Need Opinions. Have nothing to compare to.

dano said

Go back to the original owner and see if he found his info. Find out if the cam was degreed, if he doesn't know what your talking about assume it wasn't and degree it in. At that time the info on the cam should be seen on the snout so you'll know what you have there and where to degree it. 2-1/2" exhaust would help.).

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Thanks Dano. I have tried to contact the original owner twice to see if he found it. First response was "Nope", second response was,.... well, he didn't respond. I don't think he wanted to sell the car so now he just doesn't want to deal with it. You make a good point on degreeing the cam. It wouldn't take me long to get down to that point and then I would at least know what the cam is. I was wondering if there would be markings on the end of the cam listing part# so I could tell what it is.

dukeboy_318 said

Considering where a 77 400 started HP/TQ wise, i think you're doing ok. factory, they were rated at 190hp and 300 ft lbs, gross FLYWHEEL for the 2 barrel and 240 hp and 325 ft lbs for the 4 barrel version. again, at the crank. so considering powerloss thru the drive train is usually around 20-35%, that puts your flywheel HP around 300-330 hp and 400-440 ft lbs. Respectable from what we can assume is a sub 9.5 Compression ratio at best. factory CR was 8.2

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Thanks Duke! You make a good point that at least I know I am doing better than a stock 400 and it is at least respectable numbers considering what a 400 started with.

I may try to correct the vacuum line question.

Question,.... Should our distributors be connected to direct vacuum or ported vacuum? I'm looking at the Demon Carb manual and it says the front port (where it was connected when I bought it) is ported vacuum from above the butterflies. It says the second port (where I have it hooked now) is direct manifold vacuum from below the butterflies. Wondering which I should have it hooked to on Mopar distributors.

The Demon manual says this:

The large fitting on the back of the baseplate, and the rear most fitting of the two small fittings on the side of the baseplate, are direct (below the butterfly) manifold vacuum sources. The front small fitting on the side of the baseplate, opposite the throttle linkage, provides a ported (above the butterfly) vacuum source (use this port for the vacuum on a vacuum advance distributor).