When I bought the old girl, the previous owner had removed all the rear seating. I love that it looks like a heavy conversion van on the exterior but it only has the front swivel buckets inside and the walls and headliner. All the heavy rear seating was already removed to turn it into kind of a plush cargo van. I am about to build out the interior and take it on the Hotrod Power Tour in June.
That 10.25:1 mildly cammed 350 with aftermarket vortecs, the port fuel dual plane, 1,000 cfm 4150 throttle body, and headers is a potent combination even with the stock TH400, the stock GM "high stall" TH400 converter that was behind the TB 305 and the 3.08 rear. I can launch it with the open differential fairly hard too. Bring it up against the converter, walk it off the line and get all the way into it at 10-15 mph. Gpes like a bat out of hades for what it is. I need to mess with the TH400 governor a bit more as it tends to bounce the 5,800 rpm rev limiter a couple of times after I drilled the outer weights to make them lighter and swapped the inner weights and springs for lighter TCI ones from an old governor recalibration kit I had laying around. I would like to get it shifting at 5,500-5,700 at WOT leaving the 5,800 rpm limiter. I think I am going to try the drilled outers and stock inner weights and springs. I have all the stock weights inclusing outers and inners and the stock springs in a ziplock in the top drawer of my toolbox.
I have scoured the junkyard listings, ebay and the like for the past year to try to find a 454 TBI G30 air cleaner duct and I have yet to find one. I have the much larger 454 air cleaner that is van/rv specific and hope to find the darn rubber intake duct someday that matches the larger air cleaner with its 2x as large snorkel. The stock TBI SBC air cleaner and ducting is pulling about 1.6 in/hg vacuum at 5,500 rpm.
I decided not to run the aftermarket setup, it is a very tight fit in the van engine bay and I do like the more stock look underhood.
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