Gonna Build the 350

I would go .030 over on the block if you can. That will keep the cylinder walls good and thick. Well I'm sure you can get a good running

350 at 1500 bucks... A small cam upgrade would easily boost your hp as well. You want the cfm of your carb to match your engines flow. A 650 cfm for a 350ci streetable engine is more than enough, anything larger will make it doggy. Q-jets if you keep them working right are good for low and mid range rpm's. A holley is good for low and high range rpms, mid range is a little tricky. I'm not sure how good the edelbrock carbs are. Some people have luck tunning them and others... Best thing to do is to get a bunch of those 350 rebuild books and read read read. What are your head castings? 882's? Those arent the best heads. A mild (and i mean "mild") porting of the bowl would improve flow but you got to watch for cracks on any used set of heads.

A thing to keep in mind on carbs and intakes is there are spread bores and square bores. Make sure you match them.

The engine came out of a `77 Lemans and when I first installed it (back in `92) and fired it up - with only 3 feet of exhaust system hooked up (the y-pipe), I listened to it and it was doing some lobing. When I took it around the block and punched it, I almost put my brother in law in the back seat.

Before I could actually put the car on the road, I had a cam bearing work loose and a lifter was grazing up against it, causing some knocking. I tore it all the way down. I was young and dumb and put the same rings back in it. :(

After driving it, it lacked that same power that it had before - not to mention it burned a quart of oil/400 miles. I sure I lost some HP when I hooked up my exhaust system too.

All that to say, I may have more than stock in that motor. I also have dual exhaust with no cats. I won't truly know what I've got until I open her up. I'm not young and dumb anymore (at least that's what I think), so I should be able to do something good with that 350. I think I will stay with the q-jet.