The hotrodders like the tall deck 366's and 427's as base blocks for some incredibly high RPM engines, but they're going for an entirely different set of parameters than trucking. The basic blocks, crankshafts, and heads will handle much higher RPM and horsepower than a big rig will ever see, so you've got lots of room to play in where performance is concerned. The dirt track where I raced in California back in the late 1970's had a 375 cubic inch size limit on engines, so one guy built up a 366 truck engine with a slight overbore to hit the max displacement right on the nose. When he could get the tires hooked up coming out of the turns, he was hard to beat. That engine was a torque monster!
Jerry
