Strip to Street Help Needed

If you really,really want to make it into a driver, and are concerned with the cost of fuel,NVH, an engine wear, then put a custom cam in it.
You will want to stick around 218 to 225 intake duration, go to 112 to 114 LDA. And get the fastest possible rate of lift,and as much lift as the heads will allow.This will net you a very broad torque curve that starts right off idle. You will need some special springs for that, and the cam grinder might give you a lower than expected red-line, to keep it all together.I have tuned a 223* cam to get 32 MpgUS, so I know its in there.With this small cam,compression will be up.It will have gang-buster-grunt off the line, and with its fast rate it will appear 1 or 2 sizes bigger than it is, through the midrange. But the top end will be down.This combo will shine with a spread-bore carb.
I built a combo like this for my S. It was awesome.It would smoke the 275/50s through second gear (1.92 x 3.55= 6.82ratio) to near red-line (street suspension,remember).It would break em loose in 2nd, as early as 2500rpm, and as late as 45mph.The tranny had a GV behind it (still does). Swapping out the 750DP for a 600VS,and installing a Mopar o/d box(giving me a double o/d) it made the 32mpg number, on a trip to CarCraft (Minneapolis)in 2004, with the tranny combo turning the 3.55s into1.97s. 85mph was 2180rpm. 65 was1667! Starter gear was 10.97.
Iknow, I know. Thats cheating. I'm just giving you ideas and results.
The thing is, with a custom cam like above, you wont need to run performance gears. You wont even want to. If you get the tune right, it will be awesome with 3.23s or even less, if you get a low gear 904 with a lock-upTC.
That combo(A-998lowgear-loc-up, the 223/114LDA cam,and with a Dcr of 8.5 or so for Iron heads ) will pull 2.76s if you ask it to. That will get you a starter gear of 2.76 x 2.74 x TC ratio of 1.15 = 8.7 = adequate for you. It will cruise at about 2250/65. With a good tune and a well-tuned V-can that should get you well into the 20s mpg.Well into.
You will have to know the exact compression ratio,and/or the average cylinder pressure, to pull this off. If the Dcr gets too high, you will be buying premium gas. Do it right and it will be dynomite, on 87E10. Mine sure was.
BTW, dont be afraid of having to run Premium. If it costs 10% more and drives you 10% further, then the cost per mile is a break-even.
And consider this, The engine may only need 93premium under full-load conditions. It might cruise on 60octane.
..............................Tune it.........................