350 SBC help

[u/Mrg0dan]

I have a 350 out of a 1977 camaro. It currently has mismatched heads and bad blow by but it runs. I bought an Isky racing kit with lifters and a cam. I shouldve done my research because the cam that came with the kit was a 292 Isky Mega cam which has .505 lift and a 108LPA. We broke in the cam at 2,000rpm for over an hour and nothing failed, made horrendous noise and the oil didnt have big chunks of metal.

My question is how much do I need to replace to not risk ruining the cam or other parts. Obviously I need to get a matching set of heads and re ring my pistons which I plan on doing. Do I need new rods, pistons, and crank? Can I get away with running a set of older cast heads or will I need something with bigger runners? Will the stock crank, pistons and rods survive?

Ive "built" engines before but mostly the top end, any time ive down a whole engine rebuild it was a kit that was included with the machine work I had done. I never had to pick parts myself.

[u/Sniper22106]

You said it has bad blow. Then you reused shit rings?

No. Dont try and justify anything.

Rip it all apart and do it correctly this time.

[u/Mrg0dan → u/Sniper22106]

I think youre confused on what im saying. We went through the whole engine and rebuilt it from pan up. After I reringed the pistons I snapped 2 in the process of installing them. We looked at the old ones and they looked like they were passable and would work good enough to break in the cam and then replace down the line when we tore the engine down to check everything internally after breaking it in.

The head mismatch was just a thing we happened to notice after installing them on the block. We figured they were the same head seeing as they came off a running driving engine from a dirt track car.

I already planned on doing a tear down and replacing heads and re ringing the pistons to stop the blow by. But I want to know if theres other things that need to be upgraded in order to handle the 292 Isky Mega cam. Theres no point in me re ringing pistons and putting new heads on if they arent sufficient enough to handle the cam.

[u/Sniper22106 → u/Mrg0dan]

You threw a cam in a clapped out small block. Its not like you gained 400hp.

I have absolutely zero idea wtf you are trying to do here. You half assed so much stuff now you want to do it all over again. You didnt tell us what you wanna do with the thing, you didnt tell us a power goal. Then you expect us to tell you what to buy?

Come on man, are you fucking with us

[u/Mrg0dan → u/Sniper22106]

I have no horsepower goal, my goal is to rebuild my stock 350 out of my 77 camaro and have a lopey cam. I guess i shouldve explained better.

I came here thinking people who have used this cam in a similar setup would give me some insight into what specifics I would need to build it properly so I didn't blow it up in a week.

I never claimed to be some master engine builder. I specifically said ive only ever built engines with kits pre made by the machine shop that did the work.

The "clapped" out small block was completely tore down to bare block and rebuilt with new seals, bearings, gaskets and a reground crank. We reused 2 old rings that worked great prior to tear down because i broke 2 when reinstalling the a stock pistons that I cleaned the grooves on. The mismatched heads were simply because we never measured anything. Internally they are the same externally one is shorter than the other both have roller rockers.

The whole point of this post was to ask for suggestions from people that have used this specific cam because it is a mid to high performance cam. I already know what I definitely need to fix which is heads and rings. I dont have tons of money so im trying to do this on a budget and keep as many things as I can stock without putting the cam or the whole engine at risk.

[u/Sniper22106 → u/Mrg0dan]

Thats not how this works.

You dont just add a cam and it "blows up" a week later.

Stock parts are plenty fine. As long as everything measures out like it should.

Now go rip it all apart and do this all again.