I have a couple of engines that I cant decide between to use.
One is a 79 350 bored .040 over with flat tops the I would like to put vortec heads on..I know I need a new intake so ther goes 200 bucks right off the bat.
The other is a 99 vortec 350 with the roller cam&lifters in it..It also needs an intake!!
I'm using all factory tbi stuff on one of them and I want to know which one you'd chose for the best bang for the buck.....The 99 would be a stocker and the other will be getting a new cam also BUT it wont have the roller cam that I think is sooo cool !!! I want snappy power with enough grunt to pull the 38's at around 8-900 rpm so I can crawl a little easier!

A roller came would be nice. But to take advantage of the design you really would need to change the cam in the 99 for it to work to its full potential. What I'm getting at is both motors seem like they would cost about the same to build until you take into acount you want to stroke the 99 :eek: I would look for a low duration big lift roller came for the 79 and get a edelbrock TBI intake and maybe a bored out throttle body and run that. Stroking motors is big bucks, I don't even know what you would need to do to a 400 crank to get it to work in a newer design block.

:also for the cam I would try to stay close to stock duration of a tbi motor to not mess with the computer

Of the two engines you listed I would choose the 99 350. However if you really want lots of torque at low RPM find a 454..
Put in a RV cam set the CR at 9:1 with FI.

Rocktoy, I said stocker, not stroker!!! I had to go back and read what I wrote again to make sure!!LOL!! Thanks... I've about decided to put the vortec heads on the 79 engine and run it for a while to see what I think about it...My question really, was I want to know if the 99 would be a faster reving motor with the same output as the 79 is because of the roller cam...Less friction means more power right? I had a 98 z71 the ran very well, but it also has the vortec injection on it..Thats hard to compare to the tbi...Oh yeah, I'm running a custom burned chip in it right now along with a throttle body off of a 454, so I cant get much bigger than that I dont think!! Thanks again for the replys!