Iron Fists, Velvet Gloves.....

I've had numerous people ask me for advice on how to make their musclecar wicked fast-but still look stock. You can do it-it just takes some creativity-you might even have to buy a 2nd engine or tranny-but here's the things that offer the most "Bang for the Buck".  #1. Increase displacement. The old saying-"There's no substitute for cubic inches, except cubic dollars" is still true. There's three ways to go about this-The easiest-if you can afford it-Is to put your-numbers-matching engine on a stand in your garage and buy a high-performance crate engine. GMPP sells the 454HO for $5995-It has aluminum heads, a roller cam and is rated at 440 hp and 500 lbs ft of torque. That's quite a jump from the 325 or 350 hp that most 396 Chevelles,Camaros, or El Caminos have. And with proper valve covers, badging etc-no one could tell the difference unless they checked the serial numbers on the block. You could also step up to ZZ502-It's duh-502 cubes-but it has 502 hp and 567 lbs ft of tire-shredding torque. Ditto for small-blocks-the ZZ383 has 425 hp and 450 lbs of torque. That's 150 hp more than the average 275 hp 327 and 125 more than the L48 300 hp 350. It's 55 more hp and 70 lbs more torque than the vaunted, 11:1 compression, solid-lifter-370 hp 1970 LT1 Corvette motor. Ford SVT, Mopar Performance and Blueprint engines offer crate engines. You can buy a 347 or 363 inch Ford engine that looks exactly like a 289 / 302- and with over 400hp-a lot more than the 271 hp of the High-Perf 289 or the 290 of the Boss 302-your "stock' looking '65-68 Mustang could whomp a lot of big-block cars. You can also buy 392 and 427 inch 351W based strokers, and a 460 based 514 with 600+ hp. Put that in your 429 Torino! Mopar Performance offers a 440 based 505 inch wedge engine with over 500 hp that could easily bolt-in place of  a 383 or 440. Blueprint engines offers a 360 based 408 incher with 375 hp and 460 lbs of torque. A lot more than the 275 hp the vaunted 340 made. The second and more economical way is to buy a second engine from a junkyard and rebuild it. A 403 Olds will bolt right in place of, and with the right parts make way more power than the 330 or 350 it's replacing. Trucks, vans and Suburbans with 454s are plentiful in junkyards-an easy upgrade from a 396. There are millions of Dodge trucks and vans and Jeep Grand Cherokees with 360 "Magnum" engines in them-that with very little work make way power than a 273, 318 or 340. The third way is with a stroker crank,rod and piston kit. It's very easy to turn a 350 Chevy into a 383, a 302 Ford into a 347, a 360 Mopar into a 408, and a 400 Pontiac into a 433 or 461. All other things being equal-the larger engine will always make more power and torque. # 2. A bigger carb(s). Because of stock class drag racing rules or just trying to look stock you may have to run a stock intake manifold but you can upgrade the carb. Even some concours show classes are going to the "Original Type" rule-they don't expect you have a 50 year old carb in perfect tune. Within those parameters their's a lot of potential for improvement. For example the Carter AFB that came on a lot of Musclecars in the '60's only flowed about 500 cfm. Edelbrock and Carter make 750 cfm versions. That would really wake up a 389 GTO or 409 Impala. Ditto for Mopars-the Carter AVS 4bbl on the legendary 383 and 440 Magnum engines offered great throttle response and drivability. However they only flowed about 585 cfm. Switching to an 800 cfm Edelbrock AVS could add as much as 40 hp to a 440. Now it can breathe-a 440 with a 585 cfm carb is like a 250 lb NFL running back trying to run while breathing through a straw. The same for dual-quad setups. A hot 409 Chevy, 421 Pontiac or 426 Chrysler Hemi could easily benefit from swapping the 625 cfm AFB's for 750 Edelbrocks. Your 427 Thunderbolt could easily use two 1050 Dominators instead of 750 Holleys. # 3. Ignition. Most-factory Point-type ignitions start to run out of steam about 4,500 rpm and are definitely all done in by 5,500. or even less-sometimes 5,200. The good news is Petronix and other companies offer electronic conversions that will fit under a point-type cap and with or without a separate MSD-type box-are good to 7,500 rpm.  # 4. A bigger cam. Except for maybe a rough-idle-no one can really tell what cam your running. Especially with an automatic trans you don't want to go overboard-but more cam is a stealthy way to hidden power. # 5. Transmission. When Chrysler introduced the Torqueflite back in 1962-they found a huge increase in performance not in the engine, but the transmission. Properly programmed the 383, and 413 and 426 Max Wedge cars with a Torqueflite were practically unbeatable at the drags. They could launch with less wheelspin than competitors with sticks, and they could shift way quicker than any human-and be consistent-they'd shift at exactly the same rpm EVERY time. It took GM and Ford years to catch up-the TH400 and the C6 weren't introduced until much later in the decade. This is escpecially true if you have a pre 1967 GM car. The two-speed Powerglide / ST300 is awful. A 1.76 1st gear and a 1.00:1 2nd?  The upside is a TH350 is a bolt-in swap. And the TH350 has a 2.52 1st gear, a 1.52 2nd and a 1:1 3rd. So whether you have a 327 Impala or a 396 Chevelle, or 389 GTO-the 3-speed TH350 with a decent shift kit will offer an astounding increase in performance over the 2-speed "Powerslide"-even with a bone-stock engine. The same goes for sticks-swapping a 3-speed for a 4-speed will give you a drastic increase in perfomance. # 6. Mechanical advantage. Swapping a 2.73 or 3.08 rear axle ratio for some 3.73's will give you a huge boost in 0-60 and 1/4 mile performance without hurting gas mileage and driveability too much. The same for a mild stall converter-a converter with 500-1000 more rpm stall speed greatly improves off the line performance without hurting drivabality much. But don't go overboard-if your stock converter stalls at 1,500 rpm, and you put in a 2000 or 2,500 rpm converter, you'll notice a marked increase in acceleration. Change to a 3,500-4,000 rpm converter-and you'll blow the tires off, and probalby go SLOWER than stock and maybe burn up the trans from excessive slippage. So err on the side of caution. # 7. Exhaust-you may not want to run headers-but even with stock exhaust manifolds-a good, free-flowing dual exhaust system can add as much as 30-40 hp. Hope this helped....Mastermind