I would say, depends on what he is going to do with the car.A 496 will make plenty of torque, and decent HP but for a street car i would go with a 454. i built a 468 with big compression roller cam and AFR rec port heads. My motor made 708 Hp and 622 tq on the motor only. On nitrous it made 1006 HP. I have a mini tubbed camaro with 31x16.5 ET streets, and i have a hard time trying to get it to hook on the street.

If your going oval port heads, buy an Edelbrock RPM performer intake as well.