Hello all
I have decided to rebuild a 71 455 from an 88 will go into my 70 cutlass, now on the farm I have rebuilt engines but always back to stock. Would like to juice things up a bit, is there anywhere I can find a detailed spec sheet indicating things like use these heads install this cam this intake. I start looking at performance parts and there are so many different models that will fit and I want to make the right choices, anyone have any suggestions.

 

This all depends on how much horsepower you want. How fast do you want to go and how much do you want to spend? What's the gears in the rear end and what tranny are you using?

 

I understand money and what I want to achieve is a big part of a rebuild, if I was looking to achieve 450hp what would be a good starting point, I don’t want to buy a set of heads and have an oversized, intake or to small of a carburetor or too big of a carburetor or make the mistake of installing the wrong crank or cam, this is the stuff I’m after. What would be a good combination? 3500.00-4000.00 budget

 

71 motor will have too low of compression at 8.5. You'll want 9 or 9.5:1. So higher compression pistons. I'd go with 2.07 valves in the heads. Maybe some pocket porting if you can do that yourself. If not it can get expensive quick. Performer intake is about as big as you'll need but might not be worth much hp over stock. It's a lot lighter though. Headers are a must. A roller cam is more expensive but there's hp in it. The cam needs to be matched to your rear end gears in addition to the rest of the motor. I'm not being specific because there are many opinions on what it will take.
Here's a link for an idea: http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...d/viewall.html

 

Thanks this is the stuff I’m after; I definitely see how things could add up

 

I was shooting for 450hp when I did my 71 455 and I came pretty close. I used ebrock heads , torker mani, Holley 750dp carb, flat top pistons .040 over and a matched hyd cam. About 2k in machine work and assembly and all small stuff added up to about 6k.

 

http://btrperformance.com/maxperfolds.html

A must read.

 

And BOY oh BOY does it add up.
The most important thing you have to remember is 'NOT A CHEVY'.

My 6K motor ended up being right around 10K.
Unless you do the majority of the labor, I say NO WAY to 3 or 4K..