I'm curious whether guys doing projects and asking for opinions want something like this:

Re: Headers on 1965 C10 small block [Re: Hot Rod John]
48bigtrucks Offline
Registered: 04/03/04
Posts: 4496
Loc: Center Point, Iowa
Forget the headaches of headers, go with the rams horns. Headers gain you nothing in a stock set-up but noise, leaks and heat!

Or something like this:


USERNAME POST: BUILDING A 383, THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

this is the type of challange/upgrade I work on for the guys all the time, AND IM CERTAINLY NOT SUGGESTING YOU CAN,T REACH YOUR GOAL,THRU OTHER ROUTES, BUT THAT APPROCHING THE PROBLEM LOGICALLY ITS FAIRLY EASY TO PLAN YOUR GOALS AND COURSE TO ACHEIVE THEM,
the first thing youll need to get strait in your mind is the realistic budget youll be willing to work with and that performance is basically the result of the power to weight ratio and HOW effectively you can get the power to the ground. keep in mind that for a street car your NOT building the engine for max peak power, your looking to build for the best average power/tq curve over the rpm range youll use most

AND THAT HAVING SLIGHTLY MORE HP THAN THE MINIMUM REQUIRED IS SMART, simply because you won,t always have the ideal tune or traction available,its silly to shoot for minimum levels yet its a waste of money to over build the engine, to levels youll seldom use or even want, as theres always compromizes in driveability

ok first Id point out that its silly to build anything smaller than a 383 displacement simply because youll make significantly greater total power from a larger engine than a smaller one,COSTS for a 383 are just not that much higher than a 350, and its TOTAL POWER not horsepower per cubic inch your interested in!

next,CORRECTLY MATCHING the cylinder heads, cam and compression ratio , to the rpm range where youll get the best results is where youll make most of your power potential.

think it thru before buying parts, and only sellect those components that match your goal,by far the most comon mistake is randomly sellecting mis-matched parts because you "GOT A DEAL"

ok lets look at your options, to keep costs reasonable we want to use what we can from your current engine but its insane to limit yourself to parts that restrict your potential power levels severly like the current heads,intake and rear gear ratio.



the formula for hp is (tq x rpm/5252=hp
example
450 ft lbs of torque at 3000rpm=257hp
450 ft lbs of torque at 6000rpm=514hp
because the torque is available at that higher RPM RATE and at the higher rpm useing gearing the rotational force the engine supplied can be applied faster or slower to the rear tires

here read these ALL CAREFULLY
http://www.69mustang.com/hp_torque.htm

http://www.ubermensch.org/Cars/Technical/hp-tq/

http://vette.ohioracing.com/hp.html

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/engine1.htm

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/horsepower.htm

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question622.htm
where most guys go wrong is in not correctly matching the cars stall speed and gearing to the cars tq curve, if you mod the engine for increased high rpm performance but fail to also match the stall speed and gearing to that higher rpm tq curve much of the potential improvement is wasted.

Ray