The first thing you need to figure out is what is your horsepower target and intended use of the car. I'm going to take a wild guess and say you want a mostly street but occasional strip vehicle, that has good manners on the street but will deliver horsepower in the 450-500 range. That will yank your Galaxie around rather nicely
Making that assumption, go with the stroker kit to get about 445 cubic inches; that is about the best money you can spend to wake up a 390. If you have the later GT heads, as Howie says they are not the way to go. You'd be money ahead to get a set of Edelbrock heads, or better yet some of the new Survival Motorsport heads, and run those. Get the bare set because you will want different valve springs than what the assembled Edelbrock heads come with. For a cam a solid lifter cam will be the least expensive option, but a hydraulic roller will give you more HP and torque across the RPM range. On the intake, of course I am biased (
), but either my intake adapter with a good 351C manifold on it or a standard FE Performer RPM intake will work pretty well. Also, if you really do have a factory CJ intake (make sure; there are a lot of different cast iron 4V intakes out there for the FE), that is an excellent manifold and you could certainly run that if you don't mind the weight. Swapping to an aluminum intake will save you 50 pounds, though.
Good luck on the project - Jay
