The point of diminishing returns.....

I know gearheads are always looking for "every last ounce" of performance, but sometimes in chasing that last ounce you actually end up losing performance and drivability,and / or spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on parts that give a negligible gain, or even a loss of performance. For example I wrote in an earlier post about Hot Rod magazine hopping up a ZZ4 Chevy 350 crate engine. The ZZ4 was an awesome street engine. It was rated at 355 hp and 405 lbs of torque. However-what made it such a killer was its broad torque curve. It made more than 350 lbs of torque from 2,200-5,200 rpm! The engine was pretty hopped up to begin with-10:1 compression Keith Black pistons, L98 aluminum heads, a hydraulic roller cam with .474 / 510 lift, and a 770 cfm Holley on an aluminum Z/28 / LT1 style intake. They picked up about 25 hp with a single-plane intake and a larger carb, and another 30 or so hp with a bigger cam. That put them over 400 hp easily and the package still had good drivability. To me-mission accomplished-you got 50+ hp out of an already hot package. They wanted more-so they installed a set of Trick Flow aluminum heads. They picked up another 40 hp-at 6,100 rpm. The noticable gain-more than 20 hp didn't occur until above 5,000 rpm.  However-this info was printed clearly on the dyno sheet-the "antiquated" L98 heads were within 5 hp and 5 lbs of torque at every rpm from idle to 4,600 rpm!! At some rpm levels there was no gain, or the difference was only 1 or 2 hp!!  Now in a daily driver or even a weekend street / strip machine-how often are you going to be above 4,700 rpm?  Further-the Trick Flow heads cost $1,400!! For a lot less than $1,400 there's plenty of things that would give you more than a 40 hp gain in a 1,000-1,400 rpm window!! The first thing that comes to mind is a well-thought out nitrous system. Then maybe a higher stall speed torque converter, some stiffer rear end gears, or some traction bars. I had a ZZ4 in my Hurst / Olds for a while. On street tires it ran mid 13s and got 16 mpg. Some buddys suggested-( correctly ) that if I invested in a hotter cam and a bigger carb and intake and maybe a higher stall converter I could easily drop into the 12s. That's true-but in doing that the car wouldn't have been nearly as pleasant to drive-the larger cam would have a much rougher idle-which would have necessitated the larger converter-and the car would have gotten 8 mpg instead of 16. Plus I'd have traded quite a bit of low-end and mid-range torque for top-end rush.  The other thing is drivetrain and brake upgrades. I'm all for safety-but the magazines go total overkill. Why does every single project car have to have a custom Currie 9 inch Ford rear end??  Never mind a Dana 60-I've never, ever seen anyone break a Chrysler 8 3/4 rear!!! Not even my buddy who has a Duster with a nitrous-fed 505 inch stroker that runs in the 9s!!  I have had 400, 4-speed 70's Firebirds and popped the clutch at 4,000 rpm and powershifted through 30 hard 1/4 mile passes a weekend for 5 years and never broke the 8.5 inch GM 10 bolt posi!!!  I know Fox bodied Mustang racers that run 10s who have never had an ounce of trouble with the stock 8.8 inch rear end. Ditto for brakes. Why does every project car have to have a Brembo or Wildwood 4-wheel disc brake system worthy of a NASCAR Nextel Cup champion?  Are they saying that the front disc / rear drum or 4-wheel disc systems that came stock on 70's, 80's and 90's cars isn't adequate to safely stop the car in daily driving or on a weekend trip to the drags? Puhleeze. Again-I autocrossed some of my '70's T/A's. My friends and I discovered that if we used Bendix or Wagner or Ferodo "Police Spec" semi-metallic D52 front pads and Dot 5 fluid that the brakes never faded-even on back to back to back runs. Ditto for a friends "Street Stock" circle track Camaro. I've seen him run an 8 lap heat race, a 20 lap semi, and a 50 lap main event back to back to back on a 1/4 mile track that had the rotors glowing red at the end of the main event and the brakes never faded!! In fact-sometimes if the race car needed front pads and we couldn't get the "Police Spec" pads-we'd just run generic, auto parts store D52 pads, and as long as we used the Dot 5 brake fluid-we had no problems. The cheaper pads would wear out quicker-but the car still stopped properly. The main thing was the fluid. Dot 3 fluid would boil and then you'd get a mushy pedal. While on the subject of circle track racing-I know guys who have raced small-block Chevys and Fords for 30 years and I have never, ever seen a stud pull out of a head!!  I've seen broken rocker arms, broken pushrods, broken valve springs, and jumped timing chains-but in 30+ years I've never seen a stud pull out of a head. Ditto for a broken crank. I've seen spun bearings,and I've seen rods out the side of the block,but I've never seen a crank break-like in pieces!! So just think hard before you spend your hard earned money on some "Gotta Have" that you don't really need!!  That's all I'm saying. Mastermind