[virrix]

Alright, I have a 350 bored 40 over, 272 compcam, edelbrock airgap intake, 600cfm carb. What would any of you recommend is the best bang for the buck, but under $1000 as I am limited in funds for the next few months. Preferably something that will benefit between 2200-5000 rpm. Hmm, alos...does anyone else ever experience 700r4 problems such as, going at about 90mph, flooring it, and it slips into neutral? Heh, think i need to get that fixed. Anyways, thanks yall. Take care.

[lluciano77]

Sounds like the tranny is bad.

By some good cylinder heads. A bigger carb will help if you get better heads.

[Mad Maggot]

good exhaust will also help i.e. headers and 3" pipe if you haven't already done this. this will help power at all RPMs and will likely cost less than $1000. I've heard of gains of as much as 50HP from good exhaust.

Also if you have some spare time, pocket porting your original heads will help a bit, even more with bigger valves installed, as the price of new heads is likely over $1000 for anything you would notice a gain from

[firestone]

Once you get the tranny fixed, I would either recommend a set of Vortec heads which would involve getting a new intake manifold and cost around $850 for heads and intake, or save another $300 and get a set of AFR 195cc CNC ported heads which would work with all of your exhisting parts for $1300. The vortec combo would put you at around 375 hp and the AFR combo would put you around 450 hp. Personally, I would not recommend anything in between as far as heads go if that is what you want to put the money into.

Good luck
Adam

[virrix]

What about dart cylinder heads, are those good? Or should I be set on getting AFR heads? also, thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it.

[lluciano77]

Originally posted by Mad Maggot
good exhaust will also help i.e. headers and 3" pipe if you haven't already done this. this will help power at all RPMs and will likely cost less than $1000. I've heard of gains of as much as 50HP from good exhaust.

Also if you have some spare time, pocket porting your original heads will help a bit, even more with bigger valves installed, as the price of new heads is likely over $1000 for anything you would notice a gain from

On basically stock 350, I wouldn't go with more than a 2 1/2" exhaust.

Don't get Vortec heads. If you ever want the option of making more power out of your engine, Vortec heads are pretty limiting. The extra machine work needed will exceed the price of better aftermarket heads.

What head you will work best depends on what you want to achieve.

There are Dart heads on Ebay in the $600 range that are nice.

World Motown heads are good.

Do the research before you spen the $$$.

These heads look good:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...sPageName=WDVW

[firestone]

There is nothing wrong with a head like the dart 200, but in the long run if you went with the AFR's your money would be spend more efficiently. You could buy a set of dart heads now, that would perform ok, and then get them ported later, but you would have alot more in them than if you saved up right now and got a set of AFR's that are already Ported and are Aluminum. A Dart 200cc head set is $800 assembleld out of summit. If you wanted that dart to flow like a CNC ported AFR, you would have to spend around $800-$1000 in porting which would put you around $1600-$1800 overall and you would still have iron heads. The CNC ported aluminum AFR 195cc heads are $1300 a set. It all comes down to if you have to have them right now or if you can wait a little bit. I think it would pay off to wait a little longer. As far as the Vortecs go, lluciano is right that they are not a head that you would probably want to port in the future. They are just good for people who want a head that will perform really good for a reasonable price and dont want to upgrade in the future.

Adam

[lluciano77]

If your compression is around 8.5:1, the Motowns will make a huge difference.

If your compression is over 9.5:1 or higher, you will need heads with a bigger combustion chamber.

[virrix]

Hmmm,
not sure what my compression is at the moment, how would you find that out? Also, lets say my compressions was 9.5:1, and i got 53cc cylinder heads, how bad would that be?

[lluciano77]

It may or may not be that bad. Every 4ccs of head volume equals about .6:1 compression. So if you started with a 64cc head and used a 53cc head It would raise your compression somewhere around 1 point.

With a smaller cam, 10.5:1 is doable. 10:1 is a lot easier to get away with. It all depends on what you plan on running.

Make sure you know exactly what your compression ratio is. If you have the original block, with different heads on it, you cannot count on your ratio being the same. Same thing holds true if your engine has been rebuilt.

Raising your compression above 9.5:1 helps a lot with idle quality, throttle response, and vacuum when you run a performance cam. Others on this board play it a little too safe and sacrifice a lot of the above mentioned benefits. I am running 11:1 with my everyday driver. That wasn't easy, but it makes for a smooth idle along with the performance I want.