Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 350 chevy rebuild advice

Use Fel-Pro gaskets...

doesn't pay to go cheap on gaskets or bearings.

Nope...

That's why we're still having issues with leaky intake manifold gaskets.

Your unique situation w/ the school's machine shop makes rebuilding seem attractive. But my own choice would be to find a deal on a factory crate motor, or at least a long block plus heads, brand-new. Lots of HP choices. That is, if the truck was otherwise worth keeping.

It was mentioned earlier. In your situation, I would be looking at the stroker kit, and a cam perfectly suited to YOUR application. Turning that 350 into a 383 with an appropiate cam will gain you significant torque and horsepower for a pick up application.

3.55 gears in the back is not a bad deal, as long as you are not trying to tow five ton trailers. The proper cam for the application goes a long way toward making your gears work.

For about ten years my "farm truck" was an 84 K5 Blazer. It came with a 305, a four speed manual, and 2.72 gears. I towed a trailer with three cord of wood home from the mountains several times a year, as well as four horses in a stock trailer, and the flatbed with 4 tons of hay on it.

The second year I owned it, I transplanted a 350 into the truck. It came from a 71 Nova and was stock except for the cam.

A local shop had a computer program where they keyed in the application parameters. 2.72 Gears, 255-85-16 tires, four speed tranny, typical tow weight-up to ten thousand pounds, engine size- 350 cid. Then they sold me a cam for the application.

My Blazer got 8% better mileage on the highway, better performance all around, and an incredible increase in torque with the increased cubes, increased compression, and a cam perfectly suited for the application.

Thanks for all the advice guys. I guess we'll see what the situation is in January, if I can do without the truck for a few months maybe I'll tear the engine down and see how it looks. I'm definitley not looking for huge horsepower gains.I believe these motors put out something like 200hp in stock form,so I imagine it wold be considerably less by now. If I could frshen it up and maybe get and extra 25 ponies out of it,or at least some good bottom end torque, I'd be happy with that.

I don't know if that 4L60e in there is original, I can hardly imagine that it is. Either way, I imagine it'll need some attention at some point too, and extra power would only hasten that day. Maybe I can do that on my 3rd year and have a truck that'll last many more years,for relatively cheap.