Are you leaving that Poncho motor as is, or is there a planned lifter replacement?
I’d be pretty dissatisfied with 5K rpm.
Many years ago, when we were pretty green about what it took get the stocker motor happy at high rpm...... we played with different cams and lifters.
This is like 25 years ago.
We were running the Hylift Johnson 951R lifters.
The motor was pretty solid at close to 6k.
The problem was, for the gears we had to run, and how much the converter slipped...... the motor needed to turn 6500, and it just wouldn’t do it.
It was hard into float at the top end of every pass.
Beat the crap out of everything.
After a while(several different cams and valve springs) of fighting it we tried some solid lifters on the dyno.
Removed the 951’s, dropped in the solids..... set them to .004 lash....... easily pulled 6600.
We were like, “ah ha........ it’s the lifters”.
Shortly after that we got Joe Shubek to make a set for the Pontiac...... and that was the end of the lifter woes for that thing.
My buddies 350 Poncho stocker runs strong to 7k.
Solid lifters are legal now ;)
