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Original Message
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| I'd guess you would be adding about 50HP. |
| By Dave Shoe - 04/25/2003 8:33:26 PM; IP 216.243.176.34 |
The cam is rather mild, so headers won't help as much as you'd like. If there was more cam overlap, the exhaust tune would be more critical, still a free flowing header will help, and the excellent intake upgrade will also make the headers more useful. The mufflers won't really do diddly to performance until you get a wild cam.
The intake manifold was an excellent choice with stock heads (or otherwise), and it'll let you wind the engine up as far as the cam will allow. The carb will also help, though you can expect a bunch more power with a nice easy performance cam kit. The carb is big for what ya got, but it'll run great and you can grow into it as more things change under the hood.
A cam kit is not that cheap, as you MUST replace the lifters with ANY new cam, and new springs will also be in order to close the valves at higher RPM the new cam will allow. Since the stock valve retainers are cheap stamped jobbies, you'll need to replace them (they're a part of the cam kit anyway), but the valve locks and grooves in the valves are not properly positioned for performance valve retainers, so in go new valves and locks. Only the pushrods and rocker assemblies can be reused if you upgrde the cama little.
It sounds like you'll be having some fun this summer. Perhaps the next step is not a cam, but is a set of gears that'll let your engine wind a bit quicker. Some 3.25:1 will be a nice start, 3.50:1 if you don't mind it revving a little on the freeway (still fine cross-country), and 3.70:1 if you plan to add a cam and get competitive.
If you do get competitive, you'll find the engine needs to be gone through, as lotsa nagging things start to happen when you start twisting the block more than usial - things like leaks and creaks. If you plan to drive in spirited fashion, open the block up and get to know the condition of all the parts. You don't need to replace everything you see, but you need to know what the baseline condition of the engine is, so the NEXT time you opo it open, you'll recognize whether anything is changing (wearing) in unusual fashion.
Just rambling,
Shoe. |
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