One of my favorite electrical mods was installing a micro-switch in the ball of my Mr.Gasket Bang! Shifter, to control my GVod, so I could use it as a gear-splitter. Then I connected an LED to it, and mounted that under my tach so I can always see when overdrive is engaged.
My tach is mounted on a small flat hand-formed aluminum plate that slides on the dashpad. Most of the time it is over close to the rearview mirror out of my line of sight, cuz, honestly, as a streeter, the tach is kindof redundant. First-over with 3.55s is easily good to 65mph. But, every now and then, if I'm thinking of hitting Second gear, I'll slide the tach over a lil closer, lol, cuz Second-over is good to at least 100mph.
There is a Second light under the tach, that turns on when the Line-lock is engaged. The line lock can be engaged as a hill-holder, by a second on/off switch, whereas the primary is a momentary. The two LEDS under the tach, are different colors.
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>As for "unusual" engine mods, I'll go with the standard block oiling mods, with an HV oilpump, but with extra oiling to the Topend, and extra drainbacks on the Eddy heads. My un-bushed, roller-tipped, aluminum, 1.6 rockers were installed in 1999, and I haven't even looked at them since about 2005
>As for the trans, She's a Commando A833/GVod that I slick-shifted Second and Third in, but left the brass in there. Normally, it shifts normally. But I can easily over-power the brass when slamming it. She shifts like lightning now. and the optional gear-splitting is awesome.
>As for the rear end, nothing odd there except she's been narrowed to fit 10" wheels inside the factory tubs. with just the offset spring kits
>As for suspension/steering/and brakes; that's just the Factory Rally stuff, except for 1.03 bars and a big swaybar so nothing unusual there, unless you count the Skid plate under the Milodon pan. One time she dug the pan into the dirt when landing a small jump in the Rally-Cross corn-field, and broke some welds that cost me a few hours to repair. Not no more, lol.
>One other mod worth mentioning might be the tether on my ignition keys. It seems my switch is a lil wore out, and before the tether was installed, the keys would vacate the switch on the 1-2 Bang!-shift, looking for the back seat. The thing is, I took that seat out many years ago, cuz nobody ever sat in it anyway and the doggone thing weighed 72 pounds. I can't even get anybody to ride in the front passenger seat anymore .......... something about neck-snapping shifts, and/or reckless cornering ........ That's Ok, I get better gas-mileage with that seat empty anyway.
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One thing NOT unusual,
but I'd like to mention here, is your Exhaust System.
If your cam has more than ~50* of overlap, and yur spinning it over 5000rpm, and the car is wearing mufflers, then your engine needs some place for the exhaust to pile up into, as the overlap cycle begins to go to work. ANY pressure in the exhaust system will not only kill the overlap cycle, but will drive the exhaust up into the intake plenum, especially at say cruise rpms.
To that end, my car runs full length 3" duals. This offers about 33% more cross section than 2.25 standard pipes. Obviously at my power-level (maybe 400hp), I don't need dual 3s, on the street. But iy gives my combo the flexibility to run just about any overlap I dare to. I also depend on the extra metal in the big pipes to suck the heat out of the exhaust, while cruising, to minimize plenum contamination, and to let inertial tuning help with fuel economy. To make this work, I find that mega-cruise timing and lean-running gets the job done. This gets everything burned up by the time the exhaust valve opens, and lets the header vacuum it out. That same scavenge cycle, pulls on the plenum, before the piston does. But, if you're Scr is plenty high, your throttle will be nearly closed, so all that vacuum is gonna pull very hard on the Transfer slots, so yur gonna have a tuff time not running rich at cruise, unless you lean it out.
By my testing, once you have an overlap period of over 60 degrees, yur gonna have trouble with fuel-economy below 2200rpm.
By 75 degrees the rpm needs to be up near 2600.
Obviously, the higher the rpm, the lower will be the fuel-economy, in spite of your best efforts at tuning the cruise system.
If fuel economy is on your agenda, you gotta keep the rpm down. and that means very little overlap, and very high efficiency, which almost universally points to a high effective cylinder pressure.
I ran 65=1600 for a while with a cam that claimed 53* overlap, and at nearly 200psi CCP. 1600 was too slow for it, but same gearing was 85=2100, and economy jumped up some. At 75=1850, this was just about right for that cam. Timing was optimized at each cruising rpm. All testing was done with the 3" duals.
That cam lost lobes, and next one was 61* overlap. This one is geared 65=2240, which is a lil slow for it, but she is no longer my DD. This gearing is otherwise pretty slick, so I'm leaving it.
If you are wondering; I used to have a line up of pumpkins from 2.76 to 5.13s, with just two ratios missing; 3.73s and 4.56s. So tuning was about 75 minutes per swap. Plus at that time, I had both a standard 4-speed and an overdrive. Not long after, the GVod was added, then the Commando.
and No!, I'm not rich. Blessed yes, but not rich. I sold stuff that I had accumulated over the years, to finance new purchases. I'll be 72 this summer, so that's a lot of accumulated stuff, lol..
and yes, my Barracuda accepted the mandrill-bent TTI 3" tailpipes, both sides, no big deal.
Lemme tell you guys; You don't need a big cam nor want it, unless maybe yur stuck with a small engine., wanting bigger-engine performance. Opening up your exhaust on a 360, can be worth 20 or more horsepower, about what the next-size bigger cam would get you, and it's all in the overlap, if you let the exhaust system work it. If you cork it, then yes you'll need a bigger cam.
Fifty or so degrees is a good amount of overlap. Put it on a 108 or less LSA and you'll be able to call up more cylinder pressure than you can buy street gas for. Get it right, and high 20s mpg could be yours, together with about 330hp in a 360. Combo'ed up right, this makes a real nice performance A-body, Daily Driver............. at least , I was impressed for several years until that cam lost lobes.
