Pontiac 305 Engine Thoughts

A friend of ine has an 82-92 Firebird in his yard that he wants to be rid of. It has the 305 V8. I would only want the car for the engine and transmission for a possible upcoming project.

After a little research it seems that it isn't a real high horsepower engine (165hp). Does the torque make up for it? Are there cheap ways to up the hp on these?

It's your basic smog era small block Chevy engine, Pontiac had stopped making their own engines by then. Upgrades are as close as the nearest Summit Racing catalog.

E36 M3 can the 305, and drop an elephant block 350 in it, should bolt right up, and itll be allot more fun... it worked with my canary yellow 79 , instant transformation from wheezer to winner

You can make 'em run cheap. Ran 2 with success. Small bore has very low detonation tendencies There are small chamber and large chamber heads available cheap. You need to determine which piston you have. The 80's version have better heads. the late-70's version have better shortblocks. The cam are junk. It's a SBC, it will respond to all the normal hop ups. If you need to rebuild it, buy a 350.

The only reason I'm considering it is because it's free. The engine and transmisson would be going in a different car.

Not a firebird fan personally.

I don't think I would bother building up a 305 when you could start with a 350 instead and end up with a lot more engine when you were done.

I just sold a 400 2-bolt with a knock for $300. With a line-bore and a rebuild, it will be a desireable engine, but not as desireable as an LS motor. I was lucky to find a street rod builder who wanted an old school SBC.

As cheap as small blocks are going now, a 305 is only worth becoming a mock-up engine. Look around for a 350 or 400 if you really want a decent engine. As cheap as accessory brackets are, you don't even need to save these-whatever you want to put an SBC in will need different brackets, anyway (and probably oil pan, water pump, etc).

By the time you make a 305 strong enough, you could have had something better (and worth more for resale).

Take the car to a recycler. It will be worth that much of your time, but not much more.

I'm not so much worried about resale. I have a project idea up my sleeve that I would like to build for REAL CHEAP.

I'm really just looking to get up into the 200hp range. Could I get that fairly easily with intake and exhaust work? I was thinking about putting a 4brl carb on it and fairly open exhaust.

I should also mention that this would probably be going into a challenge car project.

A proper cam and intake set up will hit 200 pretty easily, unless the compression is too low.

Torque wasn't great either.

They're pretty much embarrassed in every way by the Ford 302, which isn't saying much.

Seriously, are we trying to talk this guy out of taking a free Firebird just because it comes with a crappy engine?

I'm very disappointed with you people.

If it all works then with a edelbrock intake manifold, basic Comp cam, and dart iron eagle heads you should be over 200 lb-ft and hp easily. Any more work than that and you'll be caught in the might as wells...

While starting with a larger displacement engine block is a great idea that block has to be filled with all kinds of stuff. Heck the cost of the block, cleaning, testing, and making sure all the holes and planes are round and straight would put you darn close to a brand new block of your choice displacement. The key to the 305 is cheap and all the extra stuff you get like belt drives and distributor and water pump etc.

Start with a working cheap engine and don't go too far...

or

buy a basic crate engine.

The trans probably won't handle more than 300 hp without serious work so keep that as a ceiling and have fun.

Just FYI...that firebird should have a 4 barrel carburetor on it now. It's got some electrical on it...and so does the distributor.

The L69, H.O. 305 was pretty good. The LG4 was the base V8 and was good for making V8 sounds.

If nothing else, it can make a good running "placeholder" engine.

Clem

I'm not familiar with Chevy engines. How do I know if it's the L69 or LG4?

I did find out the the car is either an 87 or 88. I have not seen the car up close as it was rather wet the other day and it would have required walking through weeds, mud, etc and I wasn't wearing garage type clothes.

I'm mostly familiar with the earlier stuff since I've had a coupld of '83s. '87 or '88...I think they still had carburetors in ''87...not sure about '88. The thirdgens were offered with V8s that had carburetors, TBI, and TPI. '87 or '88...could be anything. On the chevy front...the Tuned Port (TPI) was only offered in the Z28 models, though not all Z28s had TPI. It's a real crapshoot...

If it's not trans-am, I suppose it's probably a low-po engine. Check www.thirdgen.org for more information than you can stick a shake at.

Clem

I had an '87 T/A(in 92)and it did have a carb....and yes, it wasn't good for much more than V8 sounds.

I really wanted a 5.0 Mustang at the time, but the T/A was all I could afford.

Hmmm.............It may end up being a placeholder engine then. If I do the engine swap and get all of the non-engine bugs worked out I should be able to swap in a 350 later with very little work.

Next question. It hasn't been started in a while. What all would you do before trying to start it up?

jwdmotorsports wrote: Next question. It hasn't been started in a while. What all would you do before trying to start it up?

Drop in a battery

The 305 H.O. was not a bad motor.... Not much horse, but a good amount of torque, and responded to the usual hopups nicely. I'm not saying it's a big block beater by any means, but it'll move.

My 83 Z28 had no problems embarassing mustangs.