Top end rebuild suggestions

[Badass70]

Looking to upgrade my heads and cam in a rebuilt stock bottom end 302. I have a 1406 edelbrock carb, and a endurashine performer intake. Honestly this is the first time I'm picking this stuff out, and want a mild street car nothing radical. Looking for suggestions, I looked into the top end kits from edelbrock but I already have a nice intake. Trying to keep it at a budget but don't want junk either. So open for suggestions thanks

 

[lethal289]

Hopefully monkeystash will see this if not, send him a p.m. Hes the local cam guru. If you want a touch better cam, and you are not interested in hearing any lope, the performer cam from edelbrock is just a little better than stock. I will say, i went with it in my 289 (331 bottom end) and have hated the decision very much. In fact i have a much more aggressive comp cams cam on a shelf in the garage waiting for some time to be put in.

 

[monkeystash]

Top end rebuild suggestions

Thanks for the compliment Jake, although I'm not really sure it's true.

Anyway, I'd look at heads first. You'll need to stick with a 1.90" intake valve due to your pistons (with 1 exception.) Consider the E-Street from Edelbrock with a tight budget in mind. Duane, blue65coupe, has them on his car. If you have more money, consider AFR165s. You could also even do TFS twisted wedge, even though they have 2.02" intake valves. There are also cheaper iron heads out there like Windsor Jrs and GT-40s, but your performance gain will be less. Once you choose a head, then consider your cam choices. YMMV.

 

[Badass70]

Well I considered the e street heads but would rather go with a decent cam. When my trans went I had them put a shift kit in and a bigger stall 2200-2600. How would edelbrocks rpm cam match up to the e streets, the performer intake? I'm not looking for alot of hp just somewhere in the mid to low 300s, I thinks that's plenty for a cruiser.

 

[Horseplay]

If your budget allows you really should be thinking about changing out your heads. A great cam can be very limited if the heads don't allow the engine to breathe well enough to take advantage of the new profile. At bare minimum you need to get a good valve job done on them and some port work. Stock SBF heads just do not flow well.
A decent set of aluminum heads will not only flow better, they will lighten the load and might help keep your intake charge a bit cooler.

 

[Badass70]

I should really rephrase that I'm lookin to match my intake with new heads cam combo. Cam has to have some lope but not to the point where it sounds like its going to stall so something mild. If this helps also I have patriot mid length headers. I just really need to pointed in the right direction.

 

[Starfury]

I think you're going about this backwards. You're limiting yourself with your intake and 'lope' requirements of your cam. You need to be looking at your end goal, not preferences you have for the individual pieces.

Stock heads are extremely limiting. Any cam you choose that's more aggressive than factory is going to be strangled by the itty bitty exhaust ports on those heads. At the absolute very least, you need to pull the heads and port match the exhaust. With that done, you can pick up a slightly more aggressive cam built for low- to mid-range torque.

Which Performer intake do you have? The regular Performer, or the RPM? If it's the regular performer, you may want to consider switching to something like the Weiand Stealth. The basic Performer manifold is only slightly better than a factory 4V manifold and will be a limiting factor in what kind of cam you can run successfully.

Don't pick cams based on "I want it to lope." That's not how cams work. A lopey cam lopes because it has a lot of valve overlap. It has a lot of valve overlap because it's designed to provide power at high rpm. Putting a lopey cam on a motor that won't breathe at high rpm is only going to get you a car that has poor throttle response at low rpm and disappointing power at high rpm.

Basically, build the top end as a system. Pick a goal. Do you want a torque monster, or do you want a high-rpm screamer? You can't really have both.