rebuild 350 sbc to Hyd. Roller or upgrade to 383 stroker?

Thank you for that breakdown and the link. I will be sure to look at that.

 

I don't think it is numbers matching. The block is most likely original, but my dad put on 292 "Turbo" heads and a SY1 intake so he could race it and he was pretty fast. I'm not worried about changing stuff based on how it would affect the value of it, but its difficult for me because this was my dads first car that he bought when he was 15 and its been in our family ever since. My dad passed away about 15 years ago so there is a sentimental factor that weighs heavily on me when changing things.

 

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I thought about doing that but this was my dads car and I want to keep the engine, or at least the appearance of the engine, the same as what my dad had it. The engine is the heartbeat of the car and I don't want to change the heads or intake. I feel like if I buy a different engine and put it in that I might as well just go buy a different muscle car and make it my own because it would no longer be his. I know I could put new aftermarket heads and make it run harder but I want to preserve my dads car as best as I can but make it better for me at the same time

 

My thought on it is that on the outside it is the same: same carb, intake, heads, block, but inside the components will be different. I feel like if I put some aluminum heads on, it will look different. I also kinda like the nostalgia affect of it in that they were from the 70s and built for racing. I know heads today are much better and its something I might do in the future. Just right now I'm taking baby steps in changing things.

That's good to know about the CR to keep it at 10:1. I'm guessing its better to bring the CR down to make sure it runs optimally rather than keep the CR higher and have to retard the timing which could negatively affect performance. Right now it runs on pump gas but I bet it doesn't run as well as it should if tuned correctly and with the correct gas. Thank you for your input.

 

I broke a pushrod and rocker arm a couple years ago and the mechanic looked down the bore with a scope and he commented on how big the domed pistons were and said its likely to be "at least 12:1". This would make sense because my dad use to race it and I remember him telling me how he used to put airplane gas in it if he couldn't find race gas. In the 90s and 2000s before it was parked for 15 years, the only thing we put in it was premium fuel which had a better octane than today's premium gas though it still probably wasn't high enough for what it needed.

 

That is a good point. Right now the heads are black so I could repaint it to match and have a better head. As you said, I love how the SY1 looks and the comments it generates. From what I've read and learned, it does take some finessing to get it to run correctly and it likes high RPM so it may not be the best on the street. I'm hoping that by having 4.11 gears (my dad had 4.88s) and a 4 speed that it will keep my RPMs up and make the SY1 fun to have.