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I decided to move forward on a "beater" motor for my '68 Bee and stash the original 383. I had another '68 383 block laying around so I dropped it off at my not-so-local anymore machine shop back in the high desert. Another moparts member made me a great deal on some .030 1.320 CH Diamond pistons, I picked up some BBC 6.700 K-1 H-beam rods on clearance from Wiseco, and ordered a 3.915 B-Motor crank from 440 source. I plan to run Eddy heads so this setup will yield 451 cubes at about 10.5 compression. I want to keep a somewhat stock appearance so I plan to run the factory HP exhaust manifolds and 2.5" factory style 440 exhaust. The 383 had a Performer RPM and an 800 Edelbrock AFB so I'll be swapping that setup onto the 451. A fresh coat of turquoise paint and a 383 pie-tin will go a long way to hide the true nature of this motor.

Question is, is there a better "manifold" cam out there than the old .528 MP solid? I know Andy's "manifold" 471 ran best with that cam & this motor is really just a smaller version of his 471. That was a few years ago, has anyone actually run something that works better?

FWIW Gears are 3.73 & I plan to drop the 3000 converter to about a 2500 converter



After reading and re-reading Andy's "Lobeology" article and talking to Dwayne Porter a couple times, I'm contemplating going with a custom Comp grind for my 383/451 to try to improve on the MP .528 cam, maybe get a little more lift & get the lash down to the .016-.020 range. One option is to run a comp xs-282s solid on 112 centers. Another thought was to run a pair of comp 6581 MM lobes on 112 centers. The "net lift" specs with 1.6 rockers are as follows:

MP .528: 241/241 .535/.535 112 Lobe centers
Comp 6581/6581: 239/239 .557/.557 112
Comp xs282s-12: 244/252 .537/.561 112

Anyone run the XS282s with manifolds?
Do the MM lobes survive on the street? I was planning to run EDM lifters, is nitride required too?

Or am I overthinking this?

FYI-For heads I'm going to run Porter Racing prepped Stealth Heads so I can have straight plugs.