Long-off 340 build

Late to the party again.... LOL. I just looked this thread over, and on the brakes:

- With this car and weight, there really is not any need for power brakes. And drum brakes out back of the size available work just fine. I have raced rally cars for many years with cars that had large rear drums and discs up front and never had any stopping power issues.

- The reason to go to rear discs is for cooling capacity more than anything. Drums are limited for heat dissipation, and if you are going to be using the brakes a lot (like it sounds you may be) then the rear discs may be a good idea. But, if you are sticking with stock wheel sizes, then your front disc size will be limited, and realize that the front disc size will become the heat limiting factor.

- As far as the power brakes, again, there is PLENTY of stopping power with manual brakes for this car weight. The biggest things that guys miss out on thinking of brakes it the pad material. Read up on 'coefficient of friction' and understand that if you move from a CoF of 0.3 to 0.4, then your brake torque just went up by 33% with that same pedal pressure. So you can make up a lot with simple pad selection. I can promise you if you push the pad CoF up to the 0.4 range or higher, then the brakes will likely be better than you have ever experienced.

- And, if you eliminate the power booster, then you will have a bit better to a lot better brake modulation, depending on the booster.

So I would encourage you to go with manual brakes, and do it right, and take those restrictions out of the engine equation.

As far as the Thmpr cam and engine, that categorically is not the type of cam you want for your use. You need a wide torque RPM range for spirited driving in hills and mountains; you never know for sure which will be the best gear in the next turn, and a wide RPM torque range will be a big help to make up for suboptimum gearing. That calls for higher compression ratio for low RPM torque, and good breathing parts for high RPM torque.

It sounds like you are thinking about Edelbrock aluminum heads, and that will help with both of the above factors. Then the cam can be selected to not kill torque at either end of the RPM range and not put the engine into where it will likely detonate on pump hi-test. This type of engine combination is all pretty well known.

Headers? Absolutely! They will help all through the RPM range and help fuel economy too. Spend the $$ on good ones that fit well, and tuck the exhaust system up under the car good a tight. The last thing you want in 'spirited driving' is to go through a dip and bash the exhaust system!

Sorry, but the fan/rad combo is not all that good. Champions are not known for being particularly good. And electric fans can be OK or can be crap. It depends on the fan blade design, and the shrouding. This Derale fan does not impress me at all. The flow figures given are for free flow, and the poor fans' flow will drop into the toilet with any small restriction.....like the pressure drop of a radiator.

So put your cooling system plans on hold for now. I'd encourage you to read up a lot in the cooling system forum here.