80/20 Rule

plymouth4onthefloor said

80 % buy or build the engine with the highest horsepower they can afford, but are surprised from the extensive costs for maintenance and rebuilding after a few miles.......
Building a nice combo for your application makes a lot more fun than missmatched parts and bad fine tuned!

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Plus I think people throw the hp need with little though like 400 hp out of a LA 360 , even though very obtainable but require more head flow to get. So it steps up the cost a lot for most. A 360 hp LA 360 is easy to get pistons cam 4bbl and headers everything else can be pretty much stock, and probably at that level get away with stock stall and gear, but to step it up 40 hp for 400 hp, your gonna need gear stall after market intake do something to the heads, then by time you figure the cost of that you might as well get aftermarket, then you see trick flow heads are a good deal compared to others, but are a waste on a 400 hp engine so you step it up, now your building a 500 plus hp engine so everything needs to be stepped up, and a 500 plus hp 360 is too radical so now your building a $10,000 408 that might take years to do when you would of been happy with a 360 hp 360. Every engine has it's easy obtainable power with basically a 4bbl, cam and headers with maybe some better pistons after that $$$$$ start to climb specially when you factor the rest of the drivetrain in.