Magazines are always going for the maximum....The biggest numbers don't always mean the best performance in the real world!

Talking about recipes for speed-I can't stress it enough really read what a magazine is printing and take it with a grain of salt. Like the '69 Chevelle that Hot Rod used in their "Crate Motor Shootout". The LS3 6.2 liter 'Vette motor than ran in the 11s with 4.44:1 gears and a 5,000 rpm torque converter? Yeah, that's a streetable combination!! When they tested the ZZ427 big-block they changed the gears to 4.11:1s but they still had a converter with a 4,800 rpm stall speed. Come on guys-even with 4.11 or 4.44 gears your 65 mph cruise rpm is going to be at least 1,000-1,500 rpm BELOW the converters stall speed. If you try to drive this car on the street at all- You'll burn up the tranny in less than 50 miles!!  If they had run a more reasonable and streetable 2,500-3,000 rpm converter no the car wouldn't have been nearly as fast with either engine but the public would have gotten a more accurate view of what kind of real-world performance they could expect if they put this engine in their car. I mean seriously-no one drives around with a 5 grand converter. The same for the test mule that Car Craft used in their intake manifold comparison. A 408 inch small-block with 10.5:1 compression, Dart 215cc heads and a .630 lift solid roller cam is not what the "Average" guy is running in his Camaro. It's wonderful that this motor made 560 hp; however the Dart or Holley / Keith Dorton single-planes topped by an 850cfm double-pumper Holley that made the most hp and torque on the dyno for this combo would absolutely destroy the performance of the average Joe's  8.5:1 or 9:1 350 with stock heads and a cam with say-470 lift. This fellow would be much better off with a dual-plane intake like an Edelbrock Performer or Weiand Stealth and a vacuum secondary carb with 600-750 cfm. They didn't say that in the article-but I think they need to. "By the way our engine was a full-on race motor-this combo probably won't work well in your street car or work truck". I say this because I see it all the time. Guy goes and buys a Victor Jr intake and a 750 Double-pumper carb and puts it on his otherwise stock 350 Camaro that has an automatic with a stock converter and 3.08:1 gears. He can't understand why it falls flat on it's face, doesn't run as good as the stock iron manifold and Q-jet combo did, has no power below 4,000 rpm and is all done in by valve float at 5,200!!  "But ( Insert magazine name here ) said this made the most power and ran the best 1/4 mile time on their Camaro."  Yes-that had a 10:1 383 with a .525 lift cam, a 3,000 rpm converter and 3.73:1 gears!!  Yes, on that car that had 400+lbs of torque from idle on up-it could afford to lose some bottom end-it probably helped the car launch better with less wheelspin, and it hit like "gangbusters" about 3 grand and pulled hard to 7,000 because their motor had the compression, valvetrain and gearing to take full advantage of the big carb and intake. On the guys 8.2:1 compression 350 with a stock cam with .390 / .410 lift, that mad maybe 280 lbs ft of torque at the peak- a stock torque converter and high ( low numeric ) gearing it killed the bottem-end, and the car didn't have the valvetrain or the gearing to rev to the point where the Victor manifold made it's most power. ( 4,000-8,000 rpm .) He'd have been better off with a Performer and a vacuum secondary carb that built up low-speed and mid-range torque. Then he have noticed a big improvement in performance from idle-5,000 rpm. I said it once before-but I think it's relevant here. I told a customer of mine that wanted more power out of his 350 powered Suburban tow rig to buy an Edelbrock Performer intake, the matching cam, and some 1 5 /8 inch headers. He was a diy type guy-so I offered to set up his distributor and re-jet his carb after he was done. He comes over completely furious. The truck won't idle below 1,000 rpm, has no power brakes, and doesn't even have the power it had stock. I look under the hood and see 1 / 7 /8 chrome headers, and a Performer "RPM" intake topped by a 750 double-pumper Holley. "What cam did you use?" i ask "The matching "Performer RPM". he says. "You didn't listen to me." "I said get the Performer package, small-tube headers, and I'd re-jet your Quadrajet for you." "Didn't you read the box-where the cam says only for high-performance vehicles not for use in vehicles over 3,600 lbs or towing applications.?"  "But the guy at the parts store said-"  "You listened to the Idiot at Autozone instead of me." I showed him on Edelbrock's website that the SBC  RPM cam had more lift and duration than the one used in an LS6 454 Chevelle or a 455 SD Pontiac Trans-Am, and it only had 10 inches of vacuum at 1,000 rpm. I showed him that his headers were WAY too big- he could have use 1 /3/4's but 1 /7 8 were too huge for a truck motor.  I also showed him how the "Regular" Performer cam had 15 inches of vacuum at idle and built low-speed torque. I traded him a Performer intake for the "RPM" intake, and he returned the carb and headers after cleaning them up.. He had to eat the cam since it had been installed. After he installed the smaller-tube headers, the Performer cam and intake, and his re-jetted Q-jet he was amazed. The truck idled at 750 rpm, the power brakes and everything worked fine, and it had a TON more torque-especially in the 2,000-4,500 rpm range where he did most of his towing. And it got better gas mileage-16 mpg instead of 12. He was esctatic-and apologetic. "I should have listened to you" "I don't know why I listened to that idiot at the parts store."  "It was a costly lesson" "If you'd called me before you bought that 1st batch of stuff I'd have told you to ignore the parts guy and look in the Edelbrock catalog-all the specs are in there." "I'm glad it worked out." "I'm still out the $250 bucks on that other cam." "Maybe I can sell it for you and recoup part of it." "Thanks. " "Sure."  The moral of the story is- be brutally honest with yourself about what you want and how you plan to use it. Sure, all of us look in a magazine and think we'd like to have a 12:1, solid-roller 650 hp monster motor. But in reality- for 99% of us a 9.5:1 engine that runs on pump gas and idles at 800 rpm makes a lot more sense. Bigger is not always better-especially in a street application. Mastermind