Street Gear Poll

My thoughts about streeters; not stop-lite racers, but just plain fun streeters;
If your engine,by itself, makes plenty of off-idle torque, or at the very least;torque where the TC flashes to, then it makes taller gears like 3.23s bearable. And if it makes enough to get wheelspin with 3.55s, personally, I don't see the need for more gear.In fact, if I wasn't so lazy these days, I'd swap my 3.55s out for 3.23s. And thats a 360 with a 230* cam, and an od. It has plenty of torque to roast the 295s to well past any speed limit in Manitoba.
-See, smaller cams, like the 230*,properly tuned,almost invariably make plenty of low-speed torque. The 223* cam I had earlier was gangbusters.The 292Purple was my first choice, and not a good street choice. And streeters spend most of their lives at lower rpms. Now the 230 cam does make more on top, and pulls longer and harder up there, but whats the point if you rarely go there. A 904 with 3.55s will be speeding at the top of first gear, and a 360 will smoke the 295s all the way there. So what would I need more gear for?So I can shift into 2nd at 45 and keep spinning to yet more mph. By trading the 3.55s away for bigger gears I would be trading away cruising comfort for more tirespin. Hmmm
-See, a streeter is not a racecar. At the track I would gear the car to trap at the top of the powerband in top gear, usually direct. This gets the best chance at a max. for the combo,mph.
-But for a streeter,without an od, I want the smallest gear that gets me at least some wheelspin.That leaves me some gear left over for cruising.If you do have an od trans this conversation is pretty much pointless, but for most guys, a 5 speed or od trans is just not justifiable.
-So there are many ways to solve this dilemma, but My thoughts have percolated down to this;
-Since my streeter is so much fun to drive, I want to drive it a lot, and that includes hi-way cruising to out of province locations and car-shows.That means I have to be able to cruise comfortably, sometimes for several hours.( The nearest big city to me is over an hour away). So that kinda puts a limit on the rear gear.With only an oem tranny as the starting point, that immediately sets the starter gear choice. From there, knowing about how much torque is required to motorvate my FormulaS with that said starter gear, it kinda leads to the engine of choice, and its tune.
-a 400 plus cuber, makes the choices easy, and the engine doesn't need to be running on the edge.
-a 273 cuber can be used, in this scenario, because we are not considering racing. If your car never goes past 60 mph, then a little engine can be made to work.But it will need to be very carefully engineered, or dropped into a lightweight chassis.
-a 360 is very nearly the smallest engine that will cover a lot of bases, from fun streeter to able cruiser to modest racing. It can do the streeter thing with a small cam and modest gears. This makes sense if fuel-mileage is also on the table.And it will,at least, mph well at the track with those modest gears.Should you be wanting to chase ETs a gear swap will get you started in a hurry.
-a 318 is probably a little small, cuz now you have to bias all your choices, one way or another. To get wheelspin will require more torque-multiplication through rear-gear, or more engine torque, possibly through less cam or more compression; or skinny tires. Well skinny tires is really not a good choice.So if you are limited to a teener, IMO, its best to start with a modest cam and as much Dcr as is possible. If that means running a top-grade fuel at certain times, then thats a small penalty to pay, for stretching the little teener into territory it might not normally want to go.
IMO, too many teener-owners, for street applications, are chasing horsepower numbers, when chasing out-of-the-gate torque would make the car so much more driveable and fun. While it may sound good to quote a big number, in the end, with 3.91s, and a 3500 TC, That hp number really limits the when, where, and why of cruising, and the car ends up being parked for way too often.I wonder if quoting torque numbers wouldn't be more satisfying. Hmmmm.In any case, these numbers are just snapshots of engine performance at/over a very narrow range. For a racecar these numbers are useful. For a streeter;not so much.

So to all you teener guys, I really sympathize with your plight. I know I probably harp on this a lot, but it really is, IMO, key; good street heads, a modest cam, and plenty of Dcr.The smaller the engine, the more key it is.

And to all you 408/416wners;...I'm........... not............ jealous............................much........ lol