Hard to tell until you tear it all apart.
First off,,, Look for a crack on the front of eng block, drivers side head bolt.
Unless the cam bearing are falling out, the cam bearing bores are probably OK.
Camshaft, scrap that & get a custom grind. Stock camshafts are anemic, no performance value at all.
You got it right, keep it simple, stay w/old school tech, crank up the boost & you will be happy w/that old cast iron 250.
Just buy some forged pistons @ the minimum for being able to handle some detonation.
When you get the block, head & crank acid dipped & magnafluxed, that will tell you what is good or not.
" On pg. 176 of the Power Manual it is claimed that a 250 @ 8lbs will do between 275 and 437 hp. Is this is inaccurate?"
Sounds very reasonable to me, to get that would be easy, just need the correct mods to get to 437 HP, but 275 @ 8 PSI no problem.
What was Tlowes make shift 250 w/5 psi turbo engine make? 340 HP?
MBHD
