Originally Posted by
Prince Valiant
It's probably a little of both...but I do think it should be making 350 to the wheels.
I had always guesstimated that the crank HP should be b/w 420-430hp if built correctly.
The AFR's 195 that he purchased flow approaching 270-280cfm. The cam is a milder one (I'm not sure what he pulls for vacuum at idle, but I would not be surprised if it was around 13-15 inches in gear) specing around 232/240 @ .050 w/ a 112 LSA and "aggressive" ramps giving ~.500/.530 lift (being a lunati voodoo, it has similar ramps to the comp xe series). Performer RPM (can't recall if it's an "air gap" or not, same basic design though), eddy 750cfm, and a HEI ignition.
The combo was put together with it in mind that Mark would be running a mild torque converter through a 4 speed automatic and mild 3.42 gears. So the idea was that with a carb, the thing should still like cruising at 70mph while only pulling around 2000rpm for decent mileage, but still make decent enough power to put the thing in the 12's... (ol' rule of thumb is that your TC should not stall higher than the rpm's the car would turn at cruising speed, a real challenge using a 4 speed OD)
...since the mild TC was required, that was as large a cam I felt comfortable with while living with a TC stalling around 2000 rpm, and the eddy carb was specified not because you can make more power with it...but because for low throttle cruising the part-throttle characteristics using metering rods are far more tuneable and efficient than the power valves of the holley's.
The hope was to have a classic that could run 12's yet still return 20+mpg while still using something as cheap as a carb. If this thing does indeed produce 320hp (or more with through a different TC/trans), that still is likely sufficient to hit the time goal and with the old trans it's likely it could have hit it's mileage goal.
BUT, the combo is different now...the front pump broke on the 4 speed and mark has since made a switch to a 3 speed auto and iirc, 3000rpm stall TC (still using 3.42's though). Given that, the cam IS small for the amount of torque converter, and he could probably get away with an even a mechanical secondary carb...and certainly use more gear...
I would be curious to see what cranking cylinder pressure of the car is...certainly would think that it should be around 170psi...the head volume was on the higher side (72-74cc) but when we ran the supplied numbers, it cam out 10+:1....but it's not like we actually measured out the head volume and what not.