[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by PAUL K

What did that car run in the 1/4?

Recall the sixty foot?

1.57-1.59 60's ET was 11.50's at only 115 mph. Race weight was 4120 lbs at that time. It didn't make a ton of HP despite what people think of big heads and big cam. It dyno'd at barely over 500hp at peak, but what it did really well was make torque. I don't really think a tight 2000 converter would have hurt it much, maybe slow the 60 down a smidge but drivability would be the same as the snug continental that was in it was pretty tight on the street anyway.

My Chevelle right now is setup similar to what you speak of. Currently has a converter that only flashed to 2100 at a recent track outing. Hughes wants to restall it which I'm fine with, but it still went 1.57 60 foot at a 4140 lbs. race weight and has a set of 360cc intake runner heads on it. I don't spin this one tight either, shifting at 5800. I'm actually fine with the performance it's shown so far and am in no hurry for a free restall from Hughes. In fact, it drives so good I may just leave it alone because it's already almost a full second under the roll bar rule as it is.

In short, I can set these cars up with bigger heads, bigger cams, with no need to spin the guts out of it, no need for 5000 stall converters or 4.88 gears, and they drive like a cadillac on the street with tons of off throttle torque, and using big single plane intakes to boot. When you have 4.210 cranks or 4.500 cranks, you almost really can't kill enough torque out of these things.

Another example would be that little 327 I recently did for my son. When I put the engine in the car I gave him a little TCI 11" converter I had laying around that flashed around 2500 when I used it. In his car it only flashed to about 2000 at the same track outing. I also only put a 3.25 gear in the car because it's a 3 speed and he daily drives it, sometimes 200 mile round trips on the weekends.
You would think a 327 with 195 heads would be high strung and run like crap below 4000 rpm. Not the case. While I have no doubt it would run even better with some gear and certainly some more converter in it as most cars will respond to that, he's already stoked at how well it's run already. 12.40's at 112 mph in street trim. There are many bigger inch Pontiacs in our area that can't run those numbers, big heads or not. When he does an overdrive in the car, I'll likely put a little more rear gear in it, and Hughes will do a custom lockup converter that will probably flash higher but keep drivability, and actually drive better than it currently does, yet will certainly run even quicker at the track.