Smallblock efficiency or How to have your cake and eat it too

One tidbit... if you run higher compression with good squish the engine will take leaner mixtures better thus saving fuel. I noticed a big difference in how my current 9:1 360 with open-chamber Edelbrocks responds to different AFRs compared to my old 360 with Magnum heads, 10.5:1 SCR and KB flat-tops... Just going from ~13:1 AFR at WOT down to 12.2:1 feels like I picked up 50 HP on my new mill. My old engine felt the same with 13:1 or 12:1 AFR, using the same carb, headers and exhaust system to boot. Applies to part-throttle cruise as well, you can lean it out more before it starts misfiring/surging and burning things up.