cheap rebuild...possible???

bensttype said:

Is a "stockish" rebuild with great street performance attainable? Maybe Ford 303 cam Thumper heads, Tmoss or Edelbrock heads, and a balanced bottom end? How does something like this stack up in the $$, reliability dept., over one of the crate motors? Oh, Yah and it has to be able to pass emissions. Any imput welcome.
Ben

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Bensttype, I’d love to see how you’re going to run both Thumper heads and Edlebrock heads on the same engine. That being said…..you can put new rings, bearings and gaskets into your stocker for less than $250.00 (assuming you do it yourself) and have it be stone reliable. There’s really no need to balance or blueprint the bottom end afterwards either, especially if you’re running it on the street at less than 6,000rpm (which you should be).

NotchRocket92 said:

A wise man on these forums once said and I quote, "Two words that are never to be said in the same sentence, fast and cheap"

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Mostly true

NotchRocket92 said:

I don't think doing what you listed will give you the performance your going to want. And in the end when everythings put together thats the worse feeling when you have to rip it apart and re do it because your not happy with it. Try getting a bare block from Summit and stuffing it with something from DSS or Coast High Performance. For the up top buy a matched kit. Trickflow offers a kit that is right around 2000 which can't be beat. Just my .02

you could always get a crate motor from ford but eh.........

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Very untrue.

The parts above are enough for a 12-second car with good traction. That seems like a pretty good bang for the buck to me? I ran 8.95@84.6mph in 1/8 with my 5-speed LX with no more than ported stock heads (similar to thumpers), welded /ported stock intake (similar to tmoss’s), stock cam, 1.7rr, pulleys, home-made CAI and 3.55 gears, with plain old Dunlop SP 245/50/16 street tires. High dollar parts are fine and when you really want to start making power, they’re the way to go, but don’t underestimate the potential of worked stock parts. I’ve put a lot of high dollar; Visa built cars, back on the trailer at the track, just for thinking that very same thing.