[bobzdar]

I had a '77 400 (L78, so 6x-8 heads) t/a with 4 speed. Had the edelbrock 'performer' package - intake, cam and carb. It was a dog, ran 16's at 86mph in the 1/4. I swapped cam to a 744 clone, torker intake, qjet and 4 tube flowtech headers. Cost me about $500 at the time, now it'd be closer to a grand - current prices say melling spc-3, used torker and 1 5/8" flowtech headers come to around $700, add $100 for fluids and gaskets, but assume you already have a qjet. Car went high 14's at 98mph but had bad wheel hop and fuel delivery issues. Carter mech pump fixed the fuel issues and I rebuilt the suspension, which fixed the wheel hop, but I never ran it in the 1/4 again. I assumed I could have hit low 14's at around 100mph if I wanted to drag it, but built it more for road racing. 86mph to 98mph is around a 100hp gain without having to pull the heads. These cars are way undercammed at stock, keep in mind they have the same airflow in the heads as the ra1 and ra3 cars that came with either 068 (auto) or 744 (stick) cam in the '60's. Pontiac also used the 744 (originally 041) in the SD which only had 8.4 comp. It's about moving air in and out.

20k miles later, I swapped to high compression #16's with crower valve springs, along with a cast iron factory intake (per prevailing wisdom at the time, early 2000's) and it didn't get any faster though picked up low end - which was pretty much useless with a stick. It wiped a cam lobe likely due to the higher spring pressures, and cracked the pressure plate at the track, and I sold it in a fit of stupidity.