Realistic Expectations - 11 second Demon weekly driver

You just have to figure out how fast you want to go and then put the gear in the car to make it happen. Figure out where your torque peak will be and then where the power peak will be and put the gear in that puts you at the power peak at the stripe. If you car is 3400 lbs you'll need 550 honest hp to run 10.90. It is easy to make 550 hp with a pump gas big block, the trick is getting it to the ground all the way down the track. Here is an article on one of my 470 pump gas engines. This one is 10.5 compression, 4150 carb, wet sump, etc. It makes right at 700 hp which would put you well into the 9's. The cam is probably a bit big for street driving but you'll only lose 40 or 50 hp if you put a smaller cam in it. So that gives you 650 hp with a fairly streetable combo. If you built this engine you would need to gear it so you hit 6800 rpm at the stripe. You'll probably be going 125 mph so the gear ratio you need just depends on your tire size. You'll probably need a 4.10 gear if you have a 26 inch tire. Build a copy of my engine, put the right gear and converter in the car and it will run 10's on pump gas. We Test Intake Manifolds and Carburetors on our 400 Stroker in Search of Ultimate Power - Hot Rod Network