Hi All,
I have a 78 with the dog 180HP 350 in it, I want to get a little more HP from it and I don't have the coin for my ZZ4 yet. But I would like to install a cam in it for now, and still keep the stock intake and Q jet, also what extra HP will it give me?

Contact the techs at Summit Racing. Tell them what you want and they'll give you solid advice. They carry many different brand cams and should be able to help. You can contact companies like Crane, Comp, Lunati, etc., and get good advice as well, but they'll naturally push their own products.

if you can find the cam specs for your engine.. post them here and ill run a cam simulation in desktop dyno and find some good options for you

To be honest you will only need a very mild cam, because with out changing the intake your going to be limited on the amount of power the cam is going to make above your current power level.

If it all possible I would get a different intake that would accept the q-jet. Edelbrock performancer, Professional products (nock off of the edelbrock), Weiand or weiand.

You can probably score a good deal on ebay or at a swap meet. These are fairly safe items to buy at either place because its just a chunk of metal and very very rarely defective or been modified. You just want to make sure the sealing surfaces are in good shape. If it looks like crap (ie, paint over spray, gasket goo, some corrosion, grease and dirt) take a second look. Those are sometimes your best score, because you can have them bead blasted and hot tanked and they will look brand new.

If the mounting surfaces are gouged as long as its not real deep you can have a machine shop take a little material off the gasket surfaces to restore them.