"15 to 40 horsepower"? from rockers only?

And E7s.

 

Yes exhaust first,After all safety items of course.Brakes/frt suspension(if needed) good tires,that sort of thing.

 

yeah i go the tranny rebuilt and getting new rims next week with new tires and im getting wilwood disks up in the front sometime in the next few months

 

I would add headers first, an aluminum manifold and a small (600cfm) new holley with vacuum secondaries. and upgrade ignition. I would do all of that together. After doing these mods, you may find the car is actually slower off the line, but midrange and up top should make up for it.

Next I would consider a transpak / shift kit for crisper shifting. easy enough mod.

Not knowing much about your car or your driving habits, you can go many ways from there. If its not a daily driver and/or you dont spend too much time on thehe highway, I would think a lower gear in the rear will really perk it up.

1.6 roller rockers sounds good. Maybe a small high torque cam down the road too. Does the engine have a lot of miles on it? You cant just soup up a tired old engine. Bigger cams rquire higher rpms to make power. You dont really want to push an old engine like that or you will end up taking the bus. Been there, done that.

 

well i drive it probably 3 times a week and it only has 58000 miles on it so its not "ancient" and i dont go in over 55 very often, just take the side streets. but what i REALLY have to do first is change the colomn to a floor shift so i can get those 6901s in for exhaust, Or i could get the intake and carb.

 

Go for the intake and the carb first. For a stock 302 it wouldn't hurt to go up to a 650 holley and that should give you plenty of carb to play with as you upgrade other stuff.

The 302 I had in my last V8 maverick was putting about 300 HP to the rear wheels and it still have exhaust manifolds, I never did swap to headers.

 

Oh and BTW if you are planning on putting the new Rockers on there, and you are pretty sure that the engine is stock and never been touched internally it probably wouldn't hurt to pick up yourself a set of Valve seals and while you are in there replacing the rockers replace those valve seals I have seen it on more than one of those old Stock 302s that when you pull the valve covers and look inside the valve seals are brittle and/or already broken into little pieces
​

 

Good idea on the valve seals. I got my car with 50k on it 5 years ago, had a miss, took off the heads, and NO seals.

They were all in the oil pan. I bet yours are all hard plastic chunks in the oil pan too!

 

I would modify it is this order;
go to a 3.40-3.55 gear.This will give you more bang for the buck than anything IMO
2000-2500 stall converter & shift kit.
dual exhaust.Manifolds are fine if you're not gonna go into the motor for a while.And 2.25" pipes are plenty big enough for a mild 302.
go to electronic ignition.Not much performance gains like everyone would have you think,but just one less thing to mess with(setting points)Don't waste a bunch of $$ on high dollar aftermarket stuff,the stock Ford Duraspark stuff is fine,rob it from any carbed mid 70s-mid 80s 302.
While you're up top,get a good intake(I like a Stealth,some prefer the Air Gap Edelbrock)these are a bit more than you need,but it'll live with more cam/better heads later if you choose.W/a stock 302,a 600 is plenty,525 or 570 probably better.
If you get some headwork done,or get better heads,THEN go ahead & get the 6901s/floor shift.
JMHO