Just rambling....

rlevs said

love reading these post gives me ideas for the 400 that i have sitting in the corner like the big torque, but i would like to be able to run power sterring and ac in what ever car i find. and with gas prices the way they are a little gas milage would be great. yes i know i can't have both

Click to expand...

Bigger engine doesn't necessary mean worse gas mileage.
If you build a 360 the make the same Hp (340hp) as the 500 I did above it would probably make around 380lb-ft of torque, if you ran a 2.94 gear on the 500 and the 360 would need 4.11 to put the same amount of torque to the ground, which is a 72% difference in gear size and cruising rpm and a 360 is 72% smaller than a 500 and so it would have similar fuel consumption. Of course you could run the same gear for both but you wouldn't have similar performance.