What's the best "Other" 350?

I've had a lot of people ask me this question lately. By the "other" 350s- I'm referring to the 350 cube engines built by Buick, Olds and Pontiac. The answer to this is not super-simple. Buick guys, sorry. The 350 Buick just doesn't have that much potential. The oiling system is weak for a stock engine, much less a "built" one, and there are no free-breathing factory or aftermarket heads for them, and even Edelbrock doesn't offer intakes for them. ( They do for the 400-425-455 ). If your building a Buick and want to go real fast, outside of an '80's Grand National, your stuck with big-blocks. This leaves the Olds and Pontiac versions. The upside of the Pontiacs is that they are all externally identical from a 326 to a 455. That means if you buy a 350 LeMans or Firebird, the vaunted 400 or 455 is a bolt-in swap. The further good news is that the heads, intakes, exhausts, and all the tin-oil pan,timing cover, valve covers etc. interchange. This means you could buy a 455 short block, put all the rest of the 350 components on it, and have a running engine-which would save you a ton of time and money not chasing parts. The down side is they have a small-bore and a long stroke. This gives them great low-end torque, but limits revability, and the big-valve 400 and 455 heads won't clear the cylinder bores. If you have or want to buy one of these cars, they respond well to basic hot-rod tricks-intake, exhaust, cam, etc. They can easily make 290-340 hp and 400 lbs of torque with the right combination of parts. However, a 400 or 455 doesn't cost any more to build and will make 450-500 hp with the same basic parts. I would use the 350 as a "driver" until you could buy or build a 400 / 455. This leaves the 350 Olds V8. The Olds is the best of the "other" 350s, as they are an oversquare design like a SBC-( large bore, small stroke) and their was a factory high-performance version-the Famous "W31". There are two ways to build a rockin' 350 Olds. The bottom ends are strong. 1968-72 heads will raise the compression on later models one full point, from 8.5:1 to about 9.5:1-perfect for an iron head engine on pump gas. You'll have to re-tap the bolt holes on 75 and later blocks, but that's not a big deal. Edelbrock offers intakes and Comp Cams, Lunati, Crane, etc, make cams, hooker makes headers, etc. Or you could put factory or aftermarket Edelbrock 455 heads on the 350 block, although you'll need custom pistons to make any kind of compression. The Edelbrock Performer RPM manifold will work on a 350 with 455 heads with minor port-matching. This combo can easily make 450+ horsepower with the right heads, cam, intake, etc. The downside is the cost would be just about as much to build a 425 or 455 big-block. So, my advice is what I gave in an earlier post-if you have a car with one of these engines, give it a good intake and exhaust, maybe a shift kit in the trans to get more oomph, while you spend the real money on a big-block that will give you the most "bang for the buck". Hope this clears some things up. Mastermind