Funny stuff. Last weekend lead69, myself and several other super smart and fun and nice guys did a cam change and intake manifold upgrade for another very cool guy, who was quite disappointed what his truck ran like (56 Chev PU) and I told him when I met him last January that we could do a TR and make it a nice street driver and when you stomp the loud pedal it would be seriously pissed off.
We finally got to it last weekend and it was a smashing success. After the first drive he came back with the adrenaline chill and shakes. It was impressive to say the least.
The credit goes to Jim at Racer Brown for pulling a rabbit out of his hat by grinding a cam for a engine that was not exactly how it should have been built. The CR was a point or so low (only 10.5:1) and the heads were a bit big (some Dart Pro 1’s...I forget the runner size) and the truck is a bit on the heavy side.
But Jim flat killed it. A 279/279 248/248 .648/.648 solid roller on a 108 in at 105 that will idle as low as you want to go (I set it at a grand because I’m not a fan of slow idle speeds), and it pulls from the bottom right to the rev limit (I set it at 7K but it can go up a bit) and is just perfect. Jim just made something not quite what it should be into something the owner is excited about.
The other thing we did was order a custom PTC converter and Tim at PTC also nailed it. A streetable 8 inch case (billet BTW) with an 8 inch stator, which PTC uses I drag week stuff. It’s amazing how well an 8 inch converter drives on the street, and how killer it is when you stomp on it.
So once we got past the fixing of several small issues (and getting the broken damper installer out of the crank...the moron who broke the tool off I the crank shall remain nameless to protect his idiocy) the end result was fantastic.
If it was me, and I were you, I’d have Jim grind something up and I’d get at the least a couple of ProForm 750’s rather than what’s sitting on there. The replaceable brass makes it so you can tune the Holley clone within an gnats hind parts. Yeah, you need to buy the linkage to turn the carbs sideways, but that’s an hour job to set up on the bench and 10 minutes to adjust once the intake is on.
I just can’t say enough about the cam Jim sent, and how much effort he made to do his best to get us a grind that would be what it is.
I also cant say enough about Tim at PTC and the several long conversations we had about what we needed, customer expectations and just getting the converter right. And for the 900 bucks the converter cost, the performance it has...that was cheap money.
Just my .02 and it’s worth even less than you paid for it.