This weekend at the American Nostalgia Racing Association race at Palmdale, Ca I placed 1st! Not too bad for the 3rd bracket race I've entered. For this race I decided to leave the car in drive and settle for a slower ET instead of going as fast as I could. That literally paid off. I received a nice trophy and $150 cash at the end of the day. To make thing that much more interesting my final race was against a Mustang.

Anyway, on to the performance question.
I'm still running an Edelbrock Torker intake on my Big Block. I have a brand new Performer RPM Air Gap that's going on this month. What I want to know is if I should port match the heads to the intake now? Is it worth doing any work to the heads or, should I just save my time and money and buy a set of aftermarket heads? My goal it to get into the 11's, all motor. My heads are stock 215's. Eventually I'm also going to instal my NOS Cheater system. What are your opinions?

Congrats on the win! I'm sure others will chime in on the performance question.

First of all, that is one pretty '66! I love the color and how clean it is. Congrats on the win.

If you ran the number in your signature with the 396 combo in your signature and it has stock 215 heads and a Comp 280 hydraulic cam, you've got that thing running pretty darn well as it is.

I would change one thing at a time and only one thing. That way you know what helps and what doesn't. It seems your car is pretty well sorted out right now so you don't want to stray too far off course. The Performer RPM should help the bottom end and mid-range but if you're running mid-12's at 105, I'd say you have plenty of midrange already and the car's working pretty well because the mph corresponds nearly exactly for the e.t.

On the Little Rat, I'd probably stay with the 215 heads and do some work like 2.19 intake valves with stock 1.72 exhausts, minor bowl blending, equalize the chambers and mill for a little more compression, etc.

If you were going to buy aftermarket heads, maybe something like the Edelbrock Roval ports with small chambers or the small oval Brodix Race Rites. Don't put too large of a port or chamber on the 396.

With a car that nice and running mid-12's, I'd leave it alone, work on consistency, and bracket race the pee out of it and have some fun!

Randy

Congrats on the win! :thumbsup:
I'd go one step at a time...do your intake swap first and see how the car responds.

Congrats on the win!!! They come few and far between. I've won 4 races total in 5 yrs, sportsman(plaque), trophy(trophy), muscle car shootout last year(plaque), and the Fall Bracket Bash(500.00) a couple years ago. I would gasket match the RPM intake and bolt it on, wouldnt worry about gasket matching the heads until you pull them off and upgrade them as mentioned above.

Thanks for the input. I'd like to get a little more power out of my combination so I can get into the Hot Rod class. This requires me to be under 12 seconds. Plus it's a personal goal. One of the problems is that this strip has really bad air. If I run at Fontana I drop an easy .4 because of air. I guess I'll go ahead and start with just port matching the intake to see what happens once it's installed. After that I think I'm going to buy some adjustable upper control arms for the rear. I'm only launching at 1800 rpms right now. My next race in this series isn't till Aug. 19. I'm going to go out to the local 1/8 mile strip so I can tune for the new intake and scratch that racing itch. http://www.chevelles.com/forums/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif

FWIW, I launch at 1500 rpm, if I don't its a big red light. Seems to hook better that way also, planting the tires a little better. Good luck with your tuning.

What's holding me back right now? My cam? What single thing would help get me down into the 11's, other than forced induction or NOS?

The intake is probably hurting 60ft a little bit, what size valves in the heads? Even 2.19/1.88's will help a 396,I'm not up on cams, is yours a solid roller? . Enjoy racing what you have a build a 454 :thumbsup:

Your car is clean.I was at the track on saturday.When you pulled in you actually parked next to me then you moved.I had a black 66 elcamino that was caged.I thought it was pretty cool when you cruised back from a couple runs and wife and kid where in the car.Good to see they are involved.Your kid had a look on his face to make you proud.I had some issues that day but my car ran like crap.Do you know what the air was that day.I run at famoso usually.I have some suspension stuff you might interested in.It will help your launch.Anyways nice car.

Bob,
My current cam is hydraulic. I actually had a solid in my last 396 but I switched to hydraulic because I got tired of adjusting every month. And, I just so happen to have a (spare) running 454 (3999289) in my garage. I was actually thinking about building it up.

434 elco,
I saw you out there. The reason I didn't park next to you was because my wife wanted to park along the outer fence so we wouldn't have cars firing up all around us. I wanted to park next to your elky. The air was 5200ft and 12% humidity. My cousin was racing my uncle's car in the Nostalgia Eliminator 1 class. He also took first place. My son loves going to the track. He's my biggest critic when it comes to my time slips. Tell me more about these parts you have. Either in a PM or here.

See you at LACR in Aug?

very nice car, im building the same 396 right now for my 68, same heads, but im going to put the bigger valves in it and a bigger cam. Good luck though, sounds like you had a lot of fun.