psuhillbilly150

If your doing a budget build get a set of old factory port mutang heads 68-71. They flow almost as well as the much more expensive edelbrock performer aluminum heads. To find them you may have to do alot of looking on the internet but they are out there. The block from a 78 is fine its nothing fantastic but as long as you keep the power below 550 your not going to have an issue with it, just do normal machine work to it .30 or .40 over new bearings and all that business. The rods and crank will be more then strong for anything below 6500 rpm. Shoot for 10 to 11 to one compression that will make the most power on high test pump gas you will just have to figure out what compression chambers your heads will have and then buy the correct dish or flat top piston to make the right compression. Cam wise stick with a hydraulic roller (you will have to convert the 78 block to a roller block in the course of your machine work) you don't need to get to radical with the lift something in the .510-.540 and a moderate duration 240-260. Call all the cam places and tell them what you have and what you want to do with it and they will give you recomendations, comp, crane, and whoever else you can think of. You will need a set of conversion headers too which aren't to cheap and a performer rpm or equilevent intake (used 100 bucks) drop a 750cfm carb on it and go.

The stock T-5 maunal trans will not hold up behind that engine setup unless you drive like a grandmother. You will probably want to toss a tough posi in the rear to prevent the car from blowing off one tire all the time.

sn95_331_GT_ yellow

^^^
old iron heads will NOT do better than alum heads, even ProComps or Patriot heads.

The D0OE or C9AE heads are just older versions of GT40 irons...

the only irons worth getting are the BOSS 302 heads, but that involves a decent amount of work and new parts to make them fit...

iron just isnt worth it unless youre running in a class that requires them...