to make 450 hp with a 360, you will need aftermarket aluminum head or a ported iron. making a true 400-450 hp with a 360 for street use is not as easy as the dyno guys and internet bench racers would like you to believe. it's hard enough to build a 383 or 400 to make a good street driver at 450 hp.
My 367/Barracuda went 93 in the 1/8, the one and only successful run it ever made. The Wallace calculator says this is 433 hp. Me;I don't care how much power it was making that day. I drove it there, I plowed it down the track 4 times, got my little verification papers and then I drove it home.The timeslip was for the nay-sayers,not me.
That Said, I have a recipe. It's a very fun car, and flies,around corners too.And all it took was a Zero-deck 360 and OOTB Eddies,and all the usual bolt-ons. Very simple.
I never kept track of the cost, cuz I wanted what I wanted. It did take a lot of saving up tho, over two years, while the shell was in the bodyshop 3 years . And there was a lot of chassis work:suspension,steering and brakes, involved in taming it.And of course the factory geartrain behind it, blew up several times.
Somewhere 8 to 10Gs was mentioned,(post #61) and I think that is a very modest number, and there is no allowance in it for attrition. And if you blow it up, you get to start over, there is no warranty.
If you are truly limited to $5000,I would aim a little lower; build something that won't blow up, and won't blow up everything behind it.And won't take thousands of dollars to tame.And something that lasts long enough to enjoy.
And here's a hint; The faster you go, the more power you need. Doubling your speed takes double-double the power. And most of it goes into conquering the wind. That's why it takes more and more power to hit those triple-diget quarter-mile speeds.
For a streeter that rarely tops 85mph, 433 hp is kindof overkill. But the big power allows a streeter to run less TM, and still be fun, and it covers more bases. Less power just takes more TM to get it done. TM is a streeters best friend. TM is Torque Multiplication. You can build a nice little last-forever 300/350hp 360 cuber and run a 4 speed, and big rear gears, like 3.91s or better.You will have a blast.
Why A 4-speed? Three reasons; Adjustable "stall", The right gears for zero to sixty blasts,The right gear to do the 8th with, More average hp delivered over time, And a little more fuel efficiency on those occasional screaming (3.91s will be about 65=3160) hiway trips. Yeah I know that's more than three,lol. And there's a few more reasons still.
And then there's the traction issue. 433hp and a stock rearend,is a recipe for danger. About the best you can do is 275s back there, and cornering will be soooo much fun, when time after time, you will end up spun around and facing on-coming traffic. You will learn to corner on the primaries. To overcome that, you will need to narrow the rear,move the springs, mini-tub it, and fit 295s or better back there. Total cost? IDK would 3Gs Usd cover it? And now that you've got traction, you better address the driveshaft including the yokes. And of course the clutch will fry almost right away...there's another almost 1G. And the doggone factory shifter keeps hanging up, sending your tach deep into the redzone, so you're gonna want to do something about that.Eventually the car starts to hook, but now speeds are climbing so fast the brakes can no longer haul you down, and so there goes another G and a half. And then the 225s up front give up....Now you need suspension upgrades and another G and a half evaporates. Ohyeah, and then lets talk about alignments to fit 245s up front.....meh, maybe next time.
and on and on it goes.
