Just did a little research on the crossfire motors and they are junk. So ive read
The Crossfire 350 is a Throttle Body Injected (TBI) engine that instead of using a 2 barrel TBI like the pickups and some full size cars instead used 2, 1 barrel TBIs placed at opposite ends of a cross ram intake.
It develops about the same power as the 2 barrel TBI pickups and full size cars this basic engine came in, about 205 hp. So this is no race car. It suffers from the same limitations of all these GM TBI engines, it is short on camshaft timing and lift and it is low on compression. These are things that can be fixed within the same envelop if you're hunting more power. The engine can be brought up to nearly 300 hp without going mechanically radical nor busting the bank and still keeping to the original configuration if you want to improve performance.
From the top down
- Use head casting 14011083 or 14096217 with the 90 degree intake manifold bolt angle, these casting also come with the post 1986 angle of 72 degrees which will not fit your original intake without making dollar value decreasing modifications to the intake. These heads have the L98 combustion chamber with reduced volume from 76 to 64 ccs which will raise the compression ratio, a much needed improvement; along with better flame propigation and better ports.
- Use the Edlebrock 3702 cam and kit which includes a reprogram chip. This cam times similar to the old 300 horse 327 and stays compatible with the vacuum needs of TBI.
These two things will take the engine to 285 hp and leave the motor looking totally original. The cam and compression increase with give the exhaust a noticable bark but the engine will idle nice and will not need converter mods.
You can go deeper with modifications to the TBI units using larger throttle diameters and injectors. Removal of the swirl vanes from the intake cover and porting the intake and some custom tuning can take this motor into the 300-330 HP range. While improving performance these mods will degrade the collector value of the car if that is a concern, however, except for the miss match of the head casting numbers this will look totally original while running way faster/better.
Bogie
