289 POWER
Thread Starter
Mach I Section Moderator
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 7,140
From: round abouts these parts
289 POWER
What kind of power can i look to get out of my 289 and what are some inexpensive ways to get my HP and TQ up, i everntually want it right at 400-500hp with in a year or two. What is my best way of going about getting it this way?
6th Gear Member
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 8,007
From: Citrus County, FL
RE: 289 POWER
500 would be extremely hard to get from a n/a 289, but 400 is possible with the right heads/cam/compression/exhaust/intake/ignition/carb/all the other little things for 3 hp there and 2 hp here.
2nd Gear Member
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 296
RE: 289 POWER
If i was going to make big power like that i would focus on 2 things compression and camshaft everything else falls in relation to that you are going to need 10.5-11:1 compression, I would use a solid lifter cam or mechanical roller, hovering around 290-300 duration and atleast .515 lift, so seeing this i would say a built short block is in order, but you have 2 good things going for you crank and rods, all you need is to have theme refreshend and shotpeened the 289 crank and rods can handle most things you throw at them, shelby used stock shotpeened rods and crank for his scca road racers. a good set of forged pistons are worth there weight in gold and trw's are awesome if you can find them...now how to make this short block breath, if your looking to stay stock appearing i would say 69 351 w heads are awesome for semi period correctness but Racing head service makes awesome aluminum ones and victor jrs work great too, now onto carbeuration i would go with a 2 carb setup either an airgap manifold, holman moody dual quad, now i know i am going to get alot of flack about this but i would say your going to need to move alot of air to make 400+ so 2 500-525 cfm carbs would be in a good range, i know about over carbing but just my experience with dual quads on small blocks you need to be in the 1000cfm range combined for optimum performance. also headers pref tri y or long tubes and according to my desktop dyno program with this setup you will be right at 500 at the flywheel
2nd Gear Member
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 296
RE: 289 POWER
I just looked and racing head service also makes cast iron versions of there aluminum head so you could get those and appear stock looking also if painted, but a 56-58cc chamber should be a goal for good compression too
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Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 17,565
From:
RE: 289 POWER
ORIGINAL: easttennmotors
I just looked and racing head service also makes cast iron versions of there aluminum head so you could get those and appear stock looking also if painted, but a 56-58cc chamber should be a goal for good compression too
I just looked and racing head service also makes cast iron versions of there aluminum head so you could get those and appear stock looking also if painted, but a 56-58cc chamber should be a goal for good compression too
5th Gear Member
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 2,266
From: Australia
RE: 289 POWER
hey USMCrebel, how much money have you got to throw at this???
what state is the engine currently in? I think staged mods on an engine that you want to take from stock to mildare fine. Stock to 400+ requires a lot of parts and a lot of machine work and balancing.
So, IMHO, save your pennies till you can afford to do the thing in one hit. You wont get a good result from doingbig hpheads or cam in isolation. In fact you probably will take it backwards! Do you want to buy a 4 barrel carb now and buy another bigger onein 2 years when you go to the next level? Ditto for the intake manifold etc?
bear in mind that you will need to consider brakes, suspension and drive train improvements to handle thedesired level ofgrunt. these mods can be done now and you would get a useable improvement even with your existing engine. for example, changing to a 3.5 diff from a 3.0 or fitting a T5
I have been down the path of throwing new performance parts at an old engine and generally it just leads to some other old part breaking. you end up spending twice what you would have if you just built what you wanted in the first place! So theres my $0.02
what state is the engine currently in? I think staged mods on an engine that you want to take from stock to mildare fine. Stock to 400+ requires a lot of parts and a lot of machine work and balancing.
So, IMHO, save your pennies till you can afford to do the thing in one hit. You wont get a good result from doingbig hpheads or cam in isolation. In fact you probably will take it backwards! Do you want to buy a 4 barrel carb now and buy another bigger onein 2 years when you go to the next level? Ditto for the intake manifold etc?
bear in mind that you will need to consider brakes, suspension and drive train improvements to handle thedesired level ofgrunt. these mods can be done now and you would get a useable improvement even with your existing engine. for example, changing to a 3.5 diff from a 3.0 or fitting a T5
I have been down the path of throwing new performance parts at an old engine and generally it just leads to some other old part breaking. you end up spending twice what you would have if you just built what you wanted in the first place! So theres my $0.02
3rd Gear Member
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 551
RE: 289 POWER
ORIGINAL: easttennmotors
If i was going to make big power like that i would focus on 2 things compression and camshaft everything else falls in relation to that you are going to need 10.5-11:1 compression, I would use a solid lifter cam or mechanical roller, hovering around 290-300 duration and atleast .515 lift, so seeing this i would say a built short block is in order, but you have 2 good things going for you crank and rods, all you need is to have theme refreshend and shotpeened the 289 crank and rods can handle most things you throw at them, shelby used stock shotpeened rods and crank for his scca road racers. a good set of forged pistons are worth there weight in gold and trw's are awesome if you can find them...now how to make this short block breath, if your looking to stay stock appearing i would say 69 351 w heads are awesome for semi period correctness but Racing head service makes awesome aluminum ones and victor jrs work great too, now onto carbeuration i would go with a 2 carb setup either an airgap manifold, holman moody dual quad, now i know i am going to get alot of flack about this but i would say your going to need to move alot of air to make 400+ so 2 500-525 cfm carbs would be in a good range, i know about over carbing but just my experience with dual quads on small blocks you need to be in the 1000cfm range combined for optimum performance. also headers pref tri y or long tubes and according to my desktop dyno program with this setup you will be right at 500 at the flywheel
If i was going to make big power like that i would focus on 2 things compression and camshaft everything else falls in relation to that you are going to need 10.5-11:1 compression, I would use a solid lifter cam or mechanical roller, hovering around 290-300 duration and atleast .515 lift, so seeing this i would say a built short block is in order, but you have 2 good things going for you crank and rods, all you need is to have theme refreshend and shotpeened the 289 crank and rods can handle most things you throw at them, shelby used stock shotpeened rods and crank for his scca road racers. a good set of forged pistons are worth there weight in gold and trw's are awesome if you can find them...now how to make this short block breath, if your looking to stay stock appearing i would say 69 351 w heads are awesome for semi period correctness but Racing head service makes awesome aluminum ones and victor jrs work great too, now onto carbeuration i would go with a 2 carb setup either an airgap manifold, holman moody dual quad, now i know i am going to get alot of flack about this but i would say your going to need to move alot of air to make 400+ so 2 500-525 cfm carbs would be in a good range, i know about over carbing but just my experience with dual quads on small blocks you need to be in the 1000cfm range combined for optimum performance. also headers pref tri y or long tubes and according to my desktop dyno program with this setup you will be right at 500 at the flywheel
Thread Starter
Mach I Section Moderator
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 7,140
From: round abouts these parts
RE: 289 POWER
I appreciate all the info you guys gave, but after finding out that my goal of 500hp/tq is to pricey with that current setup I decided to ****** the 289. My friend found a better deal on a 302 for me that has had some work done dont know if its a rebuild of stroked tho but it was done in the last year, so how easy is my goal of 500hp/tq. i also snatched the block because my V8 tranny bell housing didnt work and i pissed. So i wasted about 10hours of work, but i guess the bright side is im experienced in putting one in noww so it'll take hlf the time this go around im going to pick up a c4 w/aod this after noon. HOw do i get my goal with this motor?