The body work on the car is ALMOST done, so it's time to FINALLY start thinking about the engine. For the $2800 I paid, this car has been in excellent shape, and seeing everything coming together is very exciting. Here are my plans for the engine / drivetrain; I'm just looking for suggestions, or anything glaringly obvious where I will be mismatching parts and losing powerband:

-Original 289 (C-code)
-Edelbrock Performer RPM dual plane intake OR RPM air gap
-Holley 4160, 600CFM, electric choke, vacuum secondaries
-AFR 165cc heads (eventually...)
-Not sure what cam yet
-Either 347 stroker or some kind of induction (or both but doubt it), forged internals
-2.5" exhaust, tri-y headers
-4-speed toploader (hopefully)
-9" Posi, 3.55+ gears

It's going to go slow (college student, only making $10 an hour...), but I want to set an overall goal for myself. If I can come out of this making 300-350+ horsepower, I'd be thrilled. Of course, that means disc brakes, etc... but that's another story. The stroker kit, heads, transmission, and differential are going to take the longest to get, so I will be doing this sort of backwards, and there will be a lot of "put it on... take it back off later," but I think it will be worth it.

 

Sounds like a good plan to me. With this setup and a warm cam, I think you will easily meet your goals.

You might consider saving some serious$ by going with a cast steel crank and hyper pistons.

I think that these will be just finefor under500 HP,and nice kits like these can be bought for less than $1,000,,,

Weigh your needs against the costs carefully and your limited $$ will go much further.

 

I'd go with a edelbrock rpmtop end kit thats what I'm going with (soon) its about $2,000 and it makes about 365HP with stock pistons it will save you &(me) money and the holley is a great carb I'm useing a holley 600cfm and its work great! good luck http://store.summitracing.com/partde...p;autoview=sku

 

i was going to go with the AFR 165cc heads on my 289 too but after talking it over with my engine guy he recomended some edelbrock heads. he said that that there wasnt much difference in the 2 and the edelbrock's were a couple hundred $$ cheaper. Basically he said that the AFR heads are great for an all out race engine, but on a street car you probably wouldnt be able to tell the difference

 

+1 we are using Victor Jr. heads, they were a little cheaper than the AFRs and they seem to work great.

 

If you build a 347 you'll want a bigger head than the 165, maybe a 185. Edelbrock also has a newer head out that you'd have to call them about, the Pro Port CNC RPM heads, in 170 or 190 port sizes.

 

Interesting, I'll do some shopping around.

Thanks for the suggestions, and please keep them coming.