Before you start modifying it, tune it right!!

I've touched on this before, but I've had enough people asking me for advice this week that I thought I'd revisit it. Had a guy bring his 77 Z/28 into the shop the other day. He was upset that he'd installed an Edelbrock Perfromer intake manifold, and the car didn't seem to run any better. In fact, it wouldn't even spin the tires if you powerbraked it. It would just bog and sputter.  I looked at it, and the timing was way too advanced, the vacuum advance was complletely unplugged, the secondarys on the carb wouldn't fully open because of a linkage problem, and the plug wires were so bad, that when I scoped it, it was running on 6 cylinders. After I put a new set of plug wires on it, hooked up the vacuum advance, re-set the timing, and un-stuck the throttle linkage-Surprise!  It idled smooth, even sounded better, and duh-ran much better. Now, if you wanted to smoke the tires, you didn't even have to powerbrake it. Just punch it, and it would lay down a good 30 feet of rubber, and another 8-10 ft on the 1-2 shift. The owner was utterly amazed. "It hasn't run that good, ever!".  "Even when I first bought it." Which meant it wasn't running up to par when he got it. I see this all the time-guys will have a $5000 paint job, $2000 worth of tires and wheels, and because they didn't spend $60 on a Distributor cap, rotor and wires, the car is chugging around on 7 cylinders. Or the carb will be too rich or too lean, the timing will be too retarded or too advanced, the points will be closing up, the transmission will be slipping, if it's a 1975 and later model, the catalytic converter will be stopped up. People don't realize it, but bad tuning / criminal neglect can cost you as much as 50 hp even on a bone-stock engine. Proper tuning and the right combination can mean as much as 1/2 second at the drags, and help a "slower" car beat a "faster" one. Here's an instance- I had a 403 Olds powered '77 Trans-Am with an automatic and 2.56:1 gears. I drove the car five years and I never got beat in a street race by a 400 Pontiac model or by a "5.0" Mustang. Here's how-I did have headers and dual exhausts-( but so did a couple of "Machos" that I flabbergasted ). I also had a Holley Street Dominator intake manifold and a TransGo shift kit. Funny-after installing the aftermarket intake the car had noticeably more power but it still ran out of breath at 4,700 rpm. Reading the owner's manual I found out the recomended plug was an AC R46SZ-an .080 gap. I figured that even GM's mighty HEI ignition would have a problem bridging that long gap at high speeds. I was right.  I changed the plugs from an AC R46SZ ( an .080 gap plug) for an R45S ( a .040 gap plug one range colder ). Now it pulled hard to 5,400 rpm! The other thing that made a huge difference was the shift kit. I like the TransGo kits because if your speed dips below 20 mph, the trans would automatically downshift to low gear. This helped acceleration immensely-especially if you slowed down to 5-10-15 mph for a light and it turned green. Do the math-if I was having a stoplight gran prix with a 400 Pontiac / automatic version that DIDN'T have a shift kit-it would only go into low gear after coming to a complete stop. This means my car would be in low gear and the other one in second. Who's going to take off faster? It wasn't a rocket, but it would run 14.90s all day in 95 degree heat and never miss a beat and it's best time was a 14.78. This substantiates my claim-W72 T/A's from the 78-79 period even with a 4-speed-ran 1/4 mile times ranging from the fastest of 14.61 ( Hot Rod ) to a slowest of 15.62 (Road and Track ).  The fastest 5.0 Mustangs were the fuel-injected '87 and later models-they run the gamut from a 14.72 to a 15.29. You can see how my T/A would give the drivers of these supposedly "faster" cars fits. A buddy of mine had an SS396 Chevelle that blew the doors off every other big-block Chevelle in town-even a couple of SS454's. That's because his ignition was perfectly tuned, his carburator was perfectly jetted, his valves were adjusted perfectly, his cooling system was perfect, and his transmission was perfect. You'd be amazed at the cars running around like I said-with $5,000 paint jobs that have the points closing up, bad plug wires, a bleeding over carb, vacuum leaks, a slipping tranny or clutch, etc-and then their aghast when some car that they would have beaten easily if theirs was properly tuned shows them their taillights. I blew the doors off a much modified ( aftermarket intake, and hotter cam in addition to the regular "Macho" upgrades ) "Macho T/A" one day and the owner was aghast. He was a friend, and knew he should have beaten my car, so he brought it to the shop, complaining that the trans wasn't shifting properly. Turns out he was 3 quarts low on transmission fluid!! Think that'll have an effect on performance?  "When's the last time you checked the fluid?" I asked. "I don't know." I wanted to slap him. So before you start buying aftermarket parts by the boatload-make sure it's like the Army ad-"All that it can be" in stock trim. You might be surprised. Mastermind