Be honest with yourself....And your car builder / restorer....You'll be a lot happier in the end!!!

I talk to so many people that have spent many thousands of dollars on a project and then are disappointed in the car's performance. And 99% of the time it's the car owner's fault, because they didn't give the engine builder or restoration shop the information they needed to get the customer the maximum return on his investment. Here's a perfect example. In the late '80's and early '90's my dad and I had an engine shop. We did standard rebuilds for people and repairs, but a good chunk of our business was building engines for circle-track race cars, old musclecars,drag boats,sand rails, truck pulls etc. Here's the problem I'm talking about. Guy brings me a 350 Chevy and says he wants to get the most power possible for a certain dollar amount. Ok. I can do that. But-if I'm building the engine to put in a Suburban and tow a boat, I'm going to build it a lot different than I would if it was going in a Nova street / strip machine!!  The Suburban engine would be built with everything geared to building low-end and mid-range torque-to have max power between 1,500 and 4,500 rpm-where the guy is going to spend most of his time when towing a heavy load. I don't care if it's all done at 5,200 rpm-most states have a 55 or 65 mph speed limit when towing anyway. Even if he's got 3.73:1 or 4.11:1 gears-his 60 mph cruise rpm is going to be around 2,800-3,300 depending on tire diameter. Even if he has to spend a lot of time in 2nd or 3rd gear ( depending on whether he has a 3 or 4 speed manual or automatic trans )-say going up Donner Pass-he's not going to be over 5,000 rpm that often.  Now for the Nova hot rod-that weighs about 3,200 lbs as opposed to about 4,700+ the boat for the Suburban the engine is going to be built much different. In a light car-especially if the owner is running a stick and low gears or an automatic with a higher stall-speed converter-low-end torque isn't that important. Now we want max power between 3,000-6,500 rpm. If he's going to shift at say-6,200 rpm-he'll hit 2nd gear about 4,500. So,we'll be running a much hotter cam probably with a choppy idle and lower vacuum, and a single-plane intake like a Torker II or Team G instead of a dual-plane like a Performer that we'd run on the truck. Were trading low-speed torque for top-end rush. Both engines will work great in their intended application. However-put the Nova engine in the Suburban-and the truck owner is going to be mad as hell. It won't Idle worth a shit,and won't even have the low-end power of the bone-stock engine, which means he'll have to keep it in lower gears longer-and when the powerband "hits" above 3-grand-it's going to jerk the truck and trailer,when he shifts to a higher gear at 5,500 plus it's going to jerk the truck and trailer again violently, and the fuel mileage is going to be terrible. Put the truck engine in the Nova-because of it's massive torque-it'll do great burnouts-but that's not conducive to quick 0-60 or 1/4 mile times-and if the car has stiff gears-it may run out of rpm before the end of the 1/4!!  Both drivers would be extremely disappointed. Now that's an easy one to see-the applications are totally different. But let's say a guy brought me a 400 Pontiac and wanted max power for his hot rod. Does it matter if it's a '67 GTO or a '77 T/A?  Yes it does!!  Because chances are the GTO has a 4-speed with 3.55:1 or 3.90:1 gears, and the T/A has an automatic with 2.56:1 gears. Big difference!  The reason is in the GTO I could use the factory RAIV or Edelbrock Performer RPM or equivalant ( Lunati,Crane,Comp Cams all make repro musclecar cams ) that has 231 /240 duration @ .050 and .470 lift. This would have a badass lope, yet stable idle and have 10 inches of vacuum at 900 rpm,which would be enough to operate the power brakes. It would pull like "gangbusters" from 2,500 to 6,000 or so. With headers and good dual exhausts and the factory intake ( or a Performer RPM if the owner wanted ) he'd have about 425 hp and with drag radials easily be in the 12s. Put that engine in the T/A and it would run like shit. 1st off-with a 900 rpm idle you'd have to kick it into neutral at a stoplight with the stock converter-or risk creeping into the car in front of you. With the 2.56:1 gears it would fall flat on it's face if you floored it, finally about 3,500-4,000 rpm it would "hit", but you'd have to shift about 5,500 and with a 1,500-2,000 rpm drop between gears ( it's a TH350, not a close ratio M22 4-speed ) it would fall on its face in 2nd, and have to "catch up" again. The car would sound wicked, and make a lot of noise and probably be slower than with the stock engine. The solution? If the owner wanted to run the stock converter and 2.56:1 gears-would be to run a mild cam like the Edelrock Performer or the factory "068" cam,a Performer intake and some small-tube headers. Just accentuate what Pontiac did-make big power and torque at low rpm. The car would literally spin its wheels as long as he wanted to stay on the throttle, he could even shift at 5,000-5,200 and it would lay 8-10 feet of rubber on the 1-2 shift and probably run solidly in the 14s. The engine would have 15 inches of vacuum at it's glass-smooth 600 rpm idle and it would probably get 16-20 mpg is he didn't drive like a maniac. Now if the T/A driver wanted to go as fast as the GTO guy-we could use the hotter engine-but he'd have to swap the 2.56:1 gears for some 3.73:1s and get a 2,500 rpm stall converter. Yes a Pro Stock drag car and a truck pull champion may both need a 700 hp 454-but the torque curve needs to be very different!!!  See what I'm saying?  That's why builder / restorers need more info than "I want as much power as I can get". Mastermind