Dyno a 7.5:1 400? Sure, why not?

jamesdart said
I'm running a 400 in my duster. Honed, stock pistons, steel crank, same summit cam, iron adjustable rockers, wind age tray and baffled pan, 906 heads with a valve job and decked just to clean up. Steel shim head gasket, Performer intake, 750vs, and headers. Stick with 3.73s. It's an ok combo. I took it to the track but it was kind of embarrassing. With some wheel spin went 15.1 @ 99mph. I put on some drag radials went back and had some issues with clutch pedal setup. I never got a good run out of it and haven't had the interest in going back, was kind of a buzzkill for me. This was something I put together with junk I had, just to set the car up. I wasn't expecting to go 12s with what I have, but I thought mid 13s would be achievable. I put almost 10,000 trouble free miles on it so far, so it's serving it's purpose.

Don't be so quick to write off your combination. The absolute truth is that MOST supposedly 10 second cars out there...all the good parts, lots of trick stuff...would be lucky to wheeze their way down the track in the 14's. Why? Because a car is a system, and if even one seemingly minor part is overlooked, or one important system is not tuned or matched correctly, the whole thing is rendered lame.
Is your carb jetted correctly? Distributor curved/timed the way it should be? Are you getting enough fuel to the engine throughout the entire run? I could go on and on..all simple stuff.
Spend some time tuning and optimizing all of the systems in your car, and there's no question that you've got a 12 second run in that combination. Many people have gone much faster with much less...you can do it too!