"Old School" parts can really rock....And be "Period Correct"....

I've said many times that I'm not one of those fussy Concours / Just as it Left the Factory types who point out that someone has the wrong kind of hose clamps or who thinks a '69 Mustang Mach 1 is "ruined" because it has a Hurst shifter ( instead of the awful factory unit ) halogen headlights, an Edelbrock or Holley carb ( in place of the god-awful Autolite 4300 ) and radial tires. A '69 Camaro with Cragar S/S mags,Lakewood Traction bars, headers,an Edelbrock Tarantula manifold and a 650 Holley is just as "Right" now as it was in say-1972. A '69 Camaro with a Fuel-Injected LS3,a 4L80E, a DSE front subframe and rack&pinion steering, and 20 inch Center Lines is so wrong on so many levels that I'll just leave it at that. The point I'm trying to make is you can "Restify" your classic musclecar so it has greatly increased performance and handling while still retaining the period correct classic look and feel that makes them so attractive in the first place. And you don't always need the "latest and greatest" thing. So many people read magazine tech articles-but don't really READ them-and then go spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on parts that are totally wrong for their car and how they use it. Here's several examples. A while back Car Craft tested a bunch of dual plane and single-plane intake manifolds both factory and aftermarket to see which made the most power. A Small-block Chevy was the test mule. They decided that the Dart and the Keith Dorton single-planes made the most power and torque. However-the test mule was an 11:1 406 inch race motor with 230cc intake port Aluminum Dart Heads, and a .630 lift solid roller cam!! The Dart / Dorton intakes are designed for NASCAR and Drag Racing-they make huge power from 4,000-8,000 rpm!!  Now if "Joe Average" buys that intake and an 850 Double-Pumper Holley and puts it on his 9:1 350 that has stock 165cc heads and a cam with say .450-.475 lift-it's going to absolutely kill the bottom-end and mid-range torque. He'd be far better off with a GM, Edelbrock, or Weiand dual-plane intake and an Edelbrock or Holley vacuum-secondary 600 cfm carb-especially if he had an automatic transmission. If he had a stick and stiff gears and wanted the top-end boost of a single-plane-an Edelbrock Torker II or Weiand X-celrator or Team G would give him a nice hp and torque boost from 3,500-6,000 rpm and probably drop his 1/4 mile time by as much as 1/2 a second. Here's why-if he shifts at 6,000 rpm he's going to hit the next gear at 4,400 rpm-right in the thick of the manifold's power and torque band. So it'll help his 0-60 and 1/4 mile time-even though the dual-plane may actually make the same or more power and torque in a wider powerband-"under the curve" on the dyno. But the Dart / Dorton setup would slow the car down substantially even compared to a stock 4bbl intake. It's just too big for a street application. Hot Rod did the same thing with a header test. Their test mule was a Big-Block Chevy. They decreed that the Hooker Headers with 2 1/2 inch primary tubes were the big power makers. However-again-the test mule was a 540 inch 12:1 compression stroker with Huge Rectanular Port Edelbrock Victor heads and a .714 lift solid-roller cam!!  Again-"Joe Average" with a 396 or even a 427 'Vette or 454 Chevelle with even a .550 lift cam would be much better off with 1 3/4 or 1 7/8 inch primary tubes!! First off-it's a documented fact that the big rectangular port heads don't show a noticable gain in hp or torque on the dyno until 6,300 rpm!  Now how often are you going to be above 6,300 rpm in your street / strip machine???  Secondly the huge primary tubes would over-scavenge the engine and kill the bottom-end and mid-range torque. There has to be some restriction to create flow velocity in the combution chamber. So just because this was the hot setup on their 540 inch, 700 hp race motor-doesn't mean it would work at all on your 400 hp street engine! In fact-the opposite-it would hurt the performance greatly over even stock exhaust manifolds. The main thing is coordinate the whole package and be honest about the use. For example-Edelbrock still sells the original Torker for Ford 351C engines. If a guy had a '70 Mach 1 with an 11:1 351C, a 4-speed and 3.91:1 gears-the Torker would give him a huge top-end boost and drop his 1/4 mile time substantially. If a guy put the Torker on a '73 Mach 1 with a 7.9:1 351C, an automatic, and 3.00:1 gears-it would absolutely kill it. See what I'm saying?  If your a Pontiac guy and you stuff a Ram Air IV cam into your 10.75:1 compression 400, 4-speed, 3.55:1 geared '68 GTO-it will really rip on the street or strip and have a badass lope, but stable idle. If you put an RAIV cam into your 8.0:1 compression, automatic,2.56:1 geared '77 T/A-it won't hardly run at all-it'll have no low-end torque and not much top-end because of the salt-flats gearing,low compression and restrictive intake and exhaust. You can be period-correct and really rock if you choose parts wisely. For example-let's say you have a 'Vette or an Impala SS with a 390 hp 427-iron intake, Q-Jet carb, lazy cam and you want more ooommph, but don't want to go to aluminum heads and a bunch of aftermarket stuff. You don't have to. GM Performance Parts still sells the original L78 / L88 396 / 427 aluminum high-rise intake. A lot of people don't know it-but this intake is equal to or better than many aftermaket ones up to about 5,800 rpm. With a vacuum-secondary Edelbrock or Holley carb it would be awesome on the street. It's even 15 hp and 25-30 lbs ft of torque better than the LS6 454 intake-because the LS6 was supposed to be offered in the Camaro and Nova as well as the Chevelle and the taller '66-69 manifold wouldn't clear the flat hood of the new for '70 Camaro. So the LS6 intake is so flat that the fuel actually has to flow UPHILL to the head ports. Many Stock-class LS6 racers switched to the '69 style intake for that reason. Crane and Lunati offer exact replicas of the factory performance cams. If you wanted to build an L88 spec Rat Motor-World Products and Merlin offer the big Rectangular-Port Iron heads. I'd much rather see a '66 Mustang with a solid-lifter 289 topped by an Edelbrock F28 dual-quad intake and two 500 cfm Carter AFBs than I would one with a SVT 302 crate engine with aluminum GT40 heads and a Peformer RPM "5.0" fuelie intake!!  I'd rather see a '71 Cuda 340 with an Edelbrock LD340 intake and 750 Holley on it or a Six-Pack setup than I would a 6.4 liter SRT8 Fuel-Injected Hemi!!  Right? If you run across an orignal Torker for a big-block Chevy where the carb sits at an angle,or a Tri-Power setup for an Olds 400, or Pontiac 389 or Ford "FE", engine or a dual-quad intake for a 413 / 440 Mopar or 396 / 427 Chevy or 389 / 421 Pontiac- or a Paxton Superhcrager for small-block Fords-by all means use it-you'll love the look,sound and feel in the seat of your pants.  Like Arnold said in the last "Terminator" movie-"Old, not obsolete".  Mastermind