hey i was looking for ideas on how to pump up my 230. its stock now and i want a way to get a bit of power out of it. I have the stock exhaust manifold and monojet carb. i was trying to find a set of headers but all i can find are long tubes and they hit the ground. any suggestions would be great.
You can replace the piston with 283 V8 Chevy ones, its direct bolt in and will boost the compression about a point ( 9.0-1) as long as they are true flat top replacements. Anything but true long tube small diameter headers won't work much better then your log manifold. The Stovebolt Engine Company (http://stoveboltengineco.com/catalog/store/#ecwid:category=412417&mode=product&product=1395980 ) makes these nice cast headers. They take a pretty big diameter pipe. Clifford makes some nice stuff, but again, some of it is for racing and will hurt your setup more then it will help. Look in to the Offenhauser http://www.summitracing.com/parts/OFY-5416/ intake, it has smaller runners for torque. Joe
Turbo-charge it! HOT ROD MAGAZINE, April, 1968. They had a 1966 Olds F85 (Cutlass) with a 250 CID six they turbo'd. 2 barrel MOPAR carb, draw through, 4-speed, 3.90 rear gears that ran a 13.32 ET at 103.21 MPH in the quarter. Another thing to do is use a 194 head, casting number 3864883, they have the smallest combustion chamber of 60-62 CC; mill the head .060, and on a 250 CID six, it bumps the CR to 10:1. Use the GM HEI six cylinder distributor instead of the points unit. Butch/56sedandelivery.
Nitrous will also work ! Depending on how many miles you have on the engine , you might want to tear it down , get better pistons , do some head work with larger valves , better camshaft , better flowing intake with a larger carb or multi carbs . Just cut the long tube headers you have and re-weld them the way you want them to flow . You can also change the rear end gears for better acceleration too . Bottom line is there is NO cheap and fast way to make HP ! More HP = more $$$ ! Retro Jim
thanks guys. i just rebuilt it so it only has 15xxx miles on it. if i put a turbo on it, where can i get it, and will i have to o-ring the head to do it? nitrous is a little far for me but i definitely want to do a 2 or 3 carb setup. i have seen several people but triple sidedraft webers on theirs but i feel like thats way too much for this engine.
bump. gotta figure this out. im looking at getting a set of those stovebolt headers and a cam from clifford. i need help choosing which size cam to get because i dont want to have to do a major overhaul i just want a bit more umph.
Too bad you didnt post before you rebuilt it. A 250 crank drops right in (with 250 pistons) and the 20 extra inches helps. Now that you have a fresh 230 a 194 head and a small cam with a dual single barrel manifold will run out nice.
i have a complete 194 sitting in my garage but its not the head that everyone wants. should i still run it?