How NOT to build an economical or powerful 'teen

RAMM said
Oddly enough he was happy with 300hp-ish. At least its going in a 3600lb F-body with 727, 2.91's--LOL. J.Rob

You can imagine it's likely a huge improvement over what's there.

rumblefish360 said
Someone asked if the "302's" were junk/not worth it.
In fully ported form there very good for a iron head. I would only use them in a class of racing that said iron head only. Or a resto, but what car uses a 302 that you would want to resto? I don't know.

2 barrel cop cars are about the most notable thing. The 4bbl cop cars didn't even use them.

Ottmundr said
What makes the 302s crap? It was my understanding that smaller intake side increased the airflow speed, and you got better torque as a result. Just the thing I'd want on the street. Is it because they are iron instead of aluminum?

Do these 302s make me look fat? :banghead:

Flow. They don't have it. Yes, it's better than stock. If you've ported them the work would've been better spent porting better heads. You need more low-end torque if you're regularly towing over 5k- most people don't understand that most of the appeal they see in modern engines totally disagrees with this logic pattern.

273 said
Your right to a point. You always want to keep the velocity high as possible but you also want to allow your engine to breathe there's always compromises to make.

Don't forget 318 heads were actually designed with 273 size in mind. The 318 short block hasn't change much over the years and the hp numbers are pretty consistent even with the addition of the 302 heads it's only when they came out with the Magnum did the 318 gain some real hp.

So unless you like stock power your gonna want to add airflow. The trick is to extend the powerband without moving it from idle. As long as you don't go to crazy with heads it gonna give you more power without loss down low.

It's a very new idea that the 302s offer any kind of improvement. Whenever that idea is conveyed there's usually heavy port work involved. They are brittle small port castings without much material behind them- never meant as performance pieces, just workhorse stuff. The factory itself dropped the compression and added larger cams to improve performance on their vehicles. All those 318 4 barrels didn't have less compression than the E58s in SuperCoupes and LRE motors. Adding compression alone is not a good idea. That is not the best way to improve power and while it definitely helps as you're making other upgrades it shouldn't be the first priority.

RAMM said
I know you are being humorous but NO I am not saying that. Surprisingly enough the Eddy RPM Air-Gap is such a good intake even for a 318. The intake and the Pertronix distributor and carb are my favorite parts. J.Rob

I was surprised to see a very noticeable gain in a stock 340 intake over the Performer.