400 and purple cam

You make a terrific point!! I had way back considered getting outer fresh air to engine. Never did. i bought an original mopar scoop a little damage needs some glass work nothing major. And even printed out another members thread on how to make a filter base with out of a cake pan! Also the 2 seals that go in 4 inch holes. But very important as here in Texas heat is very intense. For a time i had detonation issues. Some of it related to using mopar distributor. Now have an FBO recurved very nice. Also had an intake that still had cross over bringing heat (LD4B). Now have a strip dominator no heat crossover.

to the OP: I would imagine your lucky if you have 8.0:1, more like 7.5:1CR, dump the 509, totally the wrong cam, buy a cheapo summit cam around .460" and around 220@.050, and it'll run much better and perform to all it can with what it has, won't need anything special for a converter/gears and that 600 carb is somewhat small as well but will work. If you wanna make some power as in 350+, its possible with some better heads that flow somewhere around 250@.500", a good intake like an RPM or Street Dominator and a bigger carb at least 850cfm, low CR can make good power with the right parts, but you can kill it all with big duration cams that have late closing intake valves effectively shortening the effective stroke and lowering already low DCR's........my 2c's.