Twisted: this build is designed with bigger intake/carb /exhaust in mind from the get-go, I'm just not there yet. To get the basics sorted out (and the rest of the car street legal and driving) I wanted to start with stock intake and exhaust, fully aware they would be big bottle necks. Still, I expected more from this stage.
TJ: The 2bbl is an intermediate solution, I happen to have a couple plus now I have a spare stock intake to modify. Basically a free test to see if a bigger carb/more cfm would make a clear difference. If it doesn't get ANY better, then I have no justification to spend money on a 4bbl and intake for it.
I am not expecting 500 horses, lol. I am expecting "a result" from each mod, I don't have any real world expectations per se, never built one of these before. I have built several other engines, more than I can count. This one interests me, one reason being that for a "Huge" displacement engine (by my european 4-cylinder background standards), this lump made NO power to speak of in stock form. So I wanted to see how much more I could make, without changing displacement or force feeding it. It had to be choked down by design. So I/we all here, are removing the bottle necks, and letting it breathe.
I COULD do all kinds of big power things to it, and for the money spent, I could have a REAL nice V8 in it making 3 times more power than this thing ever will. In maybe two weekends. It's not about that for me.
What I learn from this project, I might one day apply to a 292. If I learn that it's pointless to try to make more NA power with these engines, then I will just go turbo and call it done. Or turbo and add some of the tweaks and mods that seemed to work well in this project, pick the best ones.
I also know that a 3 speed trans would help acceleration tremendously and let the engine stay in the power band better. Also a higher stall converter would help. But if I did those NOW, I could no longer compare my engine performance to what it was before. It wouldn't be comparable because the gearing would have changed, for example. I want to know what this engine could do, with EVERYTHING else being stock.
This in mind... I'm not impressed yet
But I'm not done either. Now more than anything, I need TIME to work on it. It seems to be hard to find.
And yea, a 4 door 1970 Nova will never be a quick car. I have no rational explanation as to why I am doing any of this. But I don't need to explain that to you guys
