Hey Guys,

Some of you may remember, a buddy of mine picked up a 355 a few weeks back with rebuilder cast pistons in it and had to do some tricks to get his dcr and scr upto par. Between that and some reading that I've been doing here(especially posts by Mike(Wolfplace)) about motors with not so great quenches running like pigs, I'm starting to think my 357 is "one of them."
</font> Combo right now is:
350 .040"
Flattop pistons(They were new parts I bought off someone at the local cruise) I was under the impression that they were forged, but Im starting to think they were rebuilder's of some form Anyway, 4 valve relief.
Resized Eagle rods with ARP bolts
Edelbrock RPM heads 64 cc
AirGap knock off intake
3310 Holley 750cfm
Cam is just a bit oversized. :D PAW SSI cam, I believe its like 302 advertised duration and .509" lift Intake and Exhaust. 108 lobe sep.
HEI distributer, blaster II coil external 32* total timing, havent a clue where it all comes in, set the 32* with the car reved at like 2500-3
Converter, unknown I assume it had some stall, came out of my 72 nova parts car that the 355(pre blown up) came out of, the car had 3.73 or 4.10 gears and an Isky 280/292 Mega Cam in it. The Nova ran good before homeboy crashed it.
Gears are 3.36 peglegs</font>
The car overall runs ok, ran a low 9 (1/8th mile)untuned with a heck of a lot of extra weight in it. But it really doesn't come alive until about 3k and with the rear gears its a dog down low. Also, the 355 with the Isky cam and the 461x camelhumps, seemed to have more power than this new motor.

Now, I have two options. The new motor was built Spring 2003, so its a year and a half old or so. During the week its driven by my mom and her work is about 1.5 miles away, so 3 miles total per day, tops the motor has 2k on it since rebuild. Plan is by about summer to buy another daily driver, this way I can give my mom her daily back and I can pull the 65 off the road.

The 357 needs to be pulled anyway. The oil pan is my stock pan from my 283, and the drain plug hole has been tapped one too many times and the pan needs to be replaced. I'm currently running a rubber "universal" type drain plug. At this time I thought to pull the heads, get the numbers off the pistons and post them here along with some measurements to find out my "True Compression Ratio(s)"
From here I would select headgaskets and probably recam accordingly, and also I wanted to replace the intake with a true Edelbrock piece.
At this time, plop a new converter in the TH-350 and also put a 12 bolt or 9 inch with 3.73, 3.90, or 4.10 gears. I want to run this combo with a gear vendors, so the gears wont be a huge deal.

-OR-

Should I start from scratch, build a 383 shortblock, add my heads and Carb(the only pieces I'd retain) and know exactly whats in it. (This meaning everything to spec, no guessing on anything this IS what it IS kinda deal.
What would be a good 383 combo? I'd want a HOT street car, and a solid 12 second motor out of it, 11's would be nice if its within the means. Now those times would be what I'd want if I were to build the stroker, to make it worth the extra expense.

How much would the 357 shortblock be worth if I were to do that? It has a cloyes true double roller and all that kinda good stuff in it too, speed pro moly rings etc.

Money is really not too big of an object. My brakes are gunna set me back around 2k, and I'd like to do the drivetrain with about 8k, if you figure 2-2500 for the 9 inch and 2k for the gear vendors about 3500 to 4000 for the shortblock, oilpan, intake and converter. What do you think?

I suppose I should mention, with the brakes will be a hydroboost, so vacuum characteristics etc are out the window. I like my 108 rough idle and stuff too.

Thanks for any and all input! graemlins/thumbsup.gif

I think without knowing your compression or converter stall speed, having 3.36 gears and that much duration with your cam your car is acting pretty close to exactly as it should by how you describe. If it has anything to do with your quench you'd think that you would experience ping on hotter days in the summer no? I dont know what Mike has said about quench but I do understand what it is and I tend to think your overall engine/drivetrain combo is the means for your head scratching. For the motor to run well I think you need less cam(-15-20* or so), more stall and more gear. I think the best thing to do is find out your compression before you decide to do anything like you've planned. Another alternative, if your compression checks out alright, is to go with a victor jr intake and more stall/gears.

Probably the best (and cheapest) thing that you could do would be to go with a milder cam, get a matching converter, and go with a 650 cfm Holley or a Qj.

Having the proper quench would help, but from the description of your motor I don't think that quench is its biggest problem right now.

Mike

It probably is best to fix the combination that I have.

I'm going with a new rear and steep gears no matter what, I'm not going to match to the peg leg 3.36's no ifs ands or buts.

The motor is "supposed" to be close to 10:1 as it sits. I haven't noticed what I would call pinging. Though the only real experience with pinging that I know 110% was pinging, was the couple of times that the 283 overheated and I tried to limp it those "few more blocks."

If I were to go with a 3.90 or 4.10 rear gear, with like a 3000-3500 stall, if I truly have close to 10:1 would that cam work ok but just be a little big?

I have no problem with just making sure the compression is up to snuff and recamming it a little bit along with more stall and steeper gears. The only reason I even thought of the 383 was if there wasn't a way to get an optimum quench (like my pistons did turn out to be garbage(aka rebuilders)) maybe I should just start from scratch.

Thanks for the input so far!