[68Stepbed]

Several years ago, Car Craft magazine did a 307 build that always peaked my interest, and I've wanted to build a similar setup. I'll try to find the article, but for now, here's a the basic recipe.

307
Vortec heads
250ish advertised duration cam(RV style or one step higher)
aluminum intake(vortec specific)
600 cfm carb(the Q-jet will be great also)

The combo made 315hp and can't remember torque numbers, but it wasn't shabby.

Keep in mind the 307 is a short stroke engine. Basically a 283(3.875 bore) block with 327(3.25 stroke) crank. This means it needs to spin a bit higher to reach max torque. Also, the 307 was an "economy" engine that was literally only intended to be put in base model cars/trucks. They have terrible heads with large combustion chambers, and poor flow characteristics! In fact, that's what gave the 307s a bad reputation as gutless turds.

Now, because of the shorter stroke, an RV cam or slightly bigger, will still have a decent lope at idle(enough that experienced ears will know it's not stock) and still keep the optimal torque range where it's useful.

Combine all this with the proper gearing(3.73 would be perfect) and you'll have a fun little cruiser that will impress even the hard core 350 guys.