OK, I'm dumb, need help
22 mpg and can smoke the tires, slant six is worth it to me. Mill head .100 bigger valves high lift camshaft headers gearing must be changed 3.23 to 3.55 and a stall converter dizzy recurve. Should spice it up.
Sure but;
I see that as a recipe costing about $6500 plus whatever labor you can't do yourself.
1) engine freshening; the full meal deal cuz you wouldn't want to tax a high mileage engine.
including valve job,milling,etc. plus cam kit,etc.
2) Hi-stall, plus installation. Might as well freshen the trans now,so you don't have to take it down again next week.
3) Rear gear swap with bearing kit.
4) other; header, free-flowing exhaust, intake and carb, and fitting it. Plus whatever need to be done to the cooling system, and the ignition system. Plus a monitoring system; tach and gauge pack.
Plus maybe some normal maintenance to the suspension steering and brakes,etc.
Since rear gear swap is part of this pkg, I recommend to just start there. You'll save thousands, and with 4.10s over 2.76s you're looking at a 48% torque boost at all rpms. There is no performance mod you can do to your engine, short of supercharging that will touch this. Even if you increased your engine torque 48% normally aspirated, you still wouldn't match the gear swap performance increase. This is because the engine mods will not equal plus 48% over the entire rpm range,like the gears do, but over some much narrower rpm range.
But to be fair, if you currently have 3.23, then the 4.10s are only a 27% boost, which you are still gonna have a hard time to match with engine mods alone.
Now;4.10s will get you 50mph @~3900 at the top of second gear, about where the stock cam power-peaks. To match that performance with 3.55s, you are gonna need a boatload of power increase, and the new cam won't peak in second gear until maybe 70mph. At 50mph@3360rpm, the higher-cammed engine will be tortoise-slow comparatively speaking, some 1500rpm short of the power-peak. So now, maybe it smokes the tires with 3.55s pretty good, alrightee... but top of first might be 5000@ 44mph; then comes the shift and the Rs drop to 3000, and that's that.
Of course with 4.10s the Rs will drop as well, and with the stock cam you might be shifting outta first 600 rpm sooner so that will paint an even worse picture. Say you shift the stocker into second at 4400. With 4.10s this is now 34mph. The Rs drop to 2600, perhaps a little under the torque peak, I call that almost perfect. Because at 34mph, there is now waay less wind resistance,the slanty with 4.10s is just gonna keep on charging all the way to 50@3900
2.76s to 4.10s is a huge jump, and the first time you open up that big single barrel,lol,you won't believe it's the same car.
I've done this to a few smogger-teens with 4.10s and 4.30s, with fabulous results. Even leaving the the rest of the combo dead-stock. Of course most of the guys went on to other bolt-ons eventually.
Anyway, that's my take on saving something like $5500 smackers.
