I'm in the first stage of building a motor... planning. I will be putting together a 350 for everyday driving. The motor will have all accessories including A/C. I want the motor to obviously have the best of ALL worlds :) Decent performance, around 325 HP, not tooo expensive and run on 87 octane. I'm wondering if I should look for a complete fuel injected LT1 and use a aftermarket wiring harness to get it all hooked up or go with the simple carb setup. I was leaning toward the card setup for the sake of simplicity. The only thing that I'm worried of with a carb is gas mileage. I have a F-350 and big block 69 Nova that are hard enough on the gas fund. Does anybody have any setups, carb or fuel injection that they can share?

Build it for max torque right at 4500rpm which should cause max hp to fall right at 5500rpm or so for spirited street driving, imho!

A 9.5 to 1 CR. engine with flat-top pistons and such to get at this CR. is fine.

Use big valve heads that that are like 170 to 180 or so cc's. Add a set of 1.625" four tube long headers and a good 750 cfm, Holley 3310- carb, jetted for your engine, or a good Q-Jet, on a dual plane like either an E-brock Performer, Weiand 8004 or even an E-b. RPM, W. Stealth or Holley 300-36.

Now this won't be no "balls-out" motor but set up with street gears and 25" or 26" tall tires should run very good and not be all that bad on gas... pdq67

PS., I personally like the solid cams but I didn't get into this b/c the rpm range that I picked will automatically limit your cam rpm use range!!!

I figure a 216 to 222 hydraulic or a 225 to 230 solid cam should get you in this range, even though both will rpm higher then the hp peak that I have set...

I'll tell you what I'm planning for when I get my camaro.

383 stroker LT1 with a t56. This should get at least 325 HP to the wheels, and still get at least 20 mpg even with 4.10s. Of course I'll be upgrading heads and valvetrain to match the added cubes.

Hope this helps a little.

If your concerned about gas mileage, then definatley go with the fuel injection LT1 setup. I agree with pdq67 about the cam selection, and a stroker LT1 would be cool, because you'd have the extra cubes and you'd get awesome torque for the street. Just my thoughts.

Thx Toad,

Eh, "Toad" makes me think of the little brother in "American Graffitti" and the hopped up '58 Imp.

I got to drive my buddy's stock, 250hp, '58 Imp. once across country about 35 or 40 miles running about 125mph!!! Boy that sucker would go for a bigger car... pdq67

Does anybody have any wesbites or other info about installing a LT1 in an old car?

Paul, and that reminds me of the 58 convert I had w/348 and 3-2's. Sigh.

Originally posted by Nigel West:
Does anybody have any wesbites or other info about installing a LT1 in an old car? Talk to your GMPP dealer. I'm pretty sure they have a book with instructions and the correct wiring harnesses to put a newer LT1 style fuelie motor into an older car. Its not that bad of a job from what I hear.