How much to get an 80's camaro into 11's? maybe 10's?

[ricergribbs]

ok so im planning on getting a 3rd generation camaro (mainly due to the price) and sticking a chevy 350 in it. id prefer to stick with a carberator but if i cant find one that had it ill just go with TPI. how much would it cost to get the car down into 11's? maybe even high 10's? what would i have to do to the engine? ill be getting hte 350 out of a junkyard so ill be stripping it down and rebuilding it anyways. i was thinking about going with nitrous, is this a good idea? also, what kind of transmission/rear end would you recommend? if you can post how much you think itll cost to do this, i can do all of the labor on my own so thats not a problem. oh yeah, and i can get the car itself for about 500 and it wont need any interior or body work. thanks all.

[Jm93]

good choice of a car. but i woudlnt ecpect anyone to give you a price estimate. because it is alot of work for nothing. and your question is way to unspecific. plan to turbocharge? bore out the engine? do the work yourself? what about a tranny? new tires and rims? and so on and so on. this is something you have to figure out yourself bud.

And as a general idea of cost, take what you think it will cost with the minimums and whatnot, and multiply it by 2. there is always always something that goes wrong, or doesnt fit perfect.

[ridge_runner]

yea its gonna take alota work, not jus to the motor but to the car itself also

[1992RS]

Well to be honest, it's gonna cost you a lot. To get a third gen into the low 11's high 10's you'll probably spend at least 5 grand on the engine with parts and machine work. I personaly would go with a T56 auto for a manual or a TH 400 for an auto. You'll need frame work like subframe conectors, wonder bar, stearing brace, strut tower brace, ect.. You'd probably be best fit to find an old ford nine inch out of the junk yard too and shave it down a few inches to make ample room for some 16 or 15 by 10 wheels with major fat tires on it to keep traction. So reasonably I'd say about 10 grand at least to get those numbers, keep it streetable, and make it last more than 2 passes.

[ridge_runner]

your bout dead on with the cost of the engine

[1992RS]

Well I've built enough of them, I like to think I'm somewhat of an expert. LOL by the way ridge, is that a rivited on cowl? If so, did you put it on yourself? I'm looking into one of them, but I want an L88 scoop, way cool on a third gen.

[ridge_runner]

haha yup but mine is held in with wood screws, i jus put that on there to cover up the hole i had to cut in the fuckin hood, at one point i we had a 305 roller in it and the hood wouldnt close so i had to do a little modifing, i plan on gettin a 4in fiberglass cowl ind

[ricergribbs]

woops, sry for not specifying exactly what i wanted. well i was thinking about going n/a and then getting a 100 or so shot of nitrous. my friends uncle would help me build the engine and hes really good at it. he built my friend 454 up to 550hp n/a. and then it wasnt even ported or bored. didnt even have a stroker kit or anything. he said it wouldnt be too hard to build the 350 up to around 400-425hp. then with that nitrous id be pushing out about 500whp. what kind of suspension/chasis work would i need to hold this? also, along the lines of price, i could get a runing chevy 350 for about 300$ at a junkyard by here. id prolly only use the block from it really, then get ported heads from summit, then cams, valves, etc is up in the air. id also get their 350 rebuild kit with forged pistons. so heads, block, pistons, rods, crank, gaskets would cost me about 2000$. and then id need a carb, intake manifold, exhaust/headers, etc so lets say another 1000-1500 depending on what i get there. and then theres all those little pieces that prolly wont be working on the engine so lets say another 500 for those. so total around 4000 to build up the engine as i figure it. oh yeah and nitrous so another 500. so around 4500 to build the engine up to around 500hp. did i miss anything big?

[89IROC&RS]

if your gonna use a junkyard engine, get an R code engine from a 96-99 tahoe, silverado, suburban or GMC equivilent. because they come with the Vortec heads, which are bad ass stock, and with work can be damn sexy. do some research on them at hotrod.com carcraft.com chevyhighperformance.com and such, i have yet to see a street/strip 350 with those heads make less than 400hp with a 750 carb. and most make it with around 9.6 compression. raise the compression a bit, work the heads with a valvejob, 2.02/1.60 valves, porting work, and youd have a nasty little engine on your hands. the stock vortecs flow more air than the entry level bowtie heads from GMPP if that says anything to ya. as far as the summit rebuild kit, i would seriously look into that on specs, cuz your gonna need piston rings that will handle high hp and nitrous, and pistons that wont melt when you hit it. and rods that wont bend under the force. yadda yadda. so on and so forth. i personaly always recomend auto trannies for drag racing, manuals are more fun no doubt, but autos when properly built are faster. with the power your running, a TH350 or TH400 are the mainstays, but i think a 700R4 would handle it if you built it right. as ive said alot of times on here, i built mine up with a B&M transkit rebuild kit, with a stage two shift kit, corvette 1st to 2nd servo, and had it done by a ASE certified GM trans tech who also builds performance transmissions on the side, and he did all the little things he knows about. so i have absolutely no fear of running a 450hp mill behind it all day long. but thats just me. soon its also going to have a B&M megashifter on it, this is how i recomend setting up an auto if you go that way. rear end, a locker or torsen unit gets my thumbs up, and i cannot stress enough that the suspension is where the speed is lost. everything 92RS said in that regard is golden. the stiffer the chassis, the faster the power gets the ground, the faster you pass the lights at the end of the tunnel.

[Zwrangler]

since when have you decided to buy a camaro ricergribbs ??????
just 2 days ago you put up a thread asking what kind of import you could buy and how you were hell bent against domestics. what changed within these two days??

[ridge_runner]

i have a good 700r4 and a turbo 350 with a 3000 stall if anyone is interested....

[ricergribbs]

zwrangler i guess you didnt see the last reply on that post from me. i said that im gonna go with the camaro because obviously the imports were too much $$. and i wasnt hellbent against domestics, just that i would highly prefer an import since i liked that style more. but hey, speed over looks no? the camaro seems to be my best bet in bang for the buck type of thing, and since i have very little buck well... you get the idea.

[1992RS]

why don't you spend 5grand and build a 500hp n/a engine and 500 on a 100 shot of nos????

[ricergribbs]

well there wont be much else i could do, i mean the only things i could think of are port, bore, and/or get a stroker kit. im still debating weather to get the normal rebuild kit or a stroker kit though. and the heads i would port eventually, but not at first. and i dont know about boring the block. what kind of gains would i see? lets says the 350 already produces 400hp, what kind of gains would i see if i bored it out to .030 over? .040 over? .060 over?

[1992RS]

there is a post somewhere on here I put up that had a run down of parts and prices to build a 500hp engine. I'll see if I can't track it down.