De-Bunking "Gotta Haves" to save you money!!

I know the last couple posts have been cynical, but I've seen this go on since the '70's. A magazine will feature an article "Smokey Yunick's Tips for building a high-hp Small-Block Chevy."  In the article, Smokey is talking about building a 700 hp engine that has to turn 7,800 rpm for 500 miles at Daytona in a Winston Cup NASCAR race car.  If that's your objective-then yes-you need a four-bolt main block, a forged steel crank, heavy duty "Pink" rods, forged pistons, screw in studs in the extensively ported heads, etc, etc. If your re-building an engine for your daily driver, work truck, street / strip machine or show car that's never going to see the high side of 6,500 rpm even on a weekend at the drags-you don't need all that extra beef and expense. I have raced SBC-powered circle-track "Street stock" and "Hobby Stock" cars for years and never had any trouble using two-bolt main blocks, cast cranks, a stock oil pump, cast pistons, and stock heads. Yes, we had a few DNF's do to mechanical failure-but more often than not that was because the water pump blew, the fuel pump quit, the clutch let go, the ignition control module quit, etc. I NEVER didn't finish a race because we lost a main or rod bearing, or a piston failed, or anything related to the bottom end. As for valvetrain failure-once in a while we'd lose a rocker arm or a pushrod or pop a valvespring, but in 20 years-I NEVER saw a stud pull out of a head.  But "Joe Average" reading the article doesn't know this-he figures-"Smokey Yunick is THE Chevy performance guru, so if he says you need all that stuff, then you probably do."  But-and it's a HUGE But- He was talking about building a RACE CAR. I guarantee if you asked Smokey to build you a reliable 400 hp street engine and guarantee it for a year-he would tell you to go ahead and use a two-bolt main block, a cast crank, and cast pistons, a stock oil pump and stock heads. He'd tell you-instead of spending a ton of money on unnecessary beef and machine work-to save that money for a high-quality performance cam kit, a set of headers, a performance carb and intake, and maybe a higher-stall converter and some gears to put all that newfound power to the ground. John Lingenfelter said the same thing-"I would only recommend forged pistons if you were going to run a blower or nitrous." "And then I would ask-"If you have that much money and need to go that fast, why aren't you building a 454 instead of a 350?"  The same goes for other stuff. Read any Mopar Magazine and they'll tell you that you "Gotta Have" a Dana 60 rear end. Well, if you have a 700 hp Hemi with nitrous, a 5 grand converter and a trans-brake, and your running wrinklewall slicks bolted to the rims with 15 psi in them, I'd say that's probably good advice. But for anything else-I know a guy that races a Duster with a 505 inch stroker that's never had an ounce of trouble with the 8 3/4 rear. In fact I know guys with Road Runners, Chargers, 'Cudas, etc with 383s and 440s with 4-speeds that pop the clutch and powershift on 30 dragstrip passes a weekend with no problems. Honestly- in 30+ years of working on cars I've never SEEN or even heard of anyone actually breaking a Chrysler 8 3/4 rear end!!  That's like the people that say the Borg-Warner T5 transmissions can't stand up to performance use. No, they won't stand up to a 600hp 454 Chevy or 460 Ford. But I know guys with "5.0" Mustangs that run in the 12s with the stock T5 and have no problems. I know guys that have yanked the 305 out of their '80's Camaros and replaced it with a stout 350, and run low 13s, spinning all of low gear and these trannys have lasted two or three years. Up to about 350 hp, you should be fine with a T5 in a street car. If you build 400 or more hp, then I'd upgrade to a Tremec or Richmond 5-speed. But the average guy doesn't know any of this. He innocently buys a used IROC-Z Camaro and when he says he wants more power-a bunch of "experts" who have never raced or even owned a Camaro start telling him he's "Gotta have" a $3,000 TKO conversion because he wants to put an Edelbrock intake and matching cam on his L69 305!!  See what I'm saying?  I think magazines should be clearer about the intended usage of a part before they declare it a "Gotta Have."  Mastermind