Forced Induction 5.0 questions...

[LLama]

Well, I'm ignorant to this stuff.. and need some help... got a few questions.

1: A stock 302... how much boost can it handle day-to-day safely?
2: Any recommendations for a good 306 rebuild kit that will allow for more boost? 306 even worth the $?
3: What are the weak links that needs to be upgraded for more boost?


Right now... I've got a stock 302 from TB to exhaust manifolds out of my car. I do want to go forced induction, either turbo or supercharger. I've got a trickflow upper/lower/spacer in my hands right now and plan to probably go with patriot 185cc heads, or ported gt40s. Exhaust, mass air meter, throttle body, cai, and tuning are all going to be taken care of as well...

Thanks...

 

[LAFENATU]

Well, I'm ignorant to this stuff.. and need some help... got a few questions.

1: A stock 302... how much boost can it handle day-to-day safely?
2: Any recommendations for a good 306 rebuild kit that will allow for more boost? 306 even worth the $?
3: What are the weak links that needs to be upgraded for more boost?


Right now... I've got a stock 302 from TB to exhaust manifolds out of my car. I do want to go forced induction, either turbo or supercharger. I've got a trickflow upper/lower/spacer in my hands right now and plan to probably go with patriot 185cc heads, or ported gt40s. Exhaust, mass air meter, throttle body, cai, and tuning are all going to be taken care of as well...

Thanks...

Boost is nothing but a measurment of resistance. A car that makes 12 PSI with a stock head, would probably make 8 PSI with a TFS/AFR/Edelbrock head. I would not judge the strength of the motor by PSI but by RWHP.

A stock 302 can handle 450-475 HP safely. Anything 500HP or more is a ticking time bomb imo.

The weak parts of the 302 is the block and the (1993+) pistons. The blocks like to split in the lifter valley a lot of the time.

The Patriot heads are garbage, the quality of parts and quality of the casting is horrible.

If your budget on heads are $900 or less, I would look for a nice set of used AFR/TFS/Edelbrock heads. I have seen each of those for around $900 before, or as an alternative as you mentioned...I would look for a nice set of GT40 iron heads. There are plenty of stock 93-95 Cobras running around making 450 with GT40 heads.

I would just look into a rebuild kit from DSS Racing or Coast High Performance, make sure you get a nice forged piston. You can even use a stock rod and crank if you want.

There is no real upgrade for more power, you can get a main girdle but all that is going to do is save your internals from a block breaking.

 

[LLama]

Thanks! Exactly what I needed...

I may just get rid of the trickflow upper/lower/spacer and get gt40 intake/heads...
Any write ups or know anyone that will port the heads?

Can you recommend the best cam for an application?

I've got a fox body short block sitting around (87+), actually it's int he for sale section... Maybe I'll just build that into a 306... would that be worth the money? 450rwhp sounds like a realistic, cost-efficient goal if the stock block will hold up reliably... What should I keep my rev limiter to when I'm tuning?

I'd really like to break the 500rwhp/tq mark... I know I'll need to go with a 31spline setup to handle that in the rearend... I'm going with a foxbody t-5... how do you think that's going to hold up? Anything that I can do to make it tougher?

Sorry for all the questions... just want to do things right, thanks again for your help.