318 Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
All testing was done with a QFT 600 cfm Vac sec "Slayer" carb. No jetting was warranted, timing was set at 35 total as this seemed to be the sweet spot.
Initial fire up and the first 5 exploratory pulls were performed with the fuel in the tank which was some high 100+ race fuel. Fuel was gone by the 6th pull and testing would wait until the next day. The following morning I picked up 2.5 gals of MacEwen 87--Yes 87 octane @ 98.3 cents/L or about $10.00 CDN. I checked the S.G. of this stuff and it came in @ .725 which was a little lower than the race stuff before it.
Hit the button and it fired up real nice even dead cold. Oil pressure is good even if a little high-60 lbs hot or cold at idle. Manifold vacuum is what I expected @ 18-19" idle. Is this thing going to make any power I thought? A pull from 3500-6000 netted a healthy increase in torque with the pump gas which it should seeing as the comp on this engine is 9.2.
The results 359HP @ 6000 rpm and 375 ft/lbs @ 4100 rpm. What surprised me was power holding on and peaking that high--I figured 5500-5600. I actually saw 380+ ft/lbs more than a few times over the 23 pulls performed. The manifold and MRob's awesome bowl work on the heads is what I attribute the awesome power curve to. J.Rob