Choosing a rod in terms of what it will give you is much harder than choosing it because it is the right length to connect the piston to the crank. The fact is, if you spend the time designing and working on the other more important variables to building power, the rod length really won't mean much of anything. Smokey Yunick shared RM's opinion because he, like them, worried far more about the other details. Even in a slant - the rod length in and of itself won't mean much. You'd do much better to use whatever rods you have and spend on a quality set of custom pistons than worry about the rod length or ratio.