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Budget 350


rockin86ranger

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i have a 350 out of a 1974/6? Chevy big 10. I am going to be swapping it into my 1987 c30 crew cab. i am wanting to do a budget build for more power/torque. I am going to use my graduation money for the build and whatever i can get from the old truck and old engine. So does anybody know of cheap ways to get power. I don't think im gonna worry about machining unless i find something bad. but i will do everything else, and i dont mind using used parts. and i do all my own work

im thinking 400-450HP maybe more maybe less.

and probably a budget of around $500-$700
 


Will

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When I talk about horsepower, I talk about factory installed horsepower. You have a 300hp engine on a dyno and it's a 250hp engine running through an exhaust system and an air filter and pump gas and using it's own waterpump and alternator and steering pump and maybe air pump etc. You won't get 400hp out of that old 350. It's probably a 200hp motor with 300ft# of torque. An LT1 from a Buick Roadmaster or Caprice wagon or Cadillac is a 260hp/335ft# motor and the heads are enormously better.

I wouldn't muck around with a 350 in that size of truck. A stock 454 of that generation is a 230hp/385ft# motor and your money would be much better spent adding some cubes. Put the 350 in your Ranger.

If you want to keep the 350 you need to spend a couple grand on some aftermarket heads and gear that rear axle down, down, down. You can't improve torque very much, you can just slide it up the rpm scale. Torque has everything to do with the amount of air you can move through the cylinder in a single cycle of the engine. If you were going to grind open the ports, the air would slow down at low rpms causing a less complete filling of the cylinder. A long duration camshaft also kicks low-rpm airspeed in the balls. A 454 has a hell of a lot more air filling the cylinder than a 350 per cycle and is much more cost effective.

Horsepower is completely independent of torque because you can take a little bit of torque and hit the crankshaft with it a lot of times and make huge power. But you'll need a lot of gearing and a lot of torque converter--you won't have enough.

Take the $2,000 you would need for heads and you can find a nice 454 and bolt it right in. Chevy has that interchangability that Ford does not--same tranny, mounts and pretty much everything else will work.
 

alwaysFlOoReD

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I agree with Will, not too much will beat cubic inches bang for buck wise.Your time and money is better spent with a big block on your budget. You can buy an awful lot of gas with the money you save.
Richard
 

rockin86ranger

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i have the 350 so ill use it, thats what came out of it and it worked fine. if the 350 is to expensive to build ill run it stock till it blows then put a diesel in it. But the old motor was a 350 with a rv cam and it was fine, i dont need big power but it would have been nice. There is no way i am going to put anywhere near 2k in this truck. its gonna be a rat rod basically. but i have seen where people build 350s pushing 415hp and 4?? ft/lbs of torque for around 1k. thats kinda what im looking at doing
 

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Never looked at torque that way will a different way to explain it.

Anyway when you raise the RPM's to try to get the power you need, what mileage gain you get from a 350 over a 454 is lost.What you wind up with is a poor driving experience from a overworked 350 IMHO.

Another thing I would do is figure how many miles I will use this thing a week divide it up by a realistic no.like 8 miles per gallon.Times that no. by $3 gallon to make sure your comfortable putting that in your tank every week.
 

Will

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A thousand dollar 400hp 350 will get it's ass kicked by a 260hp LT1. Know what I'm saying? People say things, but it doesn't make it true. When I used to go to the dragstrip I would hear everything--and see lots of 16-17 second runs out of cars people swore would run 12s.

Look at this spreadsheet. I'm going to guess your truck is around 5,200#--mine is just like it but is a diesel, has an Ultraframe hitch, an auxillary transmission and a gooseneck hitch and a 200# 4-passenger seat from a new E-350 in the back and is a little over 6,000#. At 200hp you are looking at an 11-second 0-60 and 18.2 seconds @ 75mph in the quarter mile. IF you could achieve 300hp, which you probably could with your heads by letting the motor spin (big cam, intake, carb, headers) and regearing, you would be able to achieve 8 second 0-60, 16.2@86mph and still get your ass kicked by everything on the road. It would be a 13-second motor in a Camaro, but not in a crewcab longbed. And it won't be $1,000.
 

rockin86ranger

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the build im talking was a budget build in a magazine that was dyno tested. And im gonna drive this ting maybe 60 miles a week. i figure i got about 9 with the old engine which for a weekend cruiser doesnt really bother me. and a 454 is out of the question, they are a pain to find here and if you find one its blown up or it will run you $3500 which aint happing. i dont need a lot of power its just gonna be something to drive on the weekend and make a bitchin rat rod. im on a tight budget due to starting college.

i get what youre saying about people over estimating there builds and over bragging there power. and i know what you mean about driving an underpowered truck. but the old motor had plenty of power, and my first truck was a ranger with a 2.0l i dont want a sports car, just a beater truck to haul wood and some friends, and maybe a bike or a quad ocassionally. and move my horse trailer around the farm. which the old motor did fine, and its a 38 foot steel trailer with messed up wheel bearings.

im fine with the little 350 but while im swapping motors and have it out i want to do a little referbishing and figure since im going through it anyways why not do a little performance to it.
 

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Yeah, with a realistic goal in mind, that 350 is a great engine. Especially since the 1974ish engine is only a 160hp, 260ft# engine. In that truck I would just rebuild the engine with service parts and then buy a complete Edlebrock Performer kit--cam/carb/intake and run some small-tube headers and some Flowmasters. And swap in a factory HEI if it's earlier and doesn't have it. A '74 engine might not.
 

rockin86ranger

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i'll porbably get a cam, some headers, and an intake. i think i have a holley or an edlebrock laying around somewhere. so can anyone recomend a good cam. it wont pull mch, but i will ocassionally need to 36ft hrose trailer (like once a year) around my property. And whats a good intake to get.

And will how do you like that 6.2L wish i could find a turbo 6.2 for cheap for this truck.
 

Will

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You want as much buzz as you can get right off idle. That's what the factory goes for. The torque converter won't flash if the engine can't hit it hard enough. It's a big mistake to go for a lopey idle without considering the converter and gearing. If it's a manul trans, you have a barnyard gear so it doesn't matter as much.

As to the carb, you want as little of a carb as you can get away with without restricting top-end power. A carburetor that is to big has lower airspeed and doesn't suck fuel as hard through the jets. A small carb fuels the engine better at low rpms, but you don't want it so small that it will restrict airflow at higher rpm loads. If you pull that trailer on the highway, you'll want to make some power. If your engine was 100% efficient than it would need only 500cfm of air to make max power at 5000rpm. A great running 350 could live with a 450cfm. That's what I would shoot for. The reason is that at max power and rpm the throttle plates are standing wide open and the airflow is the smoothest through them as is possible. A Quadrajet has two tiny primaries so it has great low-speed response, but those big secondaries are a crutch so you can use it on anything. Probably the best you can do for that engine in that truck is a 500cfm Edlebrock/AFB. The AFB was my favorite carb.

The intake manifold doesn't matter that much. Whatever you can find that has a square bore and is designed for low-rpm use. A Performer or something similar. You want to keep the port volume small so when you open the throttle there is a smaller amount of air that has to move. A larger plenum manifold like a Torker has more air to accelerate and it takes time for that heavier amount of air to get going.

The cam you want the valves to not be in the way of the airflow, but the duration has to be low so the engine doesn't lose pressure. You want the valves to open and close rapidly and exactly when you want them to. You would like the exhaust leaving to pull a little of the intake charge in behind it. Generally the intake opening point is considered the most important event in valve timing. That means you should make sure that whatever cam you go with is installed exactly as the grinder says on the spec sheet. That's what degreeing a cam is. Anyway, I would go with a hydraulic roller conversion--Competition Cams K12-407-8 should be their smallest retrofit roller. That's pretty expensive. If you want to keep the flat tappet hydraulic than K12-230-2.

Get some cheap, small-tube headers, or run the manifolds. I like manifolds better because they last longer.

And, again, HEI if it doesn't have it.

EDIT:
I forgot to respond to your 6.2 question. An atmosphere is 14.7psi. If you had 14.7psi of boost that was at air temperature your engine would be twice the size (more because 0psi of boost is more than the vacuum throttle-platted gas engines have)--displacement is air. I get 12psi of boost. It's hotter air so it has somewhat less oxygen, but imagine that your engine went from 350cid to 600cid. That's what a turbo does. Do I like it?

Hell yes. The horsepower isn't more than a well setup 350. But it comes in at a much lower rpm since the turbo is pumping air and the pistons don't have to speed up to do it. And the torque is much more. I had a TBI 350 and it did the job but it worked at it. And if you tried to use its 200hp it would suck the 34 gallon tank flat in no time. You could pull up hills at 65mph but the pedal was to the mat and it was downshifted a couple of gears. Much better to have an engine that doesn't have to downshift. Mileage goes way up (the turbo 6.2 gets 16 towing loads that the 350 got 8) and it's more relaxing. Better to spend your money finding a 6.2 and a turbo if you have the patience to wait for a Banks kit to show up on Ebay. I paid $900 for the used kit on my truck. I had a new turbo from another kit I had bought new for another kit. I still have a kit for the newer generation body but it doesn't come close to fitting our trucks. I may use it in my B2.
 
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seth96

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yeah everyone says there is no replacement for displacement but if you do a few mods to your motor you will be able to awake it up in some way cuz i have a old 283 that im making fully vortec and fuel injected and it was a hole nother world from stock so do a cam and some head work and you will be just fine with what you have and a good cam to go with is crane cams
 

Beef52751

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the build im talking was a budget build in a magazine that was dyno tested.
First off a magazine gets their money from the names they put with that build so they are inclined to "make" more power with it.
Secondly, i run a Dyno on a regular basis, I can make the dyno sheet say whatever the hell I want it to,:thefinger: so make sure your dyno operator is reputable.:icon_thumby:

I recomend getting some compression to it, put in a domed piston. Cubes and Compression make power. your limited on cubes so go for compression but keep it reasonable so you can run pump gas.
Beef
 

RustedRanger

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Is the 87 a 4 barrel or TBI? Like the other guys said,go for low speed power. A big cam in a pickup will be a dog and a disapointment. New pistons would be good,around 9:1 compression but the best ones for increasing flow have a "D" shaped dish. If you use stock heads do a good three or five angle valve job,a five angle gives more power,costs more but worth it. Get a porting kit and grind out the casting flash and smooth things out....don't go removing material,just enough to smooth things out. Leave the casting "bumps" on the intake side and polish the exhaust side. For a truck I'd stay at 260 adv duration or under for a cam. You could use a bigger cam if you use Rhoads lifters though and don't mind the ticking. $400 to 500 is not much money when it comes to building an engine.
 

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$400 to 500 is not much money when it comes to building an engine.
Your telling me, we sell bare SBC blocks with just the machining done for $700:icon_twisted:
 

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with such a limited budget you will need to do as much of the labor yourself as possible and forget hp and concentrate on TORQUE (horsepower is what you brag to your friends about-TORQUE WINS RACES!) also start living on craigslist -the best deals go FAST and you never know when someone will post some cool stuff for cheap or FREE -I got a cherokee for free off craigs list 4x4 no less.with a good used dual plane intake,used headers,a reground cam that is a copy of your favorite cam (may I suggest a 268h from DELTA CAM in Tacoma Wa for $75 bucks) a 3 angle valve job ,a cheap rebuild kit off the net somewhere and you might see 350-375 ft -lbs . that is what a grand buys and that is honing the cylinders chasing the threads and crossing your fingers and toes. Good luck
 

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