Well I write magazine articles also but my big blocks make 700 hp on pump gas!
We Test Intake Manifolds and Carburetors on our 400 Stroker in Search of Ultimate Power - Hot Rod Network
The problem with dyno article out of magazines is that we tune the engines to make a ton of power on the dyno. That is the point of the article after all. Guys reading the magazine sometimes get confused and think that dyno power is the same as street power but it isn't. Those are two different things.
Sounds to me like you're building a street engine for a heavy car with high gears. It also sounds like you have a limited budget since you are using stock rocker arms. When you add a limited budget to a heavy car with 3.23 gears and stock rocker arms and a 3.75 stroke you end up with a narrow operating window. A big cam will turn that combo into a pig. Forget the dyno articles, go find the street car articles. Trust me, you want to stay small with the cam. Biggest cam I'd use in that car would be a Mopar .528 solid and even it would probably be too big. A lot depends on the carb and you didn't say what you have but my guess is that you don't have a high dollar carb with adjustable metering blocks. In that case you need to go even smaller with the carb.
Read this article and see what you think. I think you would want to use the smallest cam I tested in this article. Anything larger than the smallest cam in this article will most likely make your car no fun to drive. Especially if you aren't the best carb tuner in your neck of the woods......
Moparts on the Web - Main
thanks for the article thats an interesting read, i do see what you mean by going with a smaller cam i was considering going to the comp xe27hl, .525/.525 lift or even the lunati 1023970lK .513/.533 lift. I have an 850 Holley street hp, I'd say I'm semi competent when it comes to carb tuning but by no means the greatest, i have a friend that has a shop with a chassis dyno so i can get my car tuned there for better results.
