Got any idea on the brand by any chance?
Are you familiar with the term DCR (dynamic compression ratio)? If not, it would be useful for upcoming discussions to read up on that a bit.
Just as a sneak preview of where this is likely to go (and what I think RF360 and willrun318 are poking at), the 318 is a fairly low compression engine. If you put a big cam in it (long advertised duration), then the DCR drops too much and the low RPM torque falls apart. You can make up for it a bit with head milling, but you only get so far.
Then you put in a higher stall torque converter so that when you take off, the RPM's jump way up and you just bypass that low torque problem at low RPM. And you put in higher rear gears to help in the same way.
But that all effects fuel mileage (if you care), and the usable RPM range is narrower; that's not too much an issue on the strip, but it can effect driveability on the street (doggy at low RPM's is a popular term for it). So that is where a too big of a cam plus low compression will give you what you may not like or want. It normally does not line up so well with a cruiser only application. And 'breaking tires at will' means you will first have to rev it up to 2500-3000 RPM; it won't do that just giving it half throttle from idle like a high compression engine will.
Hope that all helps.[/QUOTE