I’ve got a 78 Firebird that I’ve had a Chevy 350 in for a couple years now. The engine is pretty near stock. I’ve been looking at upping the performance with a new cam and heads for a while now. Been doing tons of research too. I’d just like to hear from some people with more experience with these engines before attempting this myself. I have a lot of experience working on cars, but this’ll be the first time I’ve ever taken an engine apart.

It’s been about 8 years since the engine was built, the car was hardly driven in that time because I was away in college for 4 of them so it’s a bit hard to remember what how exactly it was built, but I do know the block has been bored out slightly.

I’m looking for a new cam with optimal performance around 5500 rpm with not much over 500ths lift and a set of matching, better breathing, aluminum heads and hydraulic lifters. Something with high light, low duration.

I would like to know what people’s preference on suppliers & manufacturers are and what their experiences have been. Ideally, I’d love a kit, or just one supplier that I can get everything I’m going to need from. When looking at parts, I just find myself getting lost in all the slight variances. I’d like to be able to confirm that whatever heads I end up getting will match my block. I’ve got the casting number. I just need to know what I’m looking for on the part of the heads so I can see everything is gunna match up nicely. Or are these engines really that universal where all it needs to say is “small block Chevy” and it’ll line up?

I’ve also been researching how to actually do all the work required myself, and I’ve seen a lot about degreeing a camshaft. Do suppliers make make camshafts that can be installed out of box, or is degreeing a procedure that’s specific to each engine?

Any tips or things to look out for or extra things I should consider are greatly appreciated.