Quote Originally Posted by Nsanu T View Post
Thanks Matt,

About 200 hp with pretty good torque (needed for a suburban) is about what I am thinking for this.

Sounds like the heads are good for boat anchors?

Since I would like to be in mid 11s, I figure I need 350 hp or so. How I do it for 2 grand or less budget?
'87-'95 Swirl port heads are junk for performance. they are great at what they were designed for, and that was low end torque. they are out of steam by 4k RPM, but do pull very hard up to that... I think 350 hp for $2k is reasonable.. if you can get ahold of a nice set of workable vortechs for $50-100 out of a junkyard ( '96-'00 5.7L truck ), you should be able to have them worked for much less than the cost of a decent aftermarket set. those along with a new cam matched to the compression ratio ( will bump to 9.4:1 IIRC ) and the RPM you want to run in, and a good intake, and it would probably be there