. have spent a lot more time in R&d on cams.If it were me I would buy a comparable size comp extreme energy or lunati voodoo.
A good friend of mine ran a perf. rpm cam and his car ran really great,12.2 in the quarter mile. Then he switched to a comparable sized voodoo cam and went 11.9. That is a preety good and cheap performance gain.
That being said, If you already have your cam I would not second guess it, it really is not at all a bad cam, maybe just not top of the line though.