Half-Price Hardware: How To Build A Budget 347 Stroker Motor
How to build a fun-time 347 for about half the price of an all-out race engine

By Tom Wilson
Photography: Tom Wilson		    
     
Horse Sense: The newest part on this budget engine is the Funnel Web intake manifold from the Parker Company. Probe/Coast hasn't run this intake, nor have we, so it'll be fun to see how it does on the dyno next month.

Some magazines make a living screaming headlines about Junkyard Warriors--we're not one of them. Like everyone else who's been once around the high-performance block, we realize there is no such thing as pocket-change racing or even sterling street performance. Speed costs money, and that's that.		  

 The trick to real-world budget performance is learning what you can live without while getting your speed fix. For example, the goal here is to build 500 hp from a small-block Ford and not go totally broke in the process. By not going broke, we have to swallow once, take a deep breath, and admit it still takes $7,733.06 to build a turnkey 500hp engine, and for that we aren't going to get everything. We'll have to give up the last word in durability--no bulletproof aftermarket blocks--and there is little budget for extensive hand-porting or expensive systems. Such an engine will have to be built from off-the-shelf pieces, and nothing exotic at that. And while six or seven grand is still a pile of money, it's a long way from the $13,000 to $14,000 it takes to assemble a full-on forged and Dart-blocked race engine these days.  

Severo Diaz, known as "Pinto" around the shop, gives the budget 347 engine a final couple of checks. While not a low-buck engine, this 347 takes a stand in the reasonable dollar range while still reaching for 500 rowdy horsepower.
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