That's a good plan IMO, but if you are building on the side, it won't cost much more money or time to go 383.

 

I know it was just a suggestion but would you have an estimate to do that if I do all the work myself? Not looking for a full blown race motor but if that’s the most cost effective way to get to 300hp I’ll look into it. I’d like the car to still be somewhat fuel efficient though. I know no matter what I do I’ll lose quite a bit of fuel efficiency anyway though, but don’t want something ridiculously low.

 

I don't off the top of my head, but to go 383 you are going to need some machine work. Actually on any rebuild you need to take the block to the machine shop anyway. What I am saying is clearance for the 400 crank won't be much additional cost to the machining already needed. I am not sure on cost, depends on shop rates in your area and I haven't had a block machined in 20 years.

You can look up 383 kits that come complete with all the short block internals everything from cheap to very expensive. If you are not planning to beat the crap out of the motor this 383 kit was the cheapest I found. It's not the best, but you have to taper your goals to your budget, but it will never hurt to have the extra 33 cubes.

 

You can use the old bearings and put the new stroker crank in and find the areas of the block that need machining and grind them away with a die grinder

but for a mild 300+ whp it be much cheaper to just reuse stock crank and get a cheap set of scat rods with cast/hyper pistons and call it a day. Plenty to handle some mild boost if you go that way someday.

 

I was rereading the thread here and here is an alternative shopping list:

Used Mini-Ram and Lower $1,000?
GM 94666492 camshaft $130
Custom Tune $200-ish?
Bosch Injectors $200
Plugs cap and rotor $100

$1630

I'd leave the factory exhaust manifolds due to difficulty, price, and benefit. The TPI is the more restrictive side anyway.
If your short block is fine, this should make you smile.

 

that looks like the most realistic option. I can do all of that myself too, without going to a machine shop and all that or having friends weld for me. Only issue is I’ll need to learn to tune, I think the computer sets an rpm limit that works with tpi but won’t with a miniram.

 

Computer allows timing control to 4800 rpm, after that rpm it holds the timing the same from that 4800 entry

fuel control to 6400 for ve and pe enrichment, after that it will hold last value to whatever u rev

 

Actually there are tuners on this board that can provide that service. If you have a laptop and the right cable they can get it dialed right in. Highly recommend. The one I worked with retired recently but he would have me collect "drive around data" for a few minutes, email him the file, then he would make adjustments (tune) send me another chip and repeat. The car went from just running to way much better running after a several iterations. I then mailed him back all the chips he had sent me.

 

[QUOTE=Tootie Pang;6354373]Actually there are tuners on this board that can provide that service. If you have a laptop and the right cable they can get it dialed right in. Highly recommend.
sounds like a good idea I’ll try to find one to message. Thanks

 

Where are you located

 

little north of Boston mass

 

Exhaust manifolds would be the first thing to go away for me. TPI one of the last. I have had a fairly healthy 305, two healthy 350s and a healthy 383 under TPI intakes. Have run stock runners on the 383 even. I had over 350 rwhp with the 383 and stock runners on a stock Vortec TPI base. On a completely stock GM TPI setup and a LT4 Hotcam/Dart Iron Eagle 180cc head 10:1 350 I had 290 rwhp through a TH400 with a 2,800 stall. With a properly dialed in setup you can get 2 hp per cfm of flow. The stock runners and intake still flow in the 220-230 cfm range. That is 440-460 hp at the crank with an optimized setup. Stock runners will flatten off around 5,000 rpm but continue to hold that power peak well past 6,000 rpm.

 

that sounds like a good idea. I’ll look into some headers and hollow out my cat then look into a cat back if it’s in my budget still

 

All that stuff AND THEN a tune up.

 

There are options from cheap to expensive. If you have ever looked through a factory manifold, I doubt you would say this. A good set of headers have proven to be a big help. Heck, even factory LT1 manifolds are a help, and a viable option for cost and ease of installation, but this is definitely one area that is a major choke point.

Only above 4600 RPM People seem to forget the LT1 made it's peak HP at 5000RPMs. There is a lot more you can do below that number first. Opening the ports and port matching is free, just a bit of work.


I don't know about first, but certainly before I got into intake manifold, cam, or head swaps for sure.