The Great Pumpkin - '71 Duster

Abodybomber said
I always liked tuning what I have in hard parts. That way you have a known reference, and can reuse the good known parts. ( I would call virgin W2 castings, " good parts"...). A improvement, probably could be done on the M.P cam. If you like the cam, run it,) You have a lot left in that combination, I.M.O.. Maybe others will chime in with W2 combo's , or start a thread in small block tech forum .A good valve guide/ seat centering, would work wonders for starts.

Been thinking about re-using all these parts. Yes, the block is a "known good quantity" in that it does not have any extra holes in it. But it might be beyond it's usable life at this point. Next step is to get the bottom end out and measure it with a dial bore gage. If it checks out OK in my garage, then it goes to the machine shop for final verification. Happy to have the other blocks just in case.

IMO, the stock stroke really needs the higher numerical gears though. Based on the ET with this car, that's pretty much a fact. So if I put the 4.30 gear back in, it gets kind of impractical to drive it very far. Around town is fine but I don't have a truck/trailer so it gets driven back and forth to the track which is 80 miles one way. Can it be done? Sure but do I want to? Not really. The 4.10 in it now is the practical limit for me on the highway.

The 4.10 gear would probably work well with the stroker since the longer arm creates more torque. If I had a truck and decided to stay with the stock stroke, the 4.30 gear would be going back in for sure.

As far as the heads, they definitely need some work. Guides, valve job and some basic chamber clean up. It really boils don to a cost vs. benefit choice. The RHS heads are looking pretty good at the moment since they are bolt on deal and I can use my existing headers. `