Hot 355 suggestions

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Gambles

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couple strokes and a heart attack later my dad can't work anymore so I stumbled into a hot 355, e-street heads, cammed, port matched 2900 worth of machine work and assembly and roughly 4-5g overall it sound later, motor needs a intake manifold dizzy 6al carb or efi and the oil pump and pan and valve covers, I will need some kind of stand alone tcu to run the 4l60e I just had rebuilt last year, or a new tranny. But it seems I cant get it registered to street drive it after I do that unless drive it 4 hours every year to get it inspected where my pops lives. Need some input I feel like I'm skewed in what I should do I don't want to get rid of the motor but for what he's got in machine work for the 500hp area (what the machine shop claimed it should have) I could get a 6.0 stick a cam in, 411 swap and have all my factory stuff running and probably even have better fuel mileage and power.. and it would pass inspection everywhere...
Am I crazy with my thinking that ls swap would be the better way to go even though I have a beautiful hunk of metal sitting in front of me? I almost completely finished my escalade interior swap so I still want all my gauges and stuff to work and would like to not have to cram a big tach in there pillar gauge pods cool though... just tough to decide which way to go, and there's always pulling my heads for machining, cam and do internals and turbo my 305, I got my comfortable daily driver (bimmer) old school (63 sport fury) and I want my truck to look sick be comfortable but still go run off on most stuff, I could always stick the motor in a 240 or something but that would put me to 5 cars and I already have trouble with parking what I have.. sorry for the novel, just looking to see about if I'm correct in my thinking, maybe even a push in one direction or the other...
 

Gambles

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I think someday is already I can't bring myself to even post it. I know it doesn't need to go in the truck for emissions reasons but I'm still thinking finishing building it.
 

df2x4

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Screw emissions. Make the drive for inspections. You will not be sorry. Keep that project alive.
 

Hipster

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My thoughts, because I've been there. Sometimes too hot is too much for a driver. You didn't post much as specs but 500hp out of a 355 I'm thinking 11.1+ compression and pretty stout/large cam. A good quality or custom built converter to make it work better on the street then just some bs stall converter.. Finicky tuning and gas quality blah, blah. Makes it not so much fun to drive regularly. Big cams give up low end right where a 5k lb truck needs it. 500hp is a pretty tall claim for a 355 but if that is what it makes you'll find every other weak point on it and break it. When you grenade a trans it can take the crank thrust bearing with it and wipe the crank. 4l60's are not exactly known for strength and I hope you're trans guy didn't toss in one of those $50 crash/bang shift kits. Just saying.......sometimes you're better off leaving the race car parts for the race track. Throwing a super hot engine in front of a bunch of stock stuff is a recipe for disappointment and a very expensive way to learn.

Like to know the cam specs if you have them. Maybe talk to the builder. Maybe a different cam or detuned a bit might work better for a rig.
 
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Gambles

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Yeah, i dont honestly know the specs are on the cam, I was looking at a circle d with about 2800-3200 stall that's what he had written down it needed, tranny man gave me a break down of the parts list, back then and my other tranny from work said they were all good parts and he would have gone the same route. Been sitting on the motor about 6-8 months now tried to get ahold of the shop that built it to get all this info and come to find out the dude that owned the shop passed away, and shop shut down.. go figure
 

Hipster

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With a degree wheel and dial indicator you could measure it out. They're suggesting a 28-32 converter it might not be as wild as you think. I'd be tempted, for the cost of a head gasket to pull a head, cc everything and come up with the actual compression ratio, get the actual cam specs and run it all through a DCR calculator to find out if it will even run on pump gas without detonating itself to death. I'm still of the thought 500hp from 355 cubes is a hard number to hit naturally aspirated without some max effort heads and serious compression. E-streets would not have been my choice to hit that number.

The engine isn't buttoned up. It's all right there, could even slide the cam out to pull the numbers off it.

You won't really know until you get some measurements.
 
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slowburb

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Daily driver duty and cruiser/bruiser duty are two different things. My understanding is that this is not intended to be a DD. Yes, cam and engine specs are good to have and know, but they shouldn't have much bearing on putting this thing together. If this is what its stated to be, 500 fwhp may not be that far off, if its fully blueprinted and balanced, properly clearanced, and all parts planned to work together. We can safely figure that it's not done revving at 5000 rpm, so even if it needs a loose converter, it will still have plenty of tach before its out of breath.

YOLO. Do it.
 

Gambles

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Yeah it's far from dd, but my no means is it going to be a track car, it might see one occassionally but I'm not trailering it anywhere. and I recall him saying it should turn over 6k no problem, I'm not looking for dyno numbers I really don't care as long as it runs good, I figure with some 4.11s I'll be able to run most of the stuff running around Fort Worth atleast light to light... and if not I'll give them hell and go on,
 

retorq

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It's a non roller lifter cam with single springs in the heads, it's probably not all that wild. Also seems to be a Vortec block setup for a roller cam that wasn't rebuilt as a roller. I would pull that cam gear and see if there is some numbers stamped into the end of it. There is a shitton of parts missing from it for the machine shop to claim it's anywhere near a 500HP engine.
 
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