confused - or just a stupid question

Everything you did to your engine (except possibly the pistons) took away torque but added top end hp. Porting heads usually looses a little low speed torque. The bigger cam lost some low speed torque also. And those 2.76 gears are just pure economy gears. Not anything for performance (or burning tires). You deffinetly need a set of 3.23 or 3.55 gears. If you go with a higher stall converter that will help even more. Something in the neighborhood of 2000-2200 will help. That will wake it up. If you do those 2 things your bud's Comet won't hold a candle to how your Duster will run. And you'll be able to smoke those hides down to nothin.