Carburetor upgrade and intake manifold

drauhut said
great conversation. I bought a '73 dart sport in july, slant 6-225. A few weeks later grabbed an offenhauser 4 bbl alum intake for $20, then found a holley 390 that requires me to rebuild it for $150. My plan is to gradually modify the engine( headers, dual exhaust, mild cam, new ignition,shaving the heads and maybe piston work)..I still want to drive her though. Can I add these things one at a time, will the car run with a 4 barrel carb but no exhaust work?..can I shave the heads without changing the cam?...I am not (obviously) making a race car, but want the car as stock as possible, but with a little pep and a nice growl.

if anyone can give me a ball park figure and specs on headers, a cam, how much to shave the heads, ignition and anything else they may have done , or other ideas, it would be greatly appreciated

You can do pretty much any of those additions 1 at a time. Here is one possible sequence:
I'd do the manifold change and new carb first to get it all settled. You'll burn another manifold gasket when you do the head work. You may have to tweak jetting after cam and other breathing mods.

I'd do the exhaust soon after the cam (and actually as soon as I could), as you will need the added breathing to use the cam, etc.

I would forego the piston work, unless you have low compression right now or excessive oil consumption.

Then go for the head shave and work; don't be surprised if you need to do valve guides and valve work at that time. We just had a good valve job done that included a steep angle grind into the ports to unshroud around the valves with all new guides and a few new valves. $55 for parts (not inlcuding gaskets), $90 for the valve job, $72 to install and size 12 guides, and $45 to shave the head .030. (Engine machine work around here is pretty reasonable for good work so you may pay more.) You can get a whole /6 Felpro gasket set for $65.

Mild torque cam and reground lifters from Doug Dutra cost $250 + shipping from CA. You can probably get cheaper but I would trust Doug's grinds for whatever the application.

I'd absolutely change the timing chain with the cam (or even do it with no cam) due to the wear on the original chains. I corrected about 4 degrees of retarded timing in the cam just with a new chain.