A little story first. In 1990, I was 15, until December lol. I bought a '78 Camaro, it was a basic 305, auto with 2.41 gears that was "Dark Blue-Green Metallic" with a Willow Green interior. Someone put a 350 in it. The body was pretty bad but I really wanted the car so I paid $500 for it. About 5 years later we replaced every panel on the car except the roof, deck lid, some of the floor and front windshield and rear window. My dad had to fab up a replacement for the right rear frame rail. I had it painted a dark maroon color and changed the interior to red. I didn't mind doing all this. I knew what needed to be done when I bought it. And I learned a lot.
I also built a SBC 406 w/10.5:1 comp., Crane Solid Cam (244/252 @ .050, .518"/.536" lift, 106 LSA), Dart Sportsman II Heads, Weiand Team G Intake, Holley 750 DP, TH350 with a 10" 3800 stall conv., 4.10 gears, 3" 2 chamber Flowmasters that dumped just in front of the rear end. The car went 12.50's at 106 to 108 MPH without me knowing how to setup the suspension or really tuning it. My 60' times were almost 2 seconds. I know it would have gone faster. Above I said that I learned a lot, I did. I learned that I didn't really like driving it. It was way to loud, rode like crap, turned horribly, all it did was go fast straight. So I kind of did a sell/trade and got rid of it.
The last 4 or 5 years I wanted to get another car from the late 60's to late 70's era. In July 2009 I found my current '78 Camaro, "Dark Blue-Green Metallic" with a Willow Green interior. . .same car that I had. It was a done deal and it's in a lot better shape then my first one was in too. I'm going to keep it the original color and make a true daily driver out of it. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep the willow green interior or change it to black. The guy I bought it from started to change it to black, so it's half way there.
The engine wasn't to strong though. So I built a mild 385 stroker for it (.040" over). I wanted a engine that made a lot of low end torque and mid range power that was very street friendly. So I bought a Scat Internally Balanced Rotating Assembly with their 3.750" stroke 9000 series cast crank with 6" forged rods and KB forged pistons. I also bought Summit Vortec Heads which are made by Dart. With the RPM intake, 650 AVS carb. and the 262/268 Voodoo cam it's just what I wanted. It makes a ton of torque, pulls strong up to 5800 RPM. Works great with the rest of my setup. And pulls 20 inches of vacuum at idle in gear.
Driving at 30 to 40 MPH or so, it'll drop down into 1st gear if I step on it and lay a set of stripes until it shifts into 2nd and it gains speed. If I nail it from a dead stop, it's almost as bad as driving on snow, it just sits there and spins the tires. Then it drives as mild as my truck if I drive it normal. I'm very happy with the cam. I might go with a set of GMPP Small Port Vortec Bowtie Heads down the road. They flow really well at low and mid lift levels up to .550" lift or so. I've read that they work really well up to 6000 to 6200 RPM in 350/383 engines. They'd probably work really well with my cam too.
Sorry for the long rant, NYH1!