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Rebuilding my tbi 350

@THEFERMANATOR Do recommend you stock ratio roller rockers or something else with the cam you suggested?

The Clearwater heads sound like the way to go, more meat should mean less risk of cracking.

Would I have to upgrade the intake and tbi right away? Only curious since I dont have many miles on my current injectors, I also have heard the 454 has idle issues on 350 engines.
 
tanman_2006 said:
@THEFERMANATOR Do recommend you stock ratio roller rockers or something else with the cam you suggested?

The Clearwater heads sound like the way to go, more meat should mean less risk of cracking.

Would I have to upgrade the intake and tbi right away? Only curious since I dont have many miles on my current injectors, I also have heard the 454 has idle issues on 350 engines.
Click to expand...
There's no need to run anything more than 1.5:1 rockers. Vortec, swirl ports, and even the hybrid heads all pretty well max out airflow around .500 lift. Vortec heads were specifically designed to flow almost max at .400 lift so GM could run a small cam with them. You could run your stock intake and throttle body no problem. i only mention upgrading them because they would be limiting peak output instead of your heads. As to some saying they have problems with the 454 tbi unit on small blocks not running right, I think this is from lazy tuners. GM turned out THOUSANDS of 4.3, 5.0, 5.7, & 7.4's in marine use, and they ALL got the same TBI units bolted on them. GM used the same 2" bore throttle body and 85 lb/hr injectors for low pressure, or 45 lb/hr injectors for the high pressure systems. And they had zero issues with any of those engines running/idling poorly. Even the 4.3l running 40 psi of fuel pressure on the 45 lb/hr injectors(comes out to around 110 lb/hr by increasing the pressure) would start, idle, and run just as smooth as could be asked for. So I don't see why others have problems on the street.
 
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The more I've thought about your build, the more I would lean towards using regular enginequest ch350c heads. Everything I've read says they fixxed all the GM shortfalls and improved the exhaust ports as well as screw in studs coming standard. Run the edelbrock performer eps 2716 intake with a tbi adapter plate(and by goi,g this route, if you decide to run a 454 tbi unit, all you have to do is bore out a 1/2" thick adapter plate instead of boring an intake). You may have to rework a bracket or 2, but it wouldn't be a hybrid compromise head/intake setup, but instead a proven combo. There isn't much feedback out there on the hybrid heads, and the only tbi build I could find was said to have alot of problems(I found many people with them in boats with carbs that said they loved them, but the negative reviews about tbi concerns me).

A&A midwest is the company that builds and retails the heads. They're priced about the same as clearwater, and are in Arizona I believe. I would hate for you to get this combo together, and have it not run right is all.
 
That looks like a decent price on the enginequest heads considering they put lt1 springs in them. I'm sure there is other good cams, I can only speak from my experience that this particuliar cam has an excellent power band, plays nice with stock fuel injection, stays under the .480 lift limit, and pulls like a son of a gun. It's power band is a bit weak below 1500, but at 1500 it starts pulling, and just keeps going all the way up to redline in the trucks I've put it in. I know alot of guys like runni,g the gm hot cam, lt4 cam, and other aggressive cams which are fine for a sport truck, but when you're building one to tow, match the cam's power band to where you'll be running, and not go with a cam that has no guts below 2500 and wants to wind up to 6500. I don't know about you, but I don't know many engines that are long lived running those rpm's while being worked.
 
Been a little while on this one.

After buying the vortec 454 truck I sold the 4 bolt block and 383 kit with original intentions of an ls swap (might try it eventually). I came up with a low mile 5.7 vortec that had the edelbrock intake and new heads for $600.

Figured I'd throw a cam and headers on and be done with it for a little while. This 454 project likes to break as often as my lml it seems.
 
Finally started pulling my engine out of my parts truck. I will be keeping it tbi, the engine is out of an 89 k1500.

I need to get a clutch and flywheel, what pilot bearing is suggested? The in put shaft is pretty clean, only a small groove.
 
If there is ANY damage on the input, run a bronze bushing. The rollers will not last unless the pilot area is PERFECT!
 
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