I like Uncle Tony and tune in to most of his stuff when I can. I can see how he would annoy some people though, I get it, but I like his focus on working with what you have, keeping stuff within the era it was originally done and passing on his experience to the next generation. I’m definitely not the next generation, being in my late 50’s and working on cars since I was a kid. But what I do like more than anything, is making ‘junk’ run great!
I’ve had and still have 340’s and stroker small blocks that run hard, these are always great and never go out of favour. But there’s something so cool about putting some time & effort into a 273, 318, 360 and making ‘em sing. I’m able to port cylinder heads, not great, but they seem to work. I have a decent understanding of camshaft specs and what seems to work with various static compression ratios. Like most here, I understand the importance of dynamic compression and the closing point of the intake valve etc. It’s all about the intended use and overall combo, that either makes the thing shine or suck.
Some of the cars that UTG works on are a little Rattier than I would like, but the overall idea of working on what you have and doing as much as you can, is a sound one and resonates with me. I know Uncle Tony bailed out of ‘Mission Impossible’ early on because his original idea got derailed, wish he was still involved and they kept to the original plan. Would have been cool to see what they could do with a low compression 318 2BBL, without exotic machining, and then install a 4BBL carb / intake, camshaft and headers and see what additional power it could make. Most of us live in this space.
