I'm trying to decide what kind of motor to put in my Scout, as its getting to be about that time. I've got a 350 block bored .30 over, that I had planned on turning into a Tuned Port Injected 383 Stroker. BUT... it seems a little bit steep to spend like $600 on an adapter to make that bolt onto my 727 Tranny... so I was thinking about building a 345, I've got 2 of them laying around.. was thinking about maybe :

.60 Over, Isky Cam, etc.

Just wondering what kind of horsepower, and torque levels I'd be reaching... I was going to put an 800 stall in the tranny for the low end grunt, and if I'd built the 383 I have a Comp Xtreme cam with a power range from 600-4600... so thats along the lines of what I wanted...

What would you guys do? Anyone got a 345 thats pushin a lot of ponies? I've got 44" Boggers, and 5.13 gears, so I'm gonna need some grunt, especially low end.

Matt "Taz" Green

Clean the heads up and install BB cheavy valve springs, do whatever else you have in mind. low rpm grunt-wise, the binder motor will walk all over the SBC. Also in that is the durability. the 345 will still be kickn long after you'd have to rebuild the SBC.

Originally posted by lilgreenscout
Clean the heads up and install BB cheavy valve springs, do whatever else you have in mind. low rpm grunt-wise, the binder motor will walk all over the SBC. Also in that is the durability. the 345 will still be kickn long after you'd have to rebuild the SBC. Don't you get tired of that I do.

There is a shit load of HP hiding in the heads. Here are a few Before and After porting shots of my exhaust ports. The intake ports are Huge so leave them alone. I'll start looking for my results from desktop dyno. I ran a shitload of different cams and came up with a good High Performance 345 plan.

BEFORE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>AFTER

BEFORE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>AFTER

OldScout has some perdy lookin' heads!

You can make enough power out of a 345..

I ran the DDyno figures against my 345 when I built it.. nothing special about the 345, but DDyno estimated it out at about 346lbs-ft/286hp through the manifolds, or 385/340hp with some headers.

nice n' flat curve, too.

345, .030 over, decked .040/.042, heads milled a little (.010), ported, LS6 valve springs, Isky 262/262 grind camshaft.

Seems like it has plenty of zip, and it doesn't mind 5k+ blasts. Nor does it mind running 3200-ish RPM for 12 hours straight while towing another 4000lbs of Scout behind my Scout through the Rockies.

85-octane pump gas.

OTOH, I have a 304 that was built to put the 345 to shame.. and it does. Estimates are pushing closer to 400/400.. and still pretty flat. Comes on just under 2,000rpm and doesn't stop pullin' until the carb stops suckin' at a bit over 5300rpm or so.

Funny thing is, when I start estimating for the 392 for my crewcab.. it comes out around the 400lbs-ft figure. Fortunately, it'll run on 85 though. :)

Just cubic dollars..

If I were going with the Chevy solution, I'd use the Chevy trans & t'case.

TH-700 and an NP208 perhaps.. cheaper to have the driveshafts made than buy something from AA.

Originally posted by tsm1mt
OldScout has some perdy lookin' heads!



That's what she said Too!:D :D :D

and if you stay with the binder motor its not another generic small block chevy swap....

With all things equal, most engines have no problems making 0.9 Horsepower per cubic inch and 1.0 foot lbs per cubic inch with simple cheap mods. So for a 345 that's 310 hp and and 345 Ft/lbs.


BTW Any one claiming more than 1.25HP/cubic inch on a street engine is almost always full of it!. There have been a few newbies in chit chat with Cameros and such trying to tell every one that they are getting 1.30 hp/ci out of a SBC and driving it in traffic! Total BS!

Like Old Scout said leave the intake alone if you clean them up you can lose some of the low RPM torque and you also lose low RPM torque by installing a long duration cam. If it were me I would just clean out the EX ports and install the BB springs and run it on FI with a stock cam (or close to)


just my $.02