I would go with the Performer intake and 1403 carb.  That's a 500cfm mechanical secondary electric choke carb that works really well on 289s and 302s. 

The 4100 is a good carb, but the problem you get into is so many of them are worn out now.  A simple rebuild often doesn't fix them, especially with wear to the throttle shaft bores that cause vacuum leaks and all manner of poor running that is often hard for the novice to diagnose.  I'd stick to the the Edelbrock.  You're getting a100%  new carb that will bolt on and run, and be easy to tune.

On the heads I'd look into the real cost of the GT40Ps.  You may have header fitment issues due to the raised exhaust ports.  If you're planning to go salvage yard searching, good luck.  For some reason a lot of the ones in the salvage yards are cracked in ways that aren't immediately apparent and only show up under Magnaflux inspection.  If they need to be rebuilt you'll almost certainly have as much in them as a set of Performer heads from Edelbrock.  Now, if you already have the heads and they work, go for it.  They are a good design by stock head standards.  The problem is when they wear out or you want to push the envelope.

I'm hoping your block is an older 302, not a 5.0.  The reason I say this is that a 5.0 being bored over 0.030 should be sonic checked.  These were thin wall castings and usually can't be bored more than 0.030" safely without verifying wall thickness.  The older blocks are typically fine at 0.040 and many can even go to 0.060 if there wasn't a lot of core shift, though over 0.040" should be sonic checked. 

Not trying to poo poo your build, just hate to see good people throw good money after bad.

I agree with those who say Edelbrock carb and intake combo is the way to go.  I have used that setup many times and can attest that it is trouble free and will not disappoint.

mustangermike wrote:

Very interesting TKOPerformance.  I have the GT40P heads and got them off a 2000 Explorer.  When you say sonic checked, is this the Magnaflux I hear about? 
The 302 I got is from a 91 Thunderbird. 
And noted on the Edelbrock intake and carb.

Sonic checking and Magnaflux are different.  Sonic checking is a way to measure the thickness of something you can't easily measure like a cylinder wall.  Magnafluxing is a process using magnetism to find cracks which are invisible to the naked eye. 

I would have the heads checked for cracks via Magnaflux.

'91 T-Bird would have had a 5.0.  If it needs to be bored try to get away with only a 0.030" overbore.  If it doesn't need to be bored and there's no appreciable bore wear (this can be measured with a dial bore gauge) I would just dingle ball hone it throw a new set of rings in it. 

I favor Holley 600s, which is what I have on my 302.  I also have GT40P heads with a mild porting and standard size valves.  If you're going low budget, the GT40P heads are the best iron heads Ford made for the small block.  You will have header fitment issues, and you have to ensure that the steam holes line up properly with those in the block.  I've posted how I addressed both issues.  However, if you can do a little welding, you can modify standard tri-y headers but you'll have to re-route several tubes.  I started with a cheap stainless steel pair of tri-y headers I bought on ebay and then bought some stainless steel bends.  I used a mig to do the welding with stainless steel wire and standard mig gas mix (didn't bother with back purging) and they've held up fine.  Also no ground clearance issues like many other long tube headers.

Stevo wrote:

I haven't had any experience with an Edelbrock carb, so I cannot offer an opinion there.
When I got my car back on the road some years back now, I was faced with the decision of what carb to go with. In the end I came across Pony Carbs. I contacted them and spoke to Jon and he convinced me that the Autolite 4100 was the best match for my 289 and how I intended to drive it. I believe that it was Jon's opinion that the Autolite was the best matched carb for the 289.
It's a bit hard for me to compare, but I can say that I have never regretted my decision. Only drama that I ever had was the heat tube choke, but I converted that over to an electric choke and never looked back.
With Pony Carbs no longer, I'm not sure what the deal is with getting a properly rebuilt Autolite is these days.

Unfortunately, with them gone, so has gone the brain trust by and large.  They are who I purchased my correct Autolite carb from many, many years ago, and it ran well on the engine.  But, the Edelbrock runs better, and tuning it doesn't require a ouija board...
 

Edelbrock 1403 is a 500cfm carb that runs great on 289s and 302s.  I simply leaned mine out two steps from the factory calibration, which I believe was a jet change and the factory metering rod (takes maybe 5 minutes your first time to make the swap).  There's a tuning kit #1486 that has everything you could reasonably need to perfectly dial in your 1403.  Adds a little to the initial purchase cost, but well, well worth it.

It will bolt on and run fine out of the box though. but in order to reduce the fuel smell to the absolute minimum and get the most power out of it I needed a bit less fuel than the factory calibration.  A 289 is a pretty small engine after all.