I remember vividly the first time I learned of the existance of the mighty GSX. I must have been about 8 at the time. I was always into cars, and the only books I would really read cover to cover as a kid were either mystery novels or books about muscle cars. I still have the book I first saw the GSX in. I've wanted one ever since. I'm the kinda guy that builds cars to drive every day. I like to enjoy them, so I'm not really a numbers matching resto type. If it's a fun car, and my family and I can enjoy it, I don't really care. That said, I have also always wanted a big block, since I don't remember when. The car in my sig, which will at some point be a GSX "clone" (sort of, I'm planning some personalization and custom stuff...), currently has a SBB 350. I've been reading about this little engine, and it looks to be a pretty impressive little beast. Now that you have a little background, I figure you SBB guys are the right group to ask... Can any of you give me some really good reasons to consider keeping the 350 rather that swapping out for the 455? My goals are a nice daily driver with 500hp or so. I want it to run on pump gas and take road trips in the summer. So that's it. Opinions? :3gears:
The obvious is that a 350 will get better mpgs compared to a big block at practicly every performance level...more so for the around town equation.. a built 200r4 would be the best thing to do if you want a good cruiser with that .67 o/d ratio...you'll need atleast a 3.42 rearend gear...3.23s might work if you use a 26' and under rear tire a typical 350 build like a 4bbl intake/carb swap, a TA212 cam, burton roller rocker mod,hooker headers with 3in xpipe system, and some biggervalves/ported heads will get would get you around 350hp or more a single turbo kit woould also boost youre powerband to where you want youre hp numbers to be along with helping with gasmilage when you cruise you can do the same to a 455 but youre around town milage is still going to be under 10mpg i'm sure while hiway may be at or very close to 20mpg if youre stricktly going to stay n/a a 500hp 455 will be cheaper and more street friendly then a 500hp 350 but again...lousier gas milage compared to the 350 if you stay with the current engine that's money saved from doing a 455 swap that'll go into the 350..along with possibly less down time when you mod the 350
so pretty much all you have to do is build the 350 to around 300-350 hp n/a and run 8spi and you'll be where you want to be with a borader powerband/more torque and better milage janis transmissions is the best to build a 200r4 if you want the o/d trans i got quoted 1800 for a fully built 200r4 with billet parts(supports about 800hp) with a core to supply him...only option i didnt request was a trans brake and a lockup torque converter(opted for non lockup) so those are two things that'll bring the price up..3 if you dont supply a core oh, and you can efi bothengines via different products which could also help in performance, driveability and mps depending one what system you opt for.
if your goal is 500 horsepower, then I would give you advice based on our experience with the red car, but the sbb only croud would get upset with me. I guess allot of this will be your budget and reliability desire.
Red car? Reliability is key. I want us to be able to take some trips with this car, so I don't want something that's going to break on a regular basis.
Good reasons to keep the 350 Buick? If you are going to Turbo it or spray it. If you stay normally aspirated, you can make the 350 run, but it will be more radical than the 455 with a milder build. I think a Turbo charged Buick 350 would ROCK. It's the 3.8 V-6 with 2 more cylinders.
I've been picturing a 455 with twins and methonol, but the reality is probably more along the line of an N/A motor built to handle those additions later on. It sounds like a 350 would pretty much need these types of add ons to achive the numbers of a well built 455 without them. It also appears that the 455 is less expensive to build with better parts availability, so at this point, I think if I keep the 350 it will just be for the sake of "doing something different".
That isn't even realistic. The 455 block needs all kinds of modifications to deal with HP levels over 600 or so. You can make that with very little boost. You guys got "Big Eyes", but you have no idea what all that entails. You can make really good numbers with a turbo'd 350 block. It's still going to cost you plenty of cash.
To turbo the 350 it will cost around $3500 or more not including the engine mods or tranny mods.. I'm just taliking about bolted on stuff. Turbo kit $2100 plus shipping Blow through carb $600 Fuel setup $500 Various hoses and such ??? Exhaust solution??? Other sh*t you never theough of??? Cool factor.. Priceless:beers2:
You will spend more money on the 350, and make less HP than the 455 with less money put into it IMHO.
With a 500hp goal, either turbo the 350, or go with the 455 swap. I think at 500hp, a naturally aspirated 350 would get worse economy than a naturally aspirated 455. With turbos, the 350 will get much better economy, and will still make the 500hp with a mild build. The guys that are telling you how expensive it is to make 500hp with a turboed 350 are the guys that haven't done it yet. Most will tell you about all the fancy expensive rods, pistons, head gaskets yada yada yada. Take a low compression 350, port the heads, put a mild cam in it, and add 8psi of turbo. 500hp, pump gas, mellow street manners. If you can't tell, I'm REALLY sick of people acting like the turbos are a big costly pain. Blind leading the blind.
By "Red" car I meant the one in our signature. It has been through a bunch of engine/tranny combo's. Here is my 2 cents worth based on info you have now provided. In my opinion, put a single turbo kit from Mark on your stock 350 and run. Like he says, no big mods required unless you want to run 9's in the quarter like my son will. If you don't want to turbo anything, then getting 500 hp from a NA 455 is fairly easy, but still costly because of the modifications required. Block work, pistons, cam, heads and head work, intake, carb etc.... The most expensive way would be to try to build the 350 to 500hp without a turbo or nitrous, and it would require quite a bit of expensive modification due to the lack of resources. Good luck with it and do whatever you want to do with it and have fun. That's the bottom line.
My 350 is maybe 375 HP and its alot of fun. Burns the tires off in 1st and 2nd gear, Sounds nice, and not to radical to drive around. I would drive it all the time if gas was not so much.
This is a realistic build for a street car. 500 horse is a number that you see people talk about, but it is a very expensive number in real life. 400 horse is a very expensive number as a for real build. Reliable goes down in street driving as the horse power goes up. Big cams sound great but can make them more of a pain around town and can cause vacuum problems for your brakes. High compression has it's issues. 350 with the single turbo kit will make lots of power, you can put it on a stock built engine (might want enough cam to get a little lope) and get very impressive results and you retain all the manors that you desire for taking the family around town. Best bet to make power while keeping it a good around town driver and keeping the MPG in a usable range. A 500 horse engine that is pleasant to drive around town is a very expensive proposition. I love big blocks, but I think the turbo 350 is the best way to get the performance that you want and still be a fun family cruiser.
I agree with Mark. You already have a foundation for a 75% completed turbo motor. If you are only adding 8 lbs of boost the cast pistons are fine. GN's had 'em. If you don't like the cast pistons, buy a set of JE GN pistons and slap em in. Add a single turbo kit and blow through carb. It would be close to 500 hp and idle like gramma's Skylark. Hell, leave the single exhaust and hubcaps on it till you get the GSX paint on it. I think this is untrue. 400 hp NA is easily attainable for very little money. You just need an air grinder, Eastwood burr kit and a hell of alot of patience. Compression would not really be a factor in your 350 as a turbo motor. I think 500 hp could be attained for no more than $400 over the cost of the turbo kit. I would spend the money you were gonna throw at a 2004R or 455 short block and just buy a gear vendors OD. Use as many parts as you already have, the thing will be stout without all the work. You would be on the road hunting LS7 vettes in a matter of a few days while maintaining fuel economy. There is alot less work this route andbetter fuel economy while being able to put the smackdown on Carrol Shelby's finest.....why have I not built one? Gimmie some time.
The guys that talk about building a turbo'd 350 seem to just talk. I haven't really seen much, and I would really like to. Has anybody actually built one(besides yourself), dyno'd it or track tested it? Maybe I've missed it. From what I see, there are a lot of guys that talk about it like it is a simple matter. It isn't, if you do it right.
There are at least 3 people besides myself that have their turbo kits and are currently putting things together, no one besides Mark has one running yet. I am taking my time, and building a foundation for a 10 second street car. Mark is building my roll cage now, and the car goes for paint in Jan. Two years ago I built a mild 350 for the turbos and it dynod at 398 hp, since then I tore it down, added the $1300 forged rods, $800 pistons, all balanced, Sonny Seals ported iron heads, Burton Machine SBC Roller Rockers and topped with a alum single-plane intake. I will be about 450 hp NA all under 6000 rpms. Adding the turbos at 14 psi will put me where I want to be, and if not I have direct port nitrous ready to go LOL. Its pretty simple, turbos are where it is at!
Like I said, if you do it right, it isn't what I would call simple. I'm looking forward to seeing your car go Sean.:TU:
I'm going the cheap and simple route. We'll see what happens. Turbo cam is in. Heads are well ported. Turbo drains are on. 350 tranny has been hardened up and is in. Yukon posi and 3.73s will be installed soon (hopefully tomorrow) . Blow thru carb is on and running great. 3000 stall stage two torque converter is in. 1.6 chevy roller rockers are on. Current gears run about 65 MPH in FIRST gear.. New engine runs GREAT. Tons of power as is. Foundation is there for 8PSI. From this point froward, should just be a matter of building the fuel system. Bolting on the turbos. Fabbing up all of the lines. Making the exhaust. Installing the wideband. Locking the timing at about 22* for starts.. That's pretty much it.. Isn't it??
I don't have the car to do one or else I would be looking at the single turbo kit that's being put together right now. There is a 66 or 67 small block chevelle that runs at PIR in Portland Oregon that was eating the track up with a turbo setup. I don't remember the times that he was running and they were no where near the potential of the car since he was having traction problems on about the first 1300 feet of the 1320 foot run. I didn't get a chance to talk to the guy about his setup, but maybe next season I'll get to talk to him. The advantage of the turbo to me isn't just trying to find a simple add on, it's the fact that you can have a car with street manors, decent mpg, good power and have a cool set up . How simple depends on what you want to do. Single, or twin turbo, inter cooler, amount of boost. Another advantage is that if the single turbo kits come out nice, it is a lot cheaper than building a 455 or 350 to 500 horse, especially when you start looking at all that other things that you need to change with the 455. Big blocks are cool and it's hard to argue against bigger is better when it comes to fun, but if you are talking about a car that you are going to drive a lot with the family, and you want to start making tons of power then you want to look at other options too. The other side of the coin that I don't think has been talked about is re sale value. Even if you don't plan on selling it doesn't hurt to think about this just because things happen. I would suspect that a mildly built big block would have better re sale simply because everyone knows what it is and respects it. With the turbo setup you might have some buyers shy away simply because they don't know turbos, they don't know how well the setup was designed and installed, and they may think of it as a big cost liability.
