hey guys. earlier today i bought what i consider to be my first real engine, a 350TPI L98 out of a 88 GTA. has about 160k miles on it (though its in oddly perfect condition. plan on investigating through the tear-down) but for $250 from plenum to pan, i can't argue the point.

And here comes the title. I plan on boring it out anyways. With that many miles on the engine, its going to need a bore. Also, my future project involves a rather well-built, bullit proof NA small block. Sooooo, i was thwoing around the idea of going for a rock solid forged (yes, even the crank) stroker kit while i have the engine apart. figuring somewhere around $900 -> $1200 for the parts (minus the bore), but i was just wondering if this was a good idea, or if i should leave the 350TPI alone and go for somthing more exotic from the start. Final plans have it running somewhere mid to low 500's at the rear wheels, but its on an extremely tight budget and will have to be spread out over the next 2-4 years, along with the fact that i'd like it to be somthing less common though still NA when im done.

so does anyone have any thoughts, suggestions, opinions, even insults, as to my plans? anything is accepted, i am just wondering what im getting into and trying not to make any mistakes, all while building a rock solid bullit proof SB that ill never have to worry about.


Cliffnotes:
bought a 350TPI. too tame for my project, lots of miles anyways.
bore it out and stroke it to 383???
is this smart? stupid? somewhere in the middle?
for your thoughts?


Thanks in advance!

 

Boring is for badly damaged blocks. You'll end up getting it honed 30 over.
I went with fully forged internals for my 383.
If you want that much hp at the wheels you'd better be prepared to spend a couple of dollars.
Forged is apparently harder on the block.
Do you plan on keeping the TPI? It's harder to get those numbers but doable.

I'm done thinking.

 

My setup was almost 430 HP at the flywheel on engine alone. I kept a psuedo TPI setup on mine. Mine is a 1pc rear seal 4 bolt 350 block, bored .030 over and spinning a fully balanced / forged eagle setup with -16cc pistons. Read the rest in my sig for engine specs. 500 to the rear wheels with a 383 and TPI is going to require forced induction or juice. I'm going to be pushing 12-14lbs of boost and I think I'll only just pass the 510 RWHP mark.

 

the TPI will be a thing of the past later on in my build. I really dont have the $ o do the entire engine at once, so im going to do it in stages. First is exhaust, just because it sounds good, and ill probably be doing that within a few weeks. planning on Edelbrock shorty headers, CatCo duel cats, and some as of yet undecided cat-back. Sometime during the winter, i was figuring i'd throw the rotating assembly in and get the machine work done and all that since the engine will be out all winter. Then later on, maybe early-mid summer i was going to get some new heads/cam/whatever, all full roller. Maybe one of those 500hp trick flow kits or somthing of the sort. and finally, in the fall/early winter of next year, i was going to finish off the intake. not really sure what im looking at there because i havnt researched it at all yet.


so in the end, the TPI would be ditched, along with pretty much everything else. Thoughts?

 

Since you're doing your exhaust soon you may want to research some more over at the exhaust forum.
You'll most likely need 3" true duals or a 4" single along with 1 3/4 headers.

 

One thing you should think about to is that its only a two bolt main? You may want to splay them for added strength. I had that done to my 383, because I will later put a power adder on there. If your going to run 500 rwhp a 2 bolt main will not last to long.

 

or at least put ARP studs on the main bearing caps of your 2-bolt main block....