Rowdy and Mean 318 build

MOPEkidD-3 said

LOL pretty sure these problems couldn't be solved with formal education, that thing just ran odd I never could figure it out. I did check the cranking compression, IIRC averaged out to 170 psi at 5000' above sea level. SHOULD have been OK but it definitely wasn't, even with that conservative timing and 91-octane premium.

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Yeah that is on the high edge.... just the dense air with no humidity on a cool dry day could do that in. A wider LSA cam would have killed of a bit of cylinder pressure for you.... but I think you were at 112 with the Voodoo. So 114.... or some cam retard.

I think you are on the right track with the KB167's and zero decking. For road racing, you are gonna need to emphasize a wider torque band that starts well down in the 2000's range. Forget the HP numbers, and work on keeping a wide torque band. You simply can't optimize a narrow torque band for ALL of the different corners that you are going to encounter by messing with TC stall speeds on a road circuit. I would also rethink the stall speed that you have chosen; you are gonna have corners where you need to feather the throttle to get juuuuust the right amount of torque to the rear wheels. If that RPM just so happens to be where the TC is going in and out of stall, it is gonna be hard to feather the throttle properly.

Are you going to change to a 4 or 5 speed? Auto's in road race and rally suck in a certain way (beyond the TC stall speed issue above): you have to use the engine torque when accelerating AND the reverse torque when decelerating, to set the car's weight to front or rear for best handling in certain corners. Auto's like the 727/904 don't have any appreciable reverse torque ability. Plus there will always be corners where the auto gears just won't be right; a 4 or 5 speed fixes that right up, and the closer the ratios, the better..