I have been a member for several years, mostly I am able to find what I want through searches. I have come to the point where I need some suggestions from the people who know best... The car is a 66 Special, will be driven a lot. I plan to take it on many trips, even cross country when it is finished. Reliable power is my goal. It may go down the track for fun, but not often. Here is what I have so far: 74 shortblock .030 over 9.5:1 compression Edelbrock Aluminum Heads B4B intake TA longtime Headers Transmission is a TH400 Switch Pitch Rearend is currently 2.73 Posi I plan to run FiTech fuel injection on this The rest is open to discussion. My main concern is Cam selection, and ignition system. The car has power disc brakes. What are you guys running on the lower compression setups? A post of the whole setup would be excellent. All help is much appreciated!
1. Build the short-block so that the quench distance is reasonable. Square-deck the block, deck it enough to get the quench right. Factory machining is poor. 2. Degree the cam when it's installed. If you don't, and the engine is disappointing in any way, you'll be back in there to verify that the cam is where it's supposed to be. 3. Low-ish compression and full ignition advance is way more fun that excess compression ratio and restricted ignition advance as a crutch to prevent detonation. Given your projected compression ratio and aluminum heads, I don't think you have any problem there. You could increase the compression ratio and still be OK. 4. A mild-to-moderate cam and good-flowing heads is way more fun--but less impressive to the onlookers--than a wild cam and crappy heads. Again, the heads you have work in your favor. 5. Unless you want a rev-limiter, a plain-ol' Delco HEI in good working condition is all you need for ignition. You will need to recurve the centrifugal and vacuum advance to suit your application. There are HEI modules that have rev-limiting function; I have zero experience with them. I've used MSD spark-boxes, but not the new ones. Even the older ones have a failure rate that's bit me on the butt. Will your injection computer control the ignition? 6. Let's start the cam recommendations with this: 220--230 degrees duration at 0.050; 112 lobe separation. 0.500 lift, or less. Should idle good, with decent power starting just off-idle to pull the low-numerical rear end gears. I suspect you'll get plenty of other cam recommendations.
Are there any plans to change rear gears or trans? Because you say. "rear end is currently 2.73", makes it sound like a gear change is in the future? Is there any funds in the budget for a roller cam? If so JW's Stage 1 roller cam grind would work well for what you want, if need be he can tweak the grind specs to work better with your Edelbrock heads. And Skurkey is right, with aluminum heads you can get away with more compression and like he said make sure your quench is setup right. Another 1/2 point or with a bigger cam up to another 1 1/2 points of compression. Its not so much the static compression you need to worry about, its the dynamic that is more important. The dynamic copression factors in the cam's intake closing point which helps detremine what gas you can run, so 9.5:1 might be where you want to be if you want to run the cheap gas? Derek
As of right now, I plan to leave the rear gear alone and see how it does on the road. From my understanding the injection computer will not control ignition on the model I plan to use
