349 CI on the cheap

Jack,
After talking to my transmission guy HT and Kenny Ford my converter guy they both said that the transmission and the converter should be OK. Kenny said that the worst that could happen is it would have stripped the input spline out of the converter hub. They both said that if the transmission would pull or move the car that it would be OK. Hey thats what I have these guys for, they really know there stuff when it comes to transmissions and converters. Anyway now that I know that I'm planning on staying with the 344 engine, instead of going to the big block.

This is the way that I'm going to redo the engine, so hopefully I won't have this happen again. It's going to be more on the street side, but with a bigger cam. I found pistons that I'm going to remachine but will only yeild 10.7:1 when machined. Then I'm going to use a comp cams 290-A, which is the same grind in the 322. It has .540 lift and 255 @ .050, what this will do is allow me to build cylinder pressure and run a lesser comp piston. Thus giving me more V to P clearence and maybe not have to valve relief the piston but .100 max. If that. It actually showed more TQ and a bit less HP. I'll lose about 60 HP but the TQ gains about 10 ft. lbs., but hey thats not a bad trade off considering that the compression will be 10.7 verses 14.96, and the duration will be 255 @ .050 verses 275/272 @ .050. Either way I'm still looking for 6 second passes or 10's in the 1/4. The nice thing is I already have a tuneup for this cam and head, and intake combo. With lots of data.

Anyway thats the direction that I'm going to be going. Hopefully I'll have it back together in the next few weeks. Also too the weather won't be changing that much as it will be cooler and the wild swings of temperture won't happen.