Horsepower limit for out of the box Edelbrock RPM heads

Hemirunner said

If you’re asking if it will work with 3.23 gears, lugging the engine around town, I’d say no, but if you’re talking about sustained highway cruising with an OD, it’ll work fine. Just downshift before trying to pass! Running a small block at low rpm seems counterintuitive to me. Isn’t that what the big blocks are for? In a road course car, wouldn’t you gear it accordingly?

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I'm more interested in engine responsiveness. When you are driving a road course or cone event, the engine spends a lot more time back and forth in the mid-RPM band than it does in the top 1500 rpm. The the throttle isn't wide open all the time. An engine that is dead below 4000 rpm might work for a drag car with a 5k converter, but isn't going to pull the car out of a slow speed corner very well. Obviously the "package" has a large effect on the performance, but it is difficult to pick a gear that is going to be perfect but I think a 3.55-3.91 is the likely choice until/unless an OD manual can be funded. There is a limit on how much gear you can run and still drive it to and from the events.