Topic no longer needed.

 

Are you using an over drive transmission? How tall are the rear tires? How fast do you want it to go and at what RPM? What will you be using this car for?

 

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With a 1:1 final trans ratio and a 3.42:1 gear set, at 6500 RPM and a 25.6 inch tall tire, your speed would be about 145 MPH. With a 3.31 ratio your speed would be 150 MPH and with a 3.08 ratio your speed would be 161 MPH. If you plan on highway cruising (60 MPH) your RPMs would be 2693, 2606 and 2425 respectively. If you really want a dual purpose car, you may want to run different tires on the street (larger diameter). A 245/60R16 is 27.6 inches tall and will cut your highway RPMs to 2250 with the 3.08 gear set. This web page has a bunch of different calculators to use, pitbulltires.com/calculate.php
Crunch some numbers and see what fits your plans. HTH

 

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I'm not sure what you have planned for the car as far as roll bars, suspension and other things, but from the information that you have provided so far this seems like an impossible dream. A 150 MPH 1/4 mile car requires a huge amount of modifications. The 14 inch wheels probably won't work, and you are going to need a roll cage and you will need to remove a lot of weight to make 500 HP run 150 MPH. Drag cars also don't handle well in curves.

You have not mentioned what rear end you are planning on using, but I'm guessing a 9 inch, S60 or 12 bolt.

 

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500 rwhp is very expensive to achieve , especially without a power adder!

I have a 3.75 rear gear with a 9" and a built th350.
Top speed for me is 123mph at 6200rpm (converter slip included).
You'll need a really good stall converter as well.

What is your dollar budget for this complete build?

 

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Just from my experiences.
I have $3000+ in my 9"
$700+ in my converter.
$1500 in my afr heads

A stock block probably won't handle 500rwhp very long, (don't waste your money, get an aftermarket block right on the start)
An aftermarket block like a SHP will cost $1800, plus you have to get a final hone for the pistons.

Forged internals would be $1500+

All that right there is $8500, and there's still alot more to buy.

 

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Your crate engine uses a stock GM block, it won't hold 500 rwhp for very long.
Also, more cubes are easier to achieve your goal

All those parts I said did not include any labour, I did all that myself.

The labour is almost expensive as the parts.

My engine is about 375rwhp n/a, and with a 125 shot of nitrous I am about 500 rwhp.

I ending buying a motown sbc 400 block, because the longevity is way better.

 

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Do you have plans for a roll cage? The cage is for your safety, but it is also VERY important for keeping the car from twisting it's self and for making the suspension work. Without stiffening the car you will ruin the body to the point where the doors will not close. I also don't think you are going to be able to get enough traction with any tire that fits a 14 x 7 wheel.

Do you think you can build 500 HP in a small block without raising the compression to the point where you have to use racing fuel? Without using a power adder its going to be tough. More cubic inches will help. I hope it all works out for you, but it seems a little unrealistic at this point.

What 12 bolt do you plan to use? What rear suspension do you plan to use?

 

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I agree with a lot of the other guys posting. I don't want to sound hard on you, bust your bubble or anything, but it sounds like you are in dream land with only a slight clue to real world performance.

The items you are talking about, the build you are talking about... Sounds like a very basic 375-425 HO at crank build at most.

You can't take a 300 HP crate and slap a few parts on it and gain 150 HP, it don't work that away at all.
Things has to match each other, clearances has to be there, etc..

The best "street" heads you can get will only add about 70 HP to your engines, for $2200, and now those heads must have a much larger cam to get that gain.. Oh, wait your much larger cam has piston to valve clearance probs, you need to flycut pistons or replace them with $500-700 pistons just to have the valve clearance to run the cam to make the heads work.

Now your intake don't fit the new heads, your rocker arms won't work, pushrods are too short, etc etc.

Now you have $4500 in a "head" swap, and you are lucky if you gained 100 HP from it all.

But wait, now you don't have enough carb, gear or stall, it bogs off the line and slower than it was to start with.

You will never get any good 0-60 or 1/4 mile times with any 14" tire you can buy today. You will need drag radials on the rear for sure and they don't make them in 14's.

Even 400 HP twists these cars like a pretzel. Even bone stock third gens should have weld in sub frame connectors on them, and once you get to 400-450 HP you really need atleast a 5 or 6 point roll bar just to keep the car from twisting too much.

I have done pretty much all you are wanting to do to my own camaro. No labor fees, I build all my own stuff, weld all my own stuff, etc.

I'm at $19,000 and the car still needs paint, and now it's too radical to be driven very much on the streets.

It was a daily driver for 10 years, over half that time with a full 10 point roll cage.. But back then it was a mid 11 second car, and gas was cheaper...

Now it's about a second faster, and that changed the whole car's attitude.

 

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Cool deal man... Good luck with your build.
It's easy to get caught up in 'bench racing' and forget what it really takes to reach those high HP #'s, high MPH #'s, and ultra low E/Ts.

Keep in mind, the whole car must match and work together.. When you change one part, you will be forced to change 5 others just to support the part you upgraded.

Here's you a head start on finding the 500 HP 383... I have never used any of these engines or builders, so I am not giving these as a recommendation, just more of a here you go, look at these.
http://www.unitedracingengines.com/s...83/Detail.html
http://www.competitionproducts.com/P.../#.VKZZQtLF_bM
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/hpe-hp55c/overview/
http://www.skipwhiteperformance.com/...tem=383_STG2_2

Then remember the everything has to match deal..

You will need a 3500-4500 stall converter ($350-700) , th-400 trans well built ($600-1500) , third gen bolt in ford 9", 12 bolt or S60 rear end ($2000-3000)

Better driveshaft, U joints, cooling system, fueling system

All aftermarket performance/race type suspension

Means of keeping car from twisting (SFC and roll bar)

Just trying to help keep you grounded man.. It's not cheap or easy to get that kinda power and make that kind of power work..

Like I said my car is close to what your wanting, here is a quick run down on mine

1988 camaro, 3242 lbs w/o driver. This is after adding the roll cage, and removing a lot of weight from car.

10.34:1 compression, 249/252@.050", .570"/.579" lift cam, Brodix IK 200 heads, howards billet alum roller rockers, holley 4150 HP 750 dp carb, 7 qt oil pan, windage screen, crank scraper, rear main oil baffle, MSD pro billet dist, mallory digital box, mallory ecore coil, alum underdrive pulleys.

31"x 19" 2 row alum rad., Ford turus 2 speed elec fan., 2 transmission coolers, milodon high flow water pump.

No heat, no AC, no blower motor/fan

th-400 trans, red eagle friction & kolene steels, transgo reprogramming kit.
custom built 9.5" 3500 stall converter with anti ballooning plates

Moser bolt in ford 9" rear axle housing and 31 spline axles, Ford nodular iron third member, detroit locker, timkin bearings, motive 3.89 gear set.

S&W 10 point roll cage with swing out door bars
RCI 5 point race harness.
Spohn weld in sub frame connectors, adj. lower control arms, adj. panhard rod, lower control arm relocation brackets.
Jegster adj. saddle mount torque arm
Lakewood driveshaft safety loop
Moog Iroc rear springs, air lift drag bags in rear springs, KYB AGX adj shocks

15x8 wheels, Nitto 555R 275/60-15 drag radials in rear. Need new tires now, looking at M/T drag radials in 275/60-15 and 295/55-15. Front is 235/60-15

Second gen F body rear drum brakes, alum brake drums, strange brand manual brake master cylinder, power stop slotted rotors up front, TCI line lock

 

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It's hard to build a car that handles well in curves and also does well with drag racing. The suspension set up is completely different. If you want this to handle well then it's not going to work very well when drag racing. You are going to have to pick one and build it in that direction and don't expect it to do well in both situations.

Horse power is calculated from a mathematical formula that uses torque and RPMs. Torque X RPM divided by 5252 = HP, so increasing torque also increases HP. The combination of parts that you pick will determine what the torque curve looks like and how much HP the engine makes at certain RPMs. If you have 2 engines that make the same amount of torque, but at different RPMs then the HP will be different. If one engine makes peak torque at 3000 RPMs and the other one makes peak torque at 3500 RPMs then the second engine will have more HP than the first one, even though the peak torque is equal. Things like intake manifold design, cam profile, carburetor size and header tube diameter will all determine where the torque peak is. This is why it is very important to match all of the components so that they work together.

Back to your original question, the best gear ratio is determined by the whole car. Your engine combination, transmission gear ratios, torque converter, tire diameter and the intended purpose of the car will all have an effect on what gear ratio is best.

 

There you go man, that sounds more in line with real world. Your 350-400 HP, 425 ft lbs goal is very realistic.

An engine combo thats something like.. 9.5 to 10.5:1 350, good heads (vortecs or better), cam around 220/230 @.050", 108 or 110 lsa, performer rpm intake, long tube headers, goof aftermarket Y pipe, cat back..

Match it with a 2800-3200 stall converter, 3.42-3.73 rear gears, good suspension and tires.

That will get you where you want.. Should be right at 400 HP, 12.0's to 12.1's @ 110-112 mph 1/4 mile times, 0-60 mph will be sub 4 seconds. I would guess 3.8 sec. range.

0-60 mph times are more about gear, stall and traction that anything really.

 

I'm going to jump back a lot of replies and respond to the 150 mph question.

How do you want to hit 150 mph? 1/4 mile, standing mile, takes 5 minutes to get there etc? Doing 150 mph in a 1/4 mile is a lot different than doing it in a standing mile, silver state challenge average speed etc.

A low HP car with something like 2.77 gears an overdrive transmission and 28" tall tires could hit 150 mph but would also be very slow off the line so it would take a while to get there.

My car however can hit 150 MPH in the 1/4 mile without a power adder. The downside is at the 1/4 mile, I'm maxed out and can't go any faster plus I'm far from being close to streetable. I'm also getting to 150 mph in 9 seconds. 4.86 gears, 32" tall tires and maxing out the rpms to 7400.

Best gear ratio depends on a lot of factors. To keep rpms low for fuel economy, something in the 2.xx to 3.00 range work best. Add in an overdrive transmission and you'll be almost idling down the highway. Bump the gear ratio to the mid 3.xx range and you get a bit faster acceleration at the cost of higher rpms at the same speed. For general street/strip performance with a standard 26" car tire, 3.73 gears work well but for some people who don't use an OD tranny, the engine rpms are too high at highway speed and fuel mileage suffers. When you get into deep gears like 4.10 and lower, you need to start using taller tires because the torque multiplication can easily overpower the tires and spinning off the line takes away your performance advantage.

There is zero advantage to using a 14" rim. Actually it's more of a disadvantage. Stock brakes suck and at those high speeds, you need much better brakes to slow down. It's easier to install disk brakes behind 15-16" rims than it is to put them behind 14" rims. The main reasons more and more cars are coming out with 16-18" rims is so they can have larger and better brakes right from the factory. An 18" rim however with a typical 26" tall car tire gives very little sidewall. Might be good for a formula 1 car but for street driving, it's very rough. Third gens came with 14-16" rims so swapping out your 14" rims for 15-16" is very easy.

 

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A 150 shot for about 10 seconds with a 10 pound bottle will get you 8-10 1/4 mile passes. After 5-6 passes, the bottle gets cold and pressure drops. Less pressure means less NOS going through the system. Multiple bottles, a recharging station and bottle warmers are not required but make racing more consistent. Add in that when using NOS, you'll also need premium fuel in the tank or you will hurt something.

 

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If you want to spray more than 100-125 HP shot, you need stronger engine parts and more upgrades.

Over 125 shot I recommend forged crank, rods, pistons, good rod bolts, main studs.

With Nitrous, you also need higher octane fuel.. A lot of people just uses the stock fuel tank an Ts a fuel line off my supply line to the nitrous system... For under 125 HP shot that works great..

Over that I recommend a dedicated fuel system for the nitrous. Mount a 1-5 gal fuel cell under the hood, plumb in a holley blue elec. fuel pump, plumb your nitrous fuel supply to that system, dump 100-110 octane race fuel in that cell.

Also with bigger nitrous levels I prefer to run window RPM switches to spray rather than just a button. Also you will need a timing retard for when using nitrous.

The Mallory 685 digital spark box is my go to for this. It's a CD ign. box that has built in adjustable nitrous timing retard, RPM window activation switches, low and high side RPM limiters.

 

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I ran NOS on my 454SS pickup truck. only used it for the Friday night street legal nights to have fun. All engine and the 4600 pound truck ran 15.0. With a 150 shot of nos and a very hot bottle so pressure was high, I managed a 13.28. Went from an 87 MPH run to 101 MPH.

Basic setup. Bottle mounted in the back. Fuel line for the NOS tee'd into the TBI inlet line. An arming switch mounted on the dash and a WOT throttle switch mounted above the gas pedal. NOS would only come on if the arming switch was on and throttle was at WOT. As soon as I lifted slightly off the throttle, the NOS would shut off. You only want to add NOS to the engine at WOT and as I already mentioned, you need to use premium fuel with NOS. It's a power adder just like using a supercharger or turbos. When boost increases so does the octane requirement.

Performance increase with NOS is exponential. A 150 shot with a slow vehicle can be 1 to 1-1/2 second increase. If I gave my race car a 150 shot, I might increase 1/2 a second if I was lucky. Probably closer a 1/4 second. The faster you go, the more NOS is required to go even faster. A 150 shot of NOS on a prostock car would probably only drop the ET by 0.1 seconds.

If you gain a full second from a 150 shot, you will not gain an additional full second by increasing it to a 300 shot.

 

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I'm in GA. and a couple of my local part chain stores fills nitrous. 1 of the 6 local auto zones does and 2 of the 5 advance auto parts, and 1 napa store does (they also have a machine shop on site)

 

Oh...

I still don't understand your idea behind swapping in a $2500 12 bolt rear end, and using a th-200c transmission.

The 200c is the weakest RWD chevy transmission.

"Right after the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, GM developed a lighter-duty version of the THM350 with lightened materials — primarily alloys in place of ferrous materials (e.g. clutch drums and oil pump). The Turbo-Hydramatic 200 was born; however, this transmission was notorious for its failure rate when used behind a V8 engine — especially the Oldsmobile V8 350 Diesel.
1976 GM vehicles first saw use of the THM200 — from the GM T platform to GM X-Bodies (Chevrolet Nova et al.).
Transmission shops nationwide, along with GM repair facilities, have swapped in THM350s since the 200s were failure prone. Starting with the 1979 model year, vehicles which had the THM200/200C as standard equipment were optioned with the THM250-C, actually a THM350 without the intermediate clutch pack along with an adjustable band similar to the Chevrolet Powerglide.
Around 1979, it received a lockup torque converter, and some internal components (primarily the low/reverse clutch drum and planetary gears) were later shared with the Turbo-Hydramatic 200-4R.
THM200/200Cs were produced until 1987"

 

12 bolt was mentioned in the first thread. Third thread says this.

 

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So far, it sounds like your buddy with experience has talked you into overdrive being bad, efi being unnecessary, and all-motor being the way to go.

Hate to ride your *** on the same topic twice but OD makes it possible to run a good 1/4 mile gear and have decent mileage and rpm as a daily driver. Yet you eschew it.

The 650 Holley that your buddy has run since 1980 is okay but isn't the hot ticket for overall drivability and power. Just familiarity.

As for the all-motor thoughts, nitrous makes it possible to add an amount of power to a daily driver that makes it a more fun 1/4 mile car if done right with fuel and timing adjusted to compensate.

I was lucky to have a friend with 30 years experience too. I learned a lot from him. But he loved overdrive and EFI. All I am saying is keep your mind open to lots of ideas for others. Daily driving a car with less opportunity to be enjoyable because of poor parts selection isn't the way to start an all-purpose car.

 

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You need to do some reading on SAE gross horsepower compared to SAE net horsepower. Ratings for 1972 and later were done differently which makes earlier models have higher ratings. There were no 400hp small blocks by net standards. A 450hp LS6 for 1970 was shy of 400 as-installed Hp. Pretending the cars of that era were awesome is a misnomer. They were lacking in cylinder head and cam tech. that has improved, among other things.

You keep talking about having a nice car that suits all your needs. And driving the highway. And aiming for high mph capability. Well, that is exactly why you do need overdrive. Your 3spd auto plans mean that if you choose an ideal rear gear ratio for the 1/4, your car will suck gas and run high rpm on the hey. With OD you can have the best of both worlds. And can leave the shifter in D some of the time if that suits you.

Anyone can put speed together. Putting together a balanced combination that suits all the goals you have outlined takes more planning. And gear ratio involving the trans. and rear gear selection are critical.

 

What do you call upwards of 500 HP to the rear wheels?

You say no need for gobs of power, blah, blah, blah, but in your 1st post you said you want upwards of 500 HP to the rear wheels... That's much more than gobs of power.

500 rwhp is about 580-610 HP at crank.

500 HP carb'ed engines are not daily drivers.. Mine will not idle below 1,000 rpm in gear, only 3-4" of vac at idle, power brakes won't work, gets 7 miles per gallon, must run atleast 93 octane fuel, likes 98 or 100 octane better, no real power below 3,000 rpm

Classic muscle cars are not as fast, or as much HP as you think. Like mentioned.. Gross vs net ratings.

All the power ratings of the 60's and early 70's was gross rated. The engine will never make that kinda power in real world.

The rating was with no belts, no pumps, no air cleaner, nothing on the engine at all. Just sitting on a dyno,.

Net rating changed to add in the acc. drive system... Water pump, alt, belts, etc.

Net HP is real world power at crank.. Net rating is 15-25% lower than gross. Sometimes even more.

Look up some of the fast classics and use an ET cal. and see how far off the HP listing really is.

The 1969 ZL1 427 Camaro 430 HP, ran 13.16@110.21
It weighs 3300 lbs, needs a driver, so figure 150 lbs.
Based on weight and HP, it should trap at 115.9 mph

The 110 mph trap speed says it's really only 369.7 HP


1971 Corvette LS6 454, 450 HP, 13.72@102.04
weighs 3520..
Based on weight and HP, it should trap at 115.2 mph

It's 102 trap, puts it at a pathetic 311.9 HP

A true net rated 350 HP engine is a mid third gen will trap in the 105-107 mph range. If the traction is there the ET would be 12.6's

500 rwhp (575 at crank) like you mentioned in a third gen would trap at 125.88 mph and if you have traction 10.7's ET

Point is, all of those 350-450 HP muscle cars was not really 350-500 HP. They are 250-350 HP cars.

 

How much HP does my engine make? I have no idea. I've never had it on any sort of dyno. I know how much my race weight is sitting on the starting line because that's how much weight the engine needs to move down the track and I know my ET/MPH as I cross the finish line. The MPH can give me a HP estimate because ET depends on traction.

So is my calculated HP rear wheel HP or flywheel HP? I don't really care. I tune to make more MPH which means I'm making more HP.

Best mph so far has been 150.45
Race weight is 3020 pounds
Conversion factor for weather and altitude puts my HP at a dyno correction of 930 HP.

But like I said, 150 mph in a 1/4 mile is not the same as hitting 150 mph going down a long stretch of highway, runway etc. If geared correctly, you could hit 150 MPH on a very long stretch with 400 hp but it would take a while to get there. A T56 with it's 2 OD gears would help. A 4 speed auto only has a single OD gear as it still needs the lower gears to get you moving with torque multiplication through the gear ranges.

A street/strip car by todays standards really needs at least one OD gear to enjoy street driving. An all out track only car does not need OD. The OD gear is small and weak.

 

sorry to reply on an old post but I was just reading through and that's really funny because you were in the same place I'm at now I'm about 22k into my build right now and I'm not even done with the axle build , interior , or paint and body yet......... and weather stripping