Dave: Welcome to stoveboltland. Come back to here often, as there is lots of information, knowledge and opinions to be found here. By the way, I watched the hockey game, and your guy's had the game in hand early in the 2nd period. Great game!
As for the 235, you cannot go wrong by installing a dual exhaust, like Fenton's. These old engines are really dependable, and economical, but they just cannot breath in stock trim. The exhaust will be a great help!
As far as the ignition goes, you can go a couple of ways. Pertronix, or HEI. Either set-up is far superior to the stock point system.
As for carb/intake, the best performance for your dollar with a stock engine, will be found in a single 2BBL carb. Aftermarket 2BBL manifolds and carbs for sale and info on them can be found on the swapmeet page and/or the links page on this site. The single Rochester is'nt enough, and 2 or more single carb's are difficult to balance and syncronize the vacuum/mixture and throttle responce, causing you to always have to mess with them often. Many guy's have had great sucess with the 500 Holley 2BBL and Clifford manifold. I think Offenhauser makes a 2BBL too. Check the links page for info and help.
Don't know your tool situation, but you need some basics for a good tuning. Need-
1.Compression tester
2.Vacuum gage
3.Dwell meter
4.Timing light
5.Torque wrench
6.Basic hand tools
Also you will help yourself the most by purchasing
a "Chevrolet Truck Shop Manual" for 1957 models. You may already have one, but if you do not, it's a must have. In the manual it will cover valve timing/adjustment and engine gen/electrical and torque settings, etc. All the necessary info you need to perform a sucessful tune-up. You may also want to pick up a manual for 1951, to cover your truck needs etc. But you do need the 57 book for your engine, because in 51 and 57 models had different engines. Again check out the links page for one of the vendors. They will fix you up with what you need. Good Luck, and repost.
Think Chevy!
:rolleyes:
