My v8 conversion thread, With pics, progress, questions ect!! Options

[Andyrew]

So making it official I am making this my one v8 progress thread, I will possibly post questions about the conversion elswhere, but my progress will go here.
Anyways, the story..
Knowing that I needed a new engine, I searched for some conversions, finding a few, then falling through, I ask about a v8 conversion, two guys here generously said that they will help and sell me some of their stuff. Together I will be able to make a nice conversion on a very limited budget. Here I will take the time to thanks Scott K and Steve H for what they have done and what they will do.

Anyways with that, I then went to pick and pull and found a 305 engine from some later car. We look all around and cant find an engine number.. Hey, its a v8, we need to pull something, Lets just do it (im very glad I said that..)
We then get the engine home and I plop off the valve covers and find that it has 350 heads(via the number), hmm.. Interesting... So I go and find the block number look it up. Sure enough, its a 350 block. Well thats not enough for me, I take it apart check the bore, theck the stroke, Yuppers 4in bore, something or other stroke, Yup its definately a 350! Whats not known is why it was in a 305 car.. So checking the pistons dad says there high compression, I wouldnt know any better.
So then talking about radiators, Mike Mueller kindly offers me his (very large) aluminum radiator for cheep. I take him up on his offer and drive to his house to see his garage packed with neet toys! Thanks mike for the walk through! We enjoyed it!
So we go home, and later in the week(yesterday) I start taking off the pistons, I get one off and clean it, trying to find an overbore number.. Cant fine one Check the bearings, they have .0005 on them. No clue what that means...
Anyways, while taking out the rest of the pistons dad stares at something for a second, laughs, and shows me that it is a 4 bolt main. So, now where very curious to why it was in a regular family car.. 84 or such.

Anyways, enough with the gabber, heres my list of pics..

[skline]

Good luck with your project.

If you have to go with a different crank might step up to a 400 crank and build a 383. Or step down to a 327 crank. I might be able to hook you up with a set of TRW Forged 11.0:1 327 pistons for pennies. Replace the cam with something with a little more hit. Call up Summit and snag a cam with some balls and really scare the neighbors.

With a little time and a little extra money you can really make a sweet motor. Might try and find a set of aluminum heads on ebay or at a local machine shop for cheap too.

Scott, I assume you are aware that the fuel pump you have will be loud as hell? We ran a few of those on race cars and they are noisy. You may have to fab some sort of isolator to cut the noise. When my Holley blue was mounted in the trunk I could hear the pump over then engine at idle.

Whatever you do, unless you want to spend lots on a 930 or G50 trans, do not use a 400 crank and build a 383, that would put out way too much torque and you would rip your trans apart the first run. I built a few of those engines and the cheap one I built put out over 450 pounds of torque. The roller one I built made 535 pound of torque with 475 HP. I may build one for mine later after I aquire a transmission that will handle it. That is what the 350 in my garage is for. But that is later on. Aluminum heads would be a plus as they are a lot lighter, but you are trying to do this on a budget, I would stick with a set of 305 heads with the smaller chambers and get larger valves installed or just use the heads you have and get used to the V8 performance first.

As for the fuel pump, I had heard they were a bit loud, I was thinking of using the stock 914 fuel pump mounts is I can find another one and using them, they are about 1.25 inches of solid rubber that I can bolt to the body and then mount the pump to that. Hopefully that will quiet it down a little.