I been thinking what I want to do with my car for the future.. If I want a 5.0 based car or a 351 based car.. I want it as a street car mainly, maybe an occasional trip to the strip.. I do want to procharge it sometime in the future so keep that in mind.. What all is your opionions?
I picked 351W, but I think you need to clarify what you're looking for budget wise and goal wise. If I were building a cruising car, I would do a dart based 331/347 with a mild cam and a big turbo on it. I built my '92 as a 2-3 times per month cruiser so I had a dart based 427 built with a ~200 shot of nitrous going on eventually. Street manners are ok, but it really wants to run at least 1800 rpms to avoid any surging/bucking.
Idk I was looking at the Trick flow top end kit which says its rated up to 360 HP. I think that would be good for a N/A setup till I got the procharger.. Idk I want close to 400 N/A and then possibly close to 500 with the sc...
id go 351 that way you can have a very good solid foundation to build upon for along time where as if you went 302 then its possible that you could always want more, just my 2 cents
if you are going to build a motor that makes 500 rwhp then start saving for a dart block right now, my advice is do it once rather than putting $4000 into a stock block only to have to replace it.
If i could go back i would have went with a 351 sportsman block... alot of people dont realize that if you are already buying a dart block then it costs no more money to go with a 408/427. And with a dart block you can have a 466ci small block. A strong 408 with the right parts will make 500 rwhp all day and put a turbo on it and you have a 800 hp street car.
People will tell you "Build a 331/347 so you can reuse your balancer/flywheel etc etc..." but if you are building a serious street motor wit say a 0 balance crank then you cant use that stuff anyways
Save your cash, build it once, build it right, and most importantly BE PATIENT. Take it from me, i did alot of things the wrong way 2 summers ago in an effort to just get my car running and i had to pull the motor out of the car and do things the right way, which wasnt fun or cheap
I would go with a 351w. Of course I am partial to it though.
I have a 351w in my 68 coupe.
I have a 351w that I'm building for my 90 GT.
I have a 69 351w with forged internals for a later build. (turbo maybe?)
The 302, as good as it's been, is being replaced in the 90 by the built 351.
It's okay though, it will live on in either my 63 Fairlane or my 87 coupe, probably the Fairlane. I'm itching to get that thing on the road.
I'd shoot for a 331 or a 347. In naturally aspirated form, a 331 will take you into the low to mid 11's and the 347 will take you into the 10's. Of course, that's if everything else is up to par and it's built/tuned right. Building the 351W into a stroker is fine too but you'll have to change all of your brackets and may have hood clearance issues.
My brother's N/A 331 stroker made 390 rwhp and 362 rwt and he's running 11.40's @ 120. He drives it on the street regularly and even drives it 2.5 hours to the track and back. It has excellent street manners. I also have a friend that has a naturally aspirated 347 in his Mustang and he ran an 11.10 @ 126 on his first trip down the track. With that MPH, he's sure to be in the 10's next season.
If you build it and tune it right, you may not need a Procharger!