i see your point man, but its like arguing politics or religion.. there is always somebody running some kind of crazy numbers.. like saint in his car.. 115 trap with a 306 cam... but those are stand out cars, not everybodies car's react that strong to a cam only mod. thats why i say do it right..
cam only (you can do it for 700, getting used stuff)
head and cam later on (might as well go ***** to the wall)

do it right. don't half *** it with shotty heads and a nice cam. patience pays off

 

do what I do and grab yourself an excel spreadsheet, putting every part you need in it (using one of the install guides around) with the price, manufacturer, etc. My cam install was going to come out right around $1000 with a CSI waterpump and cloyes double roller timing chain. This is with used rockers and a $220 cam. You NEED to pay attention to stuff like water pump, timing chain, tools (hub puller, valvespring compressor) as well as gaskets, bolts, silicon, all the BS stuff you need to install it. If you can get used parts it will be easier to hit $700 but DON'T skip out on important stuff like timing chain to reach your goal, or you will be pulling it apart again soon.

 

I think you can do it, you can get a hot cam kit that comes with everything you need for the cam part including 1.6 rrs for 450 from www.gmpartsdirect.com. I don't know what kind of gaskets these guys are using but $200 is waaayy to much, as long as you're not spraying you don't need anything fancy, stock will do. I think my buddy got a full gasket kit from napa or someplace like that for $60 bucks. Then you need a new timing chain, a stock will be fine with the hotcam since you won't see more than 6200-6300 rpms which is like $40 and you'll also need hardened pushrods $40. So with shipping you're probably looking at around $650 dollars. Also the special tools you need can be rented through autozone which they give you a full refund when you return the tools. As far as the heads personally unless you now what you're doing I wouldn't try messing with them, however if you're careful and inclined you could do a clean up job on them yourself, polish the chambers blend the bowls, remove as much material from the valve guides as you can while still keeping their symmetry, remove material from the short side radius(the one where the floor drops down to where the valve is), and then clean up the casting flash in the ports. I think pretty much that the hotcam is your only choice unless you buy used stuff but I really would never buy used cam/valvetrain components cause there's no telling other than visual the wear and tear that they've been put through. If you go with a different bigger cam the costs will go up significantly because the springs are a lot more expensive than the lt4 springs, you'll have to be the 1.6rrs serperatly which cost around 250, you then will also need a stronger timing chain since the cam will use up more rpm, and finally you'd need a real set of heads to take advantage of them. One final thing the hotcam won't need a huge valve to take advantage of it so I wouldn't worry about buying bigger ones. Good luck with your project.

 

There Is No Free Lunch .

I don't think you'll be anywhere near your $700 goal, even if you go as cheap as possible on everything. Even then, you'll likely end up with something that isn't worth having IMO. I'd spend what $ you have now on the hotcam kit & the misc. stuff you'll need to make it run. That should give you a fair gain, and you can sell the parts off later without losing much $ when you want to go more aggressive.

FWIW, topend stuff is what's going to determine what kind of power you make. If you want good stuff, you'll easily spend $1500-2k on a set of heads, ~$1k in valvetrain related parts, and a few hundred in misc. parts. You can go cheaper on some things, but generally saving a couple hundred dollars on one thing can hurt performance/safety/longevity quite a bit. Poke around the board & research the topic thorougly while you're saving $, and you'll see car after car putting down lackluster #'s where people made relatively large sacrifices in quality/performance to save a relatively small amount of $. To some that doesn't matter at all, and to others it's everything, so YMMV .

Good luck with your project.

 

I spent more than that just for the relatively "inexpensive" hot cam kit.

hot cam Kit............$500
Thunder racing gasket kit.....$80
Cloyes roller chain...$80
CSI electric pump....$135
Misc wiring for pump...$15

Oil, filter, sealant, misc cleaning stuff.......$30
Small tools I found that I needed: balancer/gear puller, fuel line disconnect tool, torx bit......$50
PCM forless programming: $50 (for the 2nd time)


Total: $940

I didn't have to do the CSI pump or the Cloyes chain, you could stick with a new stocker if you wanted to, or go real cheap and reuse your stocker but I wouldnt recommend it. Gaskets could be bought cheaper than the kit also, there are some in there I didnt use. And of course this assumes you have all other necessary tools to complete the job. I never even touched the heads and the simple "hot cam kit" approached $1k, just to give you and idea. And I'm sure I'm forgetting something I bought along the way so I wouldn't doubt I spent $1K when it was all said and done

 

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Well thanks guys, now that i look at it, i dont knwo what i was thinking. I am going to do a cam and then get rid of my current exhaust setup, and put in some Jet Hot long tubes with purple hornies header mufflers. My question is what cam can i get the most power with from those headers and stock heads, with mods below. Also, i already have the 1.6 rockers, i know a few guys mentioned buying those. What should i get??