yeah 350's little brother is hated for sure. Heres what I did, unorthadox as it seems........you decide for yourself. I own a 1981 GMC Caballero diablo (elcamino). took the 305, bored .030 over, had a 400 chev crank turned down and installed. Took the stock #416 casting heads and fully ported and polished them including the chambers. had 1.94" intakes installed in place of the 1.84" intakes. Had a custom camshaft ground for it, a knock off of a Isky 270 mega cam. Up top is a old school torker single plane intake and a 600 cfm.....all breathing through a set of hooker super comps........well, no video yet but the beast screams.....it has awesome throttle response, i have not taken it to the track yet season not open as of yet up here. it is a winner and built on a budget. for your merc, this thing will turn many heads. the cam is on a 108 lsa and lopes heavily. Hope this helps, those who have seen this car run have been totally impressed with it. it is small on the cubes but so was a 302 zapper. to each their own on which engine to build, i had this kicking around and wanted to see what its potential is..and so far im tottally impressed. Future plans are running a higher than 9.5:1 compression, slightly bigger camshaft and vortec heads.