Here's the car after the old 350 was yanked:

The old motor:

Goal for the new motor is 450 rwhp all motor and 11.99 or lower second 1/4 mile run.

This is my new NA motor on DeskTop Dyno 2003:

Many of my friends, family, and my soon-to-be wife think I'm crazy too. Mainly because I built this motor in my bedroom! It was the only clean, fully concrete room in the house.

Quick specs:

4 bolt main block with ARP studs everywhere possible ARP bolts everywhere else
4340 Forged Eagle 400 Crank internally balanced & reground to 350 mains
4340 Ultra LW Race I beams
TRW forged floater flat top pistons
210CC Race Ready AFR heads (76cc)
1.6 pro mag rockers with stud girdles
Solid roller cam (XE280R)
Comp Cams Solid Roller lifters with rev kit
TRW (Speed-Pro) ring gapped at .022/.024
Victor JR hand ported intake with 2" 4 hole spacer
750 DP Speed Demon Carb
Complete MSD System
Hooker long tube ceramic headers with 3" cutout

I used shimmed Fel-Pro Bracket racing head gaskets that should raise my compression to 10.1:1. This is due to the compressed thickness being so small. I'm not worried over quench being to low since my block was not deck'd and I'm using the 76cc chamber heads.

Once done this should boost me up to around 500+ hp at the flexplate NA on pump gas easily.

Here's the balance card showing what the $650 in labor alone went for:

Here's a pic of my massive intake. It's a Victor Jr that I have over 20 hours of hand polishing and probably 20 hours worth of porting work match'd to my Fel-Pro 1205 intake gaskets. Note this is not a flashy all show no go intake. AFR heads are actually a 1206 Fel-Pro size, but I didn't feel comfortable taking that much material out. If this was a claimer engine it wouldn't be an issue, but this is going in my street car. I need it to be reliable and handle lots of heat cycles without worries.

The intake also has a 2" 4 hole spacer with a 750 DP Speed Demon with a 4" air filter (see why I need the tall hood ;-) )

Here's some minor port work I did to the intake. There was 4 casting ridges I think to pull the fuel and air to the center of the plenum. My spacer was very restricted with them there so I took them out with my craftsman die grinder.

Here's a pic of my AFR 210cc Race Ready heads. There made with a 2.08 intake and 1.6 exhaust valves. These babies should flow nicely with all my intake work and the solid roller cam. The heads came setup with solid roller valve springs. Also note in the picture the little disc I'm holding. I found it in the coolant passages, nice huh? I'm guessing the CNC bit was getting dull and didn't throughly cut the metal. That's why you always spend a lot of time checking over parts before installing them.

Just imagine what could have happened. It only gets worse too! When I got my Milodon Stroker Oil Pan upon inspection of it I found a small screw under the built-in oil scraper. That would have been an awesome surprise on break in.

I had to use an extension on the oil sender unit.

The motor have finally made the journey from the bedroom to the garage!

I've started to polish the accessory brackets and lost interest. I did find out there was problems using a 3 piece CompCams timing cover and a Stewart Stage 2 Water Pump with the stock driverside bracket. Basically it hit off the flange of the water pump and off the timing cover. My solution was to grind down the bracket for clearance.

I also fitted the alternator with lots of problems. The tall valve covers (CompCams Polymer Type) wouldn't even let the OEM alternator pivot into place. The stud would hit off the cover before I could even get it close to the slot in the bracket. The solution was to carefully grind the nut on the stud and the stud itself until I had enough room. Notice a trend here? I put the nut on the stud with a connector between for the right thickness and slowly began to grind away at the stud in the alternator. As that got smaller I still found out just taking material off the stud would not help, the nut was just to thick. So I used a pair of needle noise vicegrips and ground the nut down slowly. I wanted to save as many threads as possible. After checking a half dozen times I finally ended up having to grind the nut to 1/2 of it's original thickness or so.

I now have a small amount of clearance, I'm not worried over it since the valve covers are plastic polymer so there non-conductive, if I were using chrome tins I would be very worried though.

I had to make a hardware run to get the right bolts and studs for the AC Delete bracket and the passenger side bracket.

I now have the 4 AWG alt to battery and battery to engine wire ran.

The gauges (water temp, oil pressure, and tach) are all working and connected. Oil pressure went to ~60 lbs when priming with a drill.

I have the fuel pump relay jumped with a toggle switch to kick on the pump without the ECM. I tested it and it works fine.

The MSD 6AL box is connected with the coil.

I bought an '84 5.0L Camaro upper and lower radiator hoses. The radiator is connected to the motor on the stand now.

Been fired up! Motor gets 75 psi oil pressure at 2500 RPMs.

Bay has been painted!

This was the rusted K-member:

This is the cleaned K-member (Por-15 Marine Clean and Metal Ready Etcher):

Here's the glossy Por-15 paint:

Finally the Semi Gloss Chassis coat and Sterling Silver K-member:

I have a few runs, but at this point I don't really care I just want the car running again. I'm not going for a show car here. The strut area's do not look right, but I plan on doing a front suspension rebuild eventually. When that happens I'll pull the upper strut mounts and repaint that area. I just want my car back running again.

I need to string up the motor mounts and paint them (solid mounts). Hopefully I can do do that tonight along with the BMR wonderbar and front sway bar. I can't really get to the rear sway bar since the car is up on ramps. I'll have to do that one another time. I plan on trying to touch up the rough spot on that one strut area with chassis coat when that time comes.

Mounts and bars painted! Decided just to leave high gloss.

Motor is finally in the car!

The solid motor mounts:

Fender to fender clearance:

Working on minor stuff still. I have the wiper motor back on. Took me awhile to find the bolts for it. I have the harness wrapped and taped up. I left the FI connectors incase I ever want to rewire again.

To Do Check List is coming eventually...

Site Index:
Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - Current Project To Do Lists
Page 3 - The Interior
Page 4 - 2 18" Kicker particle board box (old design)
Page 5 - 2 18" Kicker fiberglass box custom
Page 6 - General Mods
Page 7 - My Z20 Special Appearance Package
Page 8 - My fiberglass non AC heater box mold (1LE version that has been discontinued by GM)
Page 9 - New High-PO 383 in the build <-- You're here
Page 10 - Glasstek Hood Repair
Page 11 - Fiberglass Box How-To
Page 12 - My Xbox Game for 1¢ I bought from the store with proof
Page 13 - SOLD! Twin 62mm T4 Turbo Kit From BBS DESIGNS for 1200 HP! SOLD!
Page 14 - To Do List before motor completion