My son is looking to improve the performance of his mopar. He already has an edelbrock performer intake and carb. The motor has about 150k on it. He's not looking for a total rebuild, maybe do some head work, cam, and headers.

The motor is out of a 1976 gran fury. He installed it in a 78 cordoba. The last owner put in an aftermarket stall converter. We guess its about a 1800-2000 rpm stall.

What should he be looking for in a cam? What would be a good set of headers that will still give him room so the plug wires don't get burned? Is there even such a thing as headers that are mopar friendly?

 

well the first thing i would do is look for a set of heads that will raise the compression up,like 906's and put harden seat in them. 400's can be a very potent street engine.

 

He may already have the 452 heads ( or is it 451, I can't remember ) but they are basically the same heads and the 906 with hardened exhaust valve seats. I'm not familiar with that particular body to give you a recomendation on headers, but you can get angled spark plug boots. Most custom, performance sets come with both straight and angled boots.

Check the compression on each cylinder. Get your baseline comp. ratio then work from there. Putting in a big, lumpy cam with low compression will only hurt your performance. If you can, mill the heads and intake to give you better compression...about 9.8 if you can. ( though, there, you may be looking at a full on rebuild. )

Knowing little about the internals of your motor, I'd recommend the performer series parts ( intake, cam, and 600 CFM carb ) Depending on what you want to spend, you could always pop for the edelbrock heads, cam/lifters, intake and carb. Headers and 2.5" dual exhaust with an X pipe will give you a nice running motor, IMHO.

Now...if you wanna talk full on rebuild...

I say STROKE IT!

j

 

Hughes engines has a cam for low compression motors. Headers are easy to find. Hoooker part### 5117 i think

 

I dont think throwing parts at a 150k motor makes any sense.

 

I agree 100%.... Do it once but do it right..... JMO....