"Gotta Haves"....That you don't really need if your trying to go fast on a budget...

Even though I sometimes write for the buff magazines It may seem that I'm awfully critical of them. On one hand I love reading them, and I realize it's their job to feature new and innovative things, and to push their advertisers products. That's how they stay in business. On the other hand It seems that every project car they build costs 40 grand or more and has to have state of the art everything. This is discouraging to younger people and those of us with families to support that would like to have a hot rod but can't invest 50 grand in a toy. I'd just like to show that you could build a fun, safe,cool car that runs 12 second 1/4 mile times or is a corner carving "G" machine without breaking the bank. The way to do it is to apply two simple rules of hot rodding-# 1. "Run What You Brung".  # 2. K.I.S.S. ( Keep It Simple Stupid ).  # 1. Is important because a lot of people think you need the latest and greatest and biggest and best of everything. Let's say you buy a '78 Camaro to play with. Yes, if you have the bank account to spend 20K on the engine alone, by all means swap in a 620 hp 572 inch GMPP rat motor or a 638 hp LS9 out of a ZR1 Corvette and enjoy it. If you don't have that kind of budget then you'll have to use the engine that came in the car which is most likely a 350 V8. You can't ask for a better base for a hot rod. There is more speed equipment available for the small-block Chevy than anything else on the planet. Magazines always rebuild their engines from the ground up. You don't have to do that. If the engine in the car runs good, has good oil pressure, doesn't use any oil, and doesn't smoke, why on earth would you spend the time and money pulling it out of the car and rebuilding it?  If you want more power-that's easy. The first two things are bolt-ons. Get an Edelbrock or Weiand performance intake manifold and re-jet the Q-Jet carb that's on the car. Or replace it with a new Edelbrock or Holley carb. Add a set of headers and a good dual exhaust system. These two simple mods will add at least 50-70 hp to your engine without affecting gas mileage or idle quality. In fact-because of the increased efficiency besides the power increase you'll probably get a 2-3 mpg increase in fuel economy. The next thing is mechanical advantage. Chances are, especially if the car has an automatic transmission-that is has Salt-flats gearing like 2.56:1 or 2.73:1. Swapping the 2.56:1 axle ratio for something in the 3.23-3.73:1 range will give you a HUGE increase in acceleration-more than 1/2 a second off your 0-60 and 1/4 mile time without adversely affecting drivability or freeway cruising speed too much. A TransGo or B&M shift kit in the TH350 will further maximize performance. Right now-assuming you can do the labor yourself-you've spent $600 for the carb and intake, $150 for the headers, $ 150 for the gears, maybe $250 for an exhaust system at a muffler shop and $50 for the shift kit. You've only invested $1,200-but I guarantee the improvement in the car's performance is stunning, and you haven't hurt drivability or reliability one ounce. If you want to go faster than that-the next steps would be maybe a hotter cam and slightly higher stall speed torque converter to complement the cam. You'd still be under 2 grand in dollars invested and you probably dropped the 1/4 mile time from somewhere in the 16s to somewhere in the 13s, and the car is still dead-reliable and easy to drive on a daily basis if you want to. If you "gotta" get it in the 12s-an entry-level Nitrous system will yank a 13 second car into the 12s easily, and your still under 3 grand in total investment. It's not sexy-but it's wicked fast and dead-reliable. Even if the engine did need to be rebuilt-Super Chevy built a 400 hp 350 from the ground up using all-new parts and it cost $2,600. Magazine writers spew numbers flippantly-but 400 honest hp will make any street car into an absolute rocket. "Run what you brung" also applies to the transmission, rear end and suspension and brake systems. Let's take our sample Camaro. Chances are it has a TH350 or if it's a 4-speed a Saginaw or Borg-Warner T10. All of those will be perfectly fine behind a 400 hp small-block. You don't need to spend 3 grand on a Richmond or Tremec 5 or 6-speed stick or a tricked-up 700R4 4-speed auto. Why? To say you have it, or to drop 500 rpm at 65 on the freeway?  Ditto for the rear end. The stock 8.5 inch 10 bolt rear will be fine. I have had 400, 4-speed Trans-Ams with this rear and popped the clutch at 4,000 rpm incessantly for five years street racing and drag racing and never broke the rear end. So you don't "need" a $3,000 custom Currie-built 9 inch Ford setup!!!  Ditto for the brakes. I have friends who have autocrossed '70s T/A's and used '70s Camaros and Firebirds in Circle-Track "Street Stock" and "Super Stock" classes and won many races with the stock front disc / rear drum setup. The only modifications needed were going to Bendix or Wagner or Ferodo D52 "Police Spec" semi-metallic pads and using Dot 5 brake fluid instead of Dot 3. With these simple things my buddys Camaro race car's brakes never faded, even in a 50-lap main event on a 1/4 mile or 1/2 mile track!!  So the stock brakes will certainly stop your car safely in daily driving and the occasional weekend trip to the drags!!!  You don't "need" a $3,000 Wildwood or Brembo 4-wheel disc setup worthy of a NASCAR Nextel Cup Champion!!  This brings up # 2....The KISS theory will save you money and grief. For example a lot of the buff mags have been testing and espousing aftermarket fuel injection systems that to me are both worthless and grossly overpriced. Let me be clear here-If your car is Fuel-Injected from the factory-say an '87-'93 "5.0" Mustang or a TPI LB9 or L98 '85-92- Z/28-Edelbrock, Trick Flow and other companies offer larger throttle bodies, ported intakes,larger runners etc that work in conjunction WITH the factory system. These are all worthwhile, reasonably priced upgrades that can add 40 or more hp to your car and stay emissions-legal. I'm talking about complete aftermarket systems for engines that originally had a carburator. These START at $2,000 and that's for a small-block Chevy. For anything other than a small-block Chevy they're over $3,000. You have to hook up oxygen sensors and other monitors, you have to get a laptop computer to program the fuel curve, it's not cheap or simple. And here's the real kicker-they don't make any more power than a simple $600 carb and intake combo. High-Perfomance Pontiac tested one of these systems on a hot 455 Pontiac engine that a staffer had in his '74 Trans-Am. With an Edelbrock Performer "RPM" intake an an 850 cfm Quadrajet the engine made like 469 hp and 544 lbs of torque on the dyno. With the $3,800 fuel injection system-which required using a Ford ECM and adapting a "5.0" Mustang Mass Air Flow sensor and other major mods-it made 455 hp and 505 lbs of torque. Huh?  That's right. The "State of the Art" $3,800 fuel injection system made 14 LESS hp and 39 lbs LESS torque than the "antiquated" $600 carb and intake combo!!!  Think about this-let's say you buy a '78 T/A to play with because you loved "Smokey and the Bandit" as a teenager. For $3,800 you could buy a set of Edelbrock Aluminum Heads,and matching intake, carb and cam, some shorty headers, some 3.73:1 gears and higher stall converter to put the 422 hp and 441 lbs of torque that Edelbrock claims your 400 will make with this package to the ground. Or you could put that fuel injection system on and make 14 hp less than the factory's anemic 220!!!  Gee, which line are you going to be in? This isn't an Isolated example. Take Roller cams for intance. Again-yes if you have a late-model Ford, Chevy or Chrysler V8 that had a roller cam from the factory-yes that is the only way to fly-and the aftermarket roller cams offered by Edelbrock, Trick Flow, Crane, Comp Cams, etc are all excellent. However- Mopar Performance tested a roller cam setup on a hot 440 they were building. Yes, it made like 20 more hp than the flat tappet setup. But the cost of the parts to convert an engine that didn't have a roller setup from the factory was $1,800!!! As opposed to about $300 for your normal cam and lifter kit. For that extra $1,500 you could have bought a lot of stuff that would make you a lot more than 20 peak hp on a dyno!!  The same goes for new-to-old engine swaps. Let's say you have a '68 Nova or a '72 Duster that you want to play with. Going to a junkyard and getting a low-mileage L31 "Vortec" 350 Chevy out of a wrecked '96 and later Chevy or GMC truck or van is a cheap easy, way to get a great performance engine at a low price. Ditto for getting a 318 or 360 "Magnum" engine out of a Dodge Truck or Van or a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Research has shown that the "Vortec" and "Magnum" heads breathe better than any factory head and many aftermarket ones. Now for me-Edelbrock sells carburated Performer intakes that fit the Vortec / Magnum engines for about $200. A new Edelbrock carb is about $350. So for less than $600 you can stuff this motor in you car and have big power for low bucks. Or you could rip the wiring harness out of the donor car or spend big dollars chasing down new stuff to hook up the crank sensors, cam sensor, 02 sensors, ad nauseum to keep it fuel-injected-which will make less power than the carb and intake!! And none of that crap is required to register a '68 Nova or '72 Duster, so Why in hell would you do all that??  Technology is great, but not just for technologies sake. Think carefully about getting the most "bang" for your bucks. That's all I'm saying. Mastermind