Experience is a great teacher.....

I think it was Vince Lombardi who said "Good judgement comes from experience, and experience is usually past bad judgement."  This is so true in the gearhead world. Those of us who have swapped engines and transmissions,have built race cars, and restored cars and trucks definitely have an advantage over those who haven't-we know what NOT to do!!  This can be very important in saving you time, money and frustration. Those of us who have strong opinions on what parts to use or not use, is usually learned the hard way. For example I only recommend Hooker or Hedman Headers to my customers. The reason is this-many moons ago I had a performance shop where we did a lot of high-performance work for people. Sometimes I supplied the parts, sometimes the customers did. Didn't matter if was a Chevy or a Ford, or a Pontiac or an AMC or a Chrysler-"Off-brand" headers leaked and cracked incessantly, the flanges didn't seal, they were awful. Blackjack,Flowtech,Doug Thorley, whatever-they were all terrible. Hooker and Hedman-I never had a problem, they sealed perfectly and never cracked, they were bulletproof. I got to the point where I was so tired of tightening header bolts, and arguing with customers that the problem was not with my installation, but with their sub-par headers that I would refuse to install any header other than Hooker or Hedman. Problem solved. The same with Holley carburators. I know other people have had great success with them, but in 40+ years of hot rodding and racing, I have never had much luck with Holleys. They bleed over, they blow power valves,they do not hold a tune. Even the new "Street Avenger" model that came with a ZZ4 crate engine I bought brand-new-ran good for about three weeks and then became hard to start,stumbled, blew power valves the usual. I replaced it with a Quadrajet and it ran flawlessly until I sold the car five years later.   I have had great luck with Edelbrock carbs. They flat work, usually right out of the box. Ditto for Carter AFB's. There's no gaskets below the float level,jets can be changed without removing or disassembling the carb. On Mopars I've great luck with Carter AVS's, and ( as long as the bakelite body isn't cracked or warped ) I've had good luck with Thermo-Quads. As for Fords-the Autolite 4100 and 4300 are the worst carbs ever built, bar none. My dad and I both worked for Ford back in the '70's and if you had a 351C Mustang or a 460 T-Bird and bitched hard enough about hard starting, crappy gas mileage-I mean 5-8 mpg on a new car-Ford would replace it with a 600 Holley and warranty it. Whenever I did a Ford project for someone I always used a Carter AFB or an Edelbrock. The same for cams. Other than factory cams-i.e.-GMPP, Mopar Performance, Ford SVT- I only use Crane or Lunati cams. The reason is every other brand-and I don't just mean "off-brand" or "house brand" stuff-I've had it happen with Edelbrock, Iskenderian,Competition Cams, Howards, etc-they go flat prematurely and pop and spit, even if you follow the the break-in procedures to the letter. Crane or Lunati-I've never had a problem. Even tune-up parts can cause you to pull your hair out. This is why on GM stuff I only use AC-Delco points or Accel. Ford and Chrysler I use genuine Motorcraft or Mopar or Accel. The reason is these parts have brass contacts and tougher plastic and flat work. Wells-Ampco,Napa,Borg-Warner, and other "parts house" brands use aluminum or pot metal contacts that corrode easily and the plastic is like an eggshell. I've broken distributor caps tightening them down with a 1/4 inch drive socket!!  As for spark plugs I use Autolite in american cars and NGK in foreign cars. Champions, Bosch, Nippondenso-they all foul-especially if the carb(s) are a little rich, or the driver drives it like grandma on prozac. Autolites and NGKs-never a problem. Don't take this wrong-I'm not slamming certain companies products-I'm speaking from experience and avoiding performance problems with sub-par parts. So If you brought your car to my shop and wanted me to build you an engine-I'll tell you up front-your getting Hooker or Hedman headers, a Crane or Lunati cam, and an Edelbrock carb!  And it'll run like a scalded cat for years to come, and we'll both be happy.  The other thing I've learned is you have to look at the entire combination. The whole combination is power to weight ratio,gearing,suspension setup,and traction. A Pontiac enthusiast I know was shocked at a club drag meet when his 455HO,4-speed '71 GTO was beaten in a drag race by a '64 389 GTO. A 325 hp 4-barrel model-not even a Tri-Power. Oh, the pain and humiliation. The '71 GTO's owner was only looking at engine size-455 cubes vs 389-no problem. However-the '64 GTO weighed 3,400 lbs, the '71 weighed 4,070. That's almost 700 lbs of extra weight. They both had Muncie 4-speed trannys, but the '71 model had 3.31:1 gears, and the '64 model had 3.90:1 gears. And the difference in launch. The '64 driver would pop the clutch about 2,800-3,200 rpm. This would give him just enough wheelspin to get the car moving quickly, without frying the tires. Anything over 3,500 rpm and he'd fry the tires. The '71 driver had a tougher time. A 455HO has 480 lbs of torque, at 2,700 rpm. The only way he could avoid frying his tires was to slip the clutch at 1,800-2,200 rpm, walk it off the line, and then still spin most of low gear. What happened was the '64 got a car length or two off the line, and with the mechanical advantage of the 3.90:1 gears and pulling 700 lbs less weight-was able to hang onto that lead until the end of the 1/4. Ironically-even with the extra weight the 455HO should have had enough power to take the win. The big problem was traction. If he'd had drag radials and could launch at 3,500-4,000 rpm-it would have been a different story. If he'd had a TH400 and 3.31:1 gears it might have been different because the traction problem wouldn't have been as severe. Doesn't matter how much power you have if you can't put it to the ground. I remember back in high school I had a '68 SS396 El Camino. Of course, I blew up the 396. Being a kid with very little money but good mechanical skills-I was saved by my cousin. He convinced his mother to give me the 327 out of her wrecked '67 Impala. We put the small-block in that weekend, and I was able to go to school Monday. Funny thing-the Elky was actually quicker with the 275 hp 327 than it was with the 350 hp 396! With the Rat motor-it just fried the tires if you looked at the throttle. With the 327 it would spin the tires if you wanted to, but not excessively. It would lay maybe 30 feet of rubber and then go. And with less weight on the front end it handled better too. It was actually much nicer to drive with the 327 than it was with the 396. I never forgot that. When I was in college I had a '74 Pontiac Ventura-just like the one Roy Scheider drove in the "Seven-Ups". It had the 350 Pontiac / TH350 powertrain. I swapped the 2bbl for a Edelbrock P4B intake and a Quadrajet that my dad had laying around. I also put a B&M shift kit in the trans. The car was really fast. I mean it easily beat a buddy's 327 / 4-speed '66 Chevelle in a drag race, and beat another friends 350 powered '70 Chevelle. I gave another kid in a 454 Monte Carlo a run he'll never forget. My friends and relatives had driven 350 LeMans and Firebirds before-and they weren't nearly as quick as my Ventura. My dad speculated that maybe a previous owner had dropped in a 400. No,I checked the numbers on the block. It was a 350. But I always wondered why my car had a trailer hitch on the rear bumper. Turned out the previous owner had bought the car new and ordered it with a towing package because he intended to tow his fishing boat with it. The towing package included a bigger transmission cooler, a bigger radiator, and a positraction rear end with a "special" towing axle ratio. The reason it was so damn quick was it had a 3.42:1 posi rear end!!  Most other '70's Venturas had 2.56:1 or 2.73:1 gears. The gears were why it ran so good. I honestly think it was quicker than the '71 I had later that got the 400 out of my wrecked '77 T/A. Another thing is don't shy away from Old parts when restoring something. Especially if you want a period correct vibe. Back in the '70's Edelbrock had a line of intakes for small-block Chevys-there was the Torker, the Tarantula and the Scorpion. They were all single-planes. The Torker and Tarantula were street / strip models and the Scorpion was the competition one-kind of like the Victor Jr now. A buddy had a Scorpion on his Nova-and from 3,000-7,000 rpm it was a rocket. Weiand had one called the X-celrator, and Offenhauser had a line they called Port-O-Sonic. As long as their not cracked-they'll work just as well today. A modern Performer RPM might make a few more ponies on a dyno-but won't look nearly as badass on a '66 Corvette or whatever. Mastermind