dbs96gt

Ok guys heres the situation an aquaitance of mine has a 71 cuda with a 440 out of a motor home in it. pretty muh stock except for the intake and carb. he has been running his mouth for three years about my car now, finnaly put up last year and i spanked his**s! Well now he is up to it again, he is doing a cam and converter change, but not doing anything to the heads. My situation, i rebuilt my motor 5000 miles ago, but now the intake took a dump on me. I plan on doing a p.i. swap, or just getting the patiot performance stage 2 heads and maybe vt stage 2 cams. a couple of questions.

Am i going to have to worry about ptv with this set up or should i go with a smaller cam?

What kinda power can i expect? Is this going to be enough to take care of him? his car falls on its face when he leaves the line.

What kinda intake would you guys use?

rmr1923

i take it your car is a '96 GT? the Patriot Performance heads may be a good option, but you can do the PI swap for a pretty decent price and it will definitely give you some good performance gains from it, and the stock PI intake manifold is pretty good piece so if you can find one for cheap then you'll save some money and not really sacrifice much power (if any). i'm not sure what kind of pistons you used in the rebuild, but with the stage 2 cams you might have valve clearance issues. even with the stock cams and the PI swap, i'm sure your car can take the cuda. just a cam and converter swap won't really do a whole lot since he's not doing any head work, and his car is probably a lot heavier than yours. i'd make at LEAST a $5000 bet with him, and then use those winnings on a nice supercharger

sstang

If his motor is out of a motor home, then a cam change might make a significant difference. The motor would have been built for torque, not hp, so a new cam could keep his car pulling more up top instead of falling on it's face. Idk though, I would have to see all the details on both sides. If you spanked him before and you are doing the mods you plan, you will probably spank him again.

dbs96gt

yeah, its a '96 gt. i used the stock pistons in the rebuild, I was on a tight budget when i did it. will gears make that much of a difference?

rmr1923

do you have the stock gears? i'd definitely upgrade to at LEAST 3.73 (that's what i have in my car and wish i'd gone with 4.10s). the gear change makes a HUGE different in acceleration in 1st and 2nd gear, you'll definitely beat him off the line. and the stage 2 cams will give you more pull in the upper rpms, something i wish my car had more of. i really don't like the cams that come stock in the GT, they have good torque at lower rpms but the power just seems to fizzle out around 5000. i'm sure someone else on here has used the stage 2 cams so hopefully they cantell you more about valve clearance, but i'm betting you'll need to get the pistons notched, which means pulling the engine out and breaking it down.

dbs96gt

they are stock gears. I plan on putting 3:73's in. Would i be good with maybe a stage one cam and not getting the p.i. heads ported and polished? sorry so many questions, just tired of this guy and want to really lay it on him