[novaderrik]

well, it is a budget deal, and the price of an O2 meter buys a lot of gas. or a cam that will allow the use of less gas.
i appreciate the suggestion, tho. sorry if i sounded ungrateful.

 

[gnicholson]

I must have been particularly grouchy when I posted that.Sorry about that.

 

[travis g]

I would seriously consider a set of -193 TBI 350 heads for your monte. These heads are worthless for performance, but are actually perfect for what you are trying to do. They have a 64cc chamber IIRC, and a swirl vane in the intake port to promote strong low end mixture turbulence and swirl in the chamber. The biggest problem with the 76cc smog heads like you most likely have is very poor low speed mixture turbulence. David Vizard has done some interesting tests in the past comparing 2 similar motors with the only difference being the chamber size (76cc vs. 64cc), with corresponding pistons to create 9.0-1 compression on each engine. The 64cc heads have a very strong torque advantage right off idle (per Vizard, due to much better mixture motion at low speeds), with the 76cc smog heads having a slight upper rpm power advantage due to better unshouding of the valves. This was with a pretty small cam too...a comp cams 252 high energy grind.

Use a stock gm iron q-jet intake manifold...no other intake made can touch it on torque production under 3000 rpms.

Use a small, single pattern cam with a 110-112 lsa. Under 206@.050, such as the 252HE, crane 260 energizer, isky 256 supercam, etc. Dual pattern cams usually cost a bit of torque at low rpms, no matter what heads are on there.

I've got mountains of info on building engines like this, as this is the kind of stuff I have been primarily building most of my life. I've got a couple more projects in the works now and will be doing a bunch of extensive mileage/performance testing on both vehicles starting in the next month or so, and it will all be budget stuff.

If you have any old PHR magazines, there used to be a series written by Doug Marion about mileage and performance with some really great technical info. The project econo-performer monte carlo was the big one, but he did some other stuff as well (camaro's, malibu's, etc).

 

[Guest]

I would love to try this little-bitty solid lifter cam in a small engine like my 283..

250/210, 104/108, .440" net lift..

And you might even use a pair of 137 or so cc intake port/60 cc chamber, little valve, 283 Power pack heads too!!

1.375" to 1.5" 4-tube really long headers and even that old E-brock, SP-2P I mentioned earlier.

But right about the Q-Jet intake like Travis said!!!

Be careful tho b/c it's been proven that you can make one suck soooo gooood at low rpm that the DCR goes right through the roof IF you use a small enough cam and these other tricks to try to make it more eff.

pdq67

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[gnicholson]

I think properly worked the small chamber heads I mentioned earlier would work well .The newer heads with the swirl dam might be better though. Like paul said ,to small on the cam and induction,exh. will make it ping like crazy.

 

[novaderrik]

i was really thinking that if i do redo the 350 that's in it, i might get a set of the 305HO heads- i've got one good one and on cracked one...
i know where i can get a set of those later smog heads for nothing- but i like my tall polished GMPP perimeter bolt aluminum valve covers too much to get rid of them, and the $120 for the adapters buys a lot of gas or most of the cam to get this done...
i don't have an iron qjet intake, but i've got the aluminum one from the 305 in the 86 Caprice, the Weiand on the Monte, and a 2101 performer to choose from. i should probably take the qjet that's on the car off- it is the Edelbrock 850 RPM qjet, and really is set up for a 400hp 355. that might be a big part of my crappy mileage right now, but it got good mileage (25 ish) on the stock 307 in my nova..

 

[Guest]

Fwiw, 305HO, -601 heads are real winners for the smaller engines if your CR. doesn't go to high, imho!!

pdq67

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[gnicholson]

The rpm q-jet is pretty rich.The idle and transfer circuits especially. Probably easier to get a later model stock one and go from there. The aluminam q jet manifold is good.

 

[vrooom3440]

I am not sure about the merit of tuning solely by vacuum gauge. I agree that a higher vacuum indicates a happier engine but this may not be exactly the same as an efficient engine. For example wouldn't a maximum power AFR produce a higher vacuum than a maximum efficiency AFR?

The benefit of the wide band O2 is that it will tell you exactly what your AFR is. Now ignoring mixture distribution affects, this allows you to tune more precisely to the lean edge of operation. Which is where economy is found.

It also provides much faster response allowing troubleshooting of transient affects that can arise from lean cruise setups. And because cruise involves both idle and main circuits you will need to be able to do transient tuning to maximize efficiency.

 

[ak 67SD]

Switch to biodiesel-get a 350 diesel out of an olds and get free fuel from restaurants....

a