408 CI SMALL BLOCK CHEVY, PROJECT SLEEPER: DYNO TEST!!! WILL IT MAKE POWER??? 

Proves what every 17 year old dude in 1985 thought was right.

DV “To tame the Beast, you must know the Beast.”

Wow that Q-Jet really is a performer. Great Dyno video. I knew my butt dyno was working right all those years, flipping the lid on the breather. The Sleeper is alive and working great.

Flipping the lid did not add 25hp, it simply removed the snorkel's restriction. Would have had the same effect going with an aftermarket 4" open filter. Great video guys!

I love "sleeper motors and we don't see enough of these. They are engines that make sense for the street, and they perform better too.

Andy, I love your channel. In reference to the intake mods. I like what you did there between 5 & 7 to reduce the charge robbing there. I just wanted to remind you not to forget to do similar mods for 1 & 2 as well. There is a video of DV modifying a tunnel ram where I think he may have forgot about the 1 and 2 charge robbing, so if you would give him a friendly reminder.

I love these Chevy builds. I’ve done a couple 400 builds for my 83 Monte Carlo. Might not be impressive on the drag strip but out on the open highway nothing can touch it. Always enjoy watching people freak out over the car loosing traction at 65mph because I decided to get on it. Always wanted to do a progressive nitrous setup on it. I believe that would help the stock sleeper idea.

Wow! What a runner. Very impressive. 🏁

Your grinder work is great Andy:) She looks really good buddy… Huge improvement from stock…

I had a 400 out of a 73 caprice in my camaro. It was only.030 making it a 406 gota say personally I love sbc 400's! They're strong! Personally I had a different parts list but I know the potential of these engines especially the '72 and older 4 bolt main blocks!

Hell yes it's gonna make power! ...........quite a bit more than before anyway. ( Especially if the heads were ported to David Vizard's spec's! )

Badass sleeper motah!! Yep, flipin' the lid, we knew it was a massive hp boost 35+ years ago, and still holds true today! That's the kind of hp gain you can absolutely feel by the seat of your pants. 💪

Great video. So much good information and you guys looked like you were having fun doing it. I liked the air cleaner test but thought I would have seen a kN filter. Keep up the good work and thanks. I know you put a lot of effort and time into these videos.

LOVE ME sum old old school 400 SB Chevy!!! hell yeah!!!

Flipped lid for the win!

This is cool if you already have the 400 block to start with but the true 350 "sleeper" is the 383. The people who know wont be deceived by the valve covers alone. Cool build though and nice job on the intake and using a quadrajet carb for full incognito effect. Most builds go with holley type carbs if not efi.

I appreciate the video ..Many years ago i built or helped really build a 302 for my 68 Camaro ..part dirt track bottom end top end off a g gas car . I ran a solid lifter isky cam along with other parts. I used a HEI distributor, bronze gear . Recurved . I remember the engine pulling hard to 7800 where i had the rev limiter set . ..I learned then cylinder heads are the key to making hp .. thanks for the video

With the Q-J, double check the air flap's spring setting - Been a few decades, but IIRC it should be either 3/4, or 7/8, of a turn from JUST closing the flap - an 1/8th either way could also have been enlightening. Don't know if you did it, or if the heads you used had them, but a couple of bits of shim stock slipped down between the manifold and the heads, to block them off, can help a little by reducing the cross-heating of the manifold base.

Lot of difference with the lid flipped, thanks for sharing, all the best to yous and your loved ones

What a fantastic video! This is the type of real world content your average working stiff can really relate to. Kudos my friend.

That was hilarious! 25 horse 😂 great job and keep us posted. Love this project

While all those other car channels are trying to flip the script with antics, you guys are out there flipping the lid on real horsepower.

Thanks for your videos and content brother every time I see a new one it keeps me motivated to work on my junk . Thank you

I see low 11 second potential there in a properly set up ride! Great job guys.

I’m running a Progression Ignition distributor on my 353 small block in my ‘71 Camaro. Love it!

I had a 71 Buick GS 455, build to a stage 1 spec and with the 800cfm quadrajet, would make 460 horse and 550 lbs/ ft. As I started facing it, adding gears and better exhaust, fuel quantity was an issue. The quadrajet fuel bowl is really small, but short of fuel injection it's an awesome street carb. It gets a lot of hate though.

Looking at the oil filter in the sunlight is always your best bet. Many things show up in the sunlight that don't seem to show up under artificial light, great advice

Love the 25 ponies from the lid flip. I was doing that on my mom's 71 Demon with a slant six just for the cool sound back in 76-77 . Great stuff brother...🤓

I love all the best American motors period

D*** good video showing showing what happens when you flip the lid, but then also keep in mind when the motors in the engine bag and the hoods close. And you're sucking in all that hot air off the engine. That's also got to make things a little great video. I'd like to have a feedback on the oil pressure situation. If you guys think that's a deal at all I just didn't like to see the oil pressure drop as the RPM went. I'd like to know what oil you have in it. Thank you, Greg and the team.Thank you again

Put the Comp Cams Beehive Spring #26918 intended for LS engine in it. Perfect for your build. AND the DUI was the right choice. I'd change the cam though.

480hp King David would say it’s kids stuff. But it’s still a Beast almost 500hp 480hp

Loved every minute of this one guys. Great job on that beast...... I mean snoozer;)

Great video Andy! Any chance of future dyno action with a modern single plane? You may be able to convince me to rub on it a bit!

Not too bad for a first run gotta start some where and go from there. The lid flip didn't surprise me I've done it many times over the years and I always could feel the difference on the street. I know the quadrajets becoming a restriction do to flow size, but the cam needs to go for a better spect one. Run it with a better cam and the quadrajet then just to see what it can do put a higher flowing spect carburetor on it. Personally I'd be willing to give up some of the power just to have that nostalgic Quadrajet sound of the secondarys kicking in, and fool everyone into thinking it's a rather stock replacement engine.

IMpressed with the Qjet but I'd love to see it with a Holley 850 DP

Great video appreciate it Andy.

For such a mild cam it seems to work well, its running out of air already. Make a great cruiser or truck engine. It would be a good engine to do a rocker ratio change on to see what happens at the existing airflow.

I remember that big 4 barrel sound also coming out of the dodge Aspen Cop cars (Thermoquads) as they raced towards us young punks!

great video series, I am loving this.

Always been curious of Dino results from a q Jet carb. Back in the day when I was broke I had a 780 cfM Q jet 331 cube Small block.That pulled hard to 7000 Only reason I put that carb on there is because it was a 150 bucks at my local auto parts store rebuilt and But I was a broke 19-year-old kid the was no save up for 2 more weeks. That 69 GMC had to out an get in trouble. later saved up and put a holly 750 double pump on it. Cause my buddies are laughed at The bog quad But it actually ran better with that carb than it did the 750 holly out of the box. And it got good mileage. And every classic movie sound has that noise from the 80s All the caprice cop cars. They were great carbs as long as they sat on a good loom intake and had no fuel boil issues like the stock cast intake. I love them and the sound they make In the secondarys open. quick throttle response can't beat it.

Great job on the build guys. The manifold mods appear to be working well, and lastly I've always had good luck with the Q-Jets. You might double check the Q-Jet, it could be only a 750cfm? Look the bulge on the wall of the primaries and it's the 800cfm. One last test I would be curious what a stock Chevy or Edelbrock performer manifold Dyno numbers would look like? But that's definitely a strong sleeper motor but still nice road manners, good idle 👍👏

Pretty nice considering it has such a small cam, with all of the accessories and in the car it will be a solid 430 hp

Very nice Andy. You guys built a nice engine. Well done. 👍👍🇺🇸

I love your videos Andy!

Nice work guys those are decent numbers for sure..

would have been interesting to try a K&N filter element

Curious to see what the engine would do with a air gap

Loved that video.

I have a 1971 400 4 bolt main that ' GM was the last to machine '. and the 400 turbo trans came out of the Impala with it. and along the way I scored a pair of humpback heads that are ported. pickup only. Fort Wayne In area. No reasonable offer denied.

Wow!!! Flipping the air cleaner lid on a Quadrajet really does work!!! Great job on all counts guys!!!

Love the longer video!

Great power for the size of the cam good job

I think the Eldelbrock spreadbore RPM airGap intake would,ve given better results..

That's why I use MSD distributors , the are equipped with the option to lock out the machanical advance so you don't have that issue with your engine.sounds good , I have that same intake and you got me thinking about porting it like you did , thanks

Bigger carb would get U more hp, but for a heavy street vehicle, this setup would be massive fun, light to light!👍

I Love my 800 cfm Rochester on my 406 SBC just like fuel injection.

That thing is so cool!

Great video..like the distributor comparison..and of coarse the bad ass air cleaner..flip the lid...great little gm goodwrench engine..lol

I was about to comment on how smooth the idle was when you went outside while running it. Definitely sleeper quality. Do you think the spreadbore benefits from the floor base dam as much as a square bore would? I wonder if the dam would block some of the rear secondary air from reaching the front four cylinders. Did you have individual cylinder fuel monitoring on the dyno?

I have a few of these intakes.

I love David so much pass it on from rex Warren

Great video

You should make a T-shirt and a coffee cup. With that slogan we make horse power not excuses

This was great!

Good heads make all the difference

My guess of 480 hp 500 ft lb of torque was pretty close! Would like to see what it would do with a victor jr intake and 830 hp Holley carb!

Awesome video. I wonder how well that turtle would work with other single plane intake designs?

I love the setup that is sleeper

I had a pretty similar problem with the factory hydraulic roller springs on my AFR heads with a very similarly sized camshaft. It’d lay over around 55-5600 RPM. I swapped out the cam thinking it was just the cam being too small for the engine and a single pattern to boot, then changed the springs out too. The old cam is going into a 350 with the proper springs now so I guess I’ll find out whether or not it was the springs or the cam that laid over on me.

I have had two of them, great running engine. 😊

Great Engine . I allway thought building vacuume at WOT was a sign the cam was too small

Way cool Andy, show us more!

There is a Way to remove the restriction on the Quadrajet remove the Choke completely gives you another 20CFM on the Primary!

Cool video for some old school sleeper stuff 👍🏻. Would like to see what cam DV recommends. Bet he could get it up over 500

So back in the eighties car craft magazine told us that we were all killing our horsepower by flipping the air filter lid because it placed the top closer to the air horn. They also did an article showing us how to mount a nitrous bottle in an ice chest full of ice In order to chill it even further to cool the intake charge. That sure didn’t age very well.😂

Awesome 😊

Thats still some good power for that camshaft!

Good old gjet

All go no show

Great power from the cam! Andy when is it 335 series time???

That's why it was the mainstay of GMC for over a half a century.

Always laughed at the Q-jet guys that would tromp it to the floor and make a giant air sucking sound while going slower.

All the videos with Chevrolet content may have some of your viewers concerned. 😂😂😂. The flipped lid should be your next shirt design

I noticed with the lid flipped over the air cleaner is bouncing around during the pull like its not sealed. I wonder how much air was bypassing the filter.

Have mike regrind it for more lift. bet the tq wouldve went up 25-35 with a performer rpm, and the hp been the same. with more average power everywhere. Nice job Guys! She's healthy, lots of fun for a street car.

Love the Q-Jet! Had many in the past and 3 currently (one special 800 cfm for a 455 T/A that was a $70 investment). Shocked there wasn’t a K&N under the flipped lid or a taller than factory with an extended stud bolt.

I remember Dr. Air Roger Helgeson. He was in several articles in Car Craft back in the day.

Love the build! Single plane is killing your torque though. When I had my 383 on the dyno that is now running EFI in my Express van, I had it running a later 850 cfm Q-Jet on an untouched Performer RPM spreadbore with a Hamburger 1" Q-Jet taper spacer upside down cone shape facing the carb. It has a mild hydraulic custom roller, 271/284 @ 0.006, 218/228 @ 0.050 on a 108 LSA and 106 ICL with 0.578 lift. 11:1 static compression and aluminum heads flowing 244 @ 0.400, 274 @ 0.500 and 291 @ 0.600. Ran with 1-5/8 primary to 2.5" collector Thorley tri-ys for the Express van chassis into 2.5" collector extension. Made 520 tq @ 3,700 and 502 hp @ 5,600. I had the HEIs mechanical advance setup to give 0 advance until 1,200, 10* @ 2,400 and 16* @ 3,600 by playing with an assortment of center plates and weights. The centerplate was 353 stamped and 053 weights, running 2 medium springs from a Moroso curve kit. It liked 33* total @ 3,600 and AFR was in the mid 12s. The 850 cfm Q-Jet saw less than 2 in/hg @ 6,200 rpm.

Pretty good numbers

Carquest or Orielly's near me many years ago went out of business..they had new GM Goodwrench 350 long blocks for next to nothing. Didn't have the money or space...was an amazing clearance sale on that location 🤯😳

It's not going to be 25hp on a stock engine but it just proves how much of a restriction the stock air cleaner housings are on a modified engine. It would be interesting to try it with a dual snorkel just to see as well

I've seen the Dyno operator many years at the Engine Masters challenge.

Does a 4-7 cam swap help fix the induction sequence issue of the stock firing order. In a dual plane intake is the 5-7 sequence a problem?

Looks like y’all are close to me because I saw the Charlotte hwy sign. I’ve dreamt up a weird idea. I could care less about high crazy HP. I saw an episode on horsepower tv where they turbocharged a big block ford for torque. I want to turbo my 350 TBI with a small turbo to get as much torque as possible. I also want to do it with the TBI. I know there’s a lot of haters on those things but they just work and keep working. Anyone I know personally that has a TBI 350 is still running the original setup. There’s upgrades you can due to them and on the cheap. My thinking is what’s the point of getting a aftermarket EFI if your goals aren’t 500+. Plus I’d get a kick out of seeing a TBI pushing 400+ torque.

Is that top rear flap on the carb opening all the way? The engine will be fun.

Can't hurt to drain the break-in oil Andy. So the distributor was the problem?

Awesome video! Now test a K&N air filter lol

It would have been nice to see what a 1 inch spacer would have done for the small plenum on that intake. It seems to have a much lager effect on small blocks than the big blocks. What do you think a nicely prepped 850 would have done. Maybe over 500 HP. 950 3 barrel was good for a tenth in a 69 Buick Skylark with a 455. Good test.

Awesome job Andy. What epoxy did DV use?