I have a 350 from what is supposed to be from a early to middle 70's Delta 88. I'm hoping someone can tell me exactly what I have. Number behind water pump is 395558 and then a 2. Number under no. 1 cylinder is 36X193076 and number 8 on the cyl. head. Would the 5A heads on my 307 be a better head than this. Just curious. Thanks Larry

 

It's a 1976 350 from a delta 88. You can make a decent engine out of it but in stock form it is a dog. The 5A heads will make it worse.

 

The good news is that 1976 was the last year of the solid main web 350 blocks. The bad news is that your smog motor has pistons with large dishes and the 80 cc chambers so CR is low. You'll want early 350 heads with 64-ish cc chambers. You'll also want a decent cam and an aftermarket intake. The basic block casting is the same one used from 1968 -1976.

 

In one respect it is actually better than the 71-72 350s because it has the 14 cc dish pistons. As Joe suggested, pop on some early 350 heads, milled a tad, Cr will be around 9 to 1. Add a cam in the 210 @ .050 neighborhood and intake and exhaust, and your have a fun little street car. Gear and converter will help, too.

 

Honestly the 5A heads are ok from idle to 4000. You need either early heads or flat top pistons and an exhaust bowl port and mill on the #8 heads. I picked up two 76 350's with great bottom ends and compression. They were well built and were so detuned that they couldn't hurt themselves.

 

Ok now that we know what this engine is what cam would I want to stick in to make this engine perk up a little. Don't want a race engine just a good cam a little better than the stock engine that it came with. The car has to the best of my knowledge a transtar convertor with what I think a 1800 stall with 3.73 and a 200r4 trans. This set up is in a 83 H/O. Just want a good driving car with good throttle response and manifold vacuum. I thinking something in the form of a rv cam. Any suggestions? Thanks Larry

 

see post #4, captjim nailed it including cam specs

 

If you are keeping the stock #8 heads, there is not much you can do. Something VERY mild, 205 @ .050 and .440-.450 lift.

 

First off, I would step up to converter that stalls a bit more, low 2000's would be good. Contact Cutlassefi, he has low compression grinds with very tight lobe seperation. I ran the crappy performer grind in the same 350, similar converter and 3.42 gears. Was good for mid 15's with ignition issues. A cam from Mark (Cutlassefi) would do much better.