Quote Originally Posted by OldMech View Post



I'm old and stubbern, disagreeing with someone and THEN learning I am WRONG is the best way to get something through my thick skull.. but in this case were talking about apples and oranges.. I build a lot of engines but Most of the parts are not top end stuff like he is talking about. Most of the folks around here cant afford it. The 800 Dollar Aluminum heads from KMJ Performance are the norm rather than the cheap exception.
I'm kind of the same way, in many instances Hot Rodding has become a game of who has the biggest checkbook and/or wants to be the guy who can brag about all the trick pieces in his engine and entire car for that matter! It's always easier to insist on the best of the best when you're spending someone else's money and not your own! I like the good pieces too but IMO some of them just aren't worth the expense for a street or street/competition engine but reality steps in and many of us have learned to make do with less.

We bracket raced for 5 seasons with the same cast crank, good rods and pistons, and "out of date" CJ heads on a 501" Ford then the guy who bought the car ran it a couple more seasons!!!! In the fall it got a leak down check, then taken apart and checked internally then put back together. The car only ran 10.50's but it would do it consistently and throughout it's lifetime put a lot of very high dollar cars back in the trailer! Could have bought a bunch of trick pieces for it, but for what we were doing with the car there was no reason to do it, a faster car with tons of $$$$$ in the engine doesn't make a whole lot of sense in dial-in, handicap start racing! Same goes for a street toy, street tires and a place to run it being the limiting factors.....If you can't hook it up why poor a ton of money into the engine? Heck, locally a lot of people say I put too much money in my stuff but my "budget" is a drop in the bucket as compared to what some THINK I should spend. I couldn't afford heads-up pro car racing anyway, so for me it always works best to let common sense and practicality determine the budget for the build.

BTW, many years back had a tall deck 427 in a '68 Nova...... A bit of rearranging on the floor board/firewall area was all it took to make out-of-the-box Hooker's work just fine on it!