i have a 66 coupe with a 289 and i was wondering if boring it out to a 302 was an option. if not what can i do to get the most horsepower out of my engine far about 3500$ including the cost of a rebuild

 

Nah man the difference between 289 and a 302 is not bore but stroke. You could bore it out to get it a little closer to a 302, but in order to make it a 302 you would have to stroke it, in which case you could just stroke it to a 347. The 289 and the 302 are the same block though, so if during your rebuild you were going to replace all the internals anyway you could convert it to a 302. An intake, carb, and headers are def. in order, and beyond depending on if you do the rebuild or have somebody do it. Beef up the ignition system, and then see if you have enough left to start getting into cams and porting.

 

so a stroking it to a 302 isnt a good option. but what about to a 347. i am already planing on replacing the pistons and connecting rods and doing a whole rebuild. my goal is around 350 hp but i could settle with 300 if my engine was reliable had an rpm range to 5500 and halfway decent gas mileage

 

well are you going to rebuild it yourself? I think you should. What hes saying is you could pay around 1000 to stroke it to a 306. But you could pay 1400 and stroke it to 347. Next you put some decent heads. You should do the top of the engine first

 

Well, if you were to do the work yourself, you wouldn't have any labor costs, which would free up ALOT of money to put towards parts. a 347 can be a potent powerhouse. You can find 347 stroker kits for under 1000 bucks if you look. Take your block to a machine shop to have it x-rayed and cleaned. To stroke it to a 347 you would have to have it bored .030" over, as the kits are designed for this. You would also have to have the shop notch the block so the longer rods would clear. This still leaves you with enough to have the heads rebuilt, and to add an intake, headers and carb. However, an engine like the 347 will perform SOO much better with aftermarket heads/ cam combo that let it breathe. All this is stuff to consider, but the setup with the cam and aftermarket heads is going to burst your 3500 bubble.

 

Trey, where and how much did you spend getting your block bored over and cleaned?

 

I didn't. The last engine blew to hell when my stepdad took her out and wrapped the speedo around while I was on spring break[:@]. So i just ordered a new block and started from there.

 

Ohh ok. Theres a mustang restoration place in atlanta but they are expensive. They wanted $3000 to fix my cowl. Anyways im gonna go up there to look through their junkyard of all classic mustangs.

 

i was planing on rebuilding it myself. i was planing on taking the block to a local machiene shop my friend suggested. would a stroker kit include pistons rods and rings. also would that be ok to do to a 40 year old engine block. if i rebuilt it as a 289 would it be more reliable. i was told if i rebuilt it with a new cam, intake manifold, carb, distributor, and a nice set of headers with a flowmaster exaust i would have well over 300 hp. hes also a hevy man so i dont now if he has any credibality

 

The heads will give you the most HP I dont Know about getting 300Hp out of those accessories. The stroker is made for the 289/302 engines. It includes pistons,rings, Ibeam rods,wrist pins, and a cranksahft.