if you run that whiplash in a low-compression 318, the bottom end will be a tad soft. Your A-body will need a higher than stock stall to get moving, and some deeper gears to let her wind up.
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If yur running 2.76 gears/ stock stall, it won't matter how much NA power yur 318 makes, cuz you won't get to the power until about 40 mph. Then it's a flash in the pan and time to shift, and when it hits second gear she's done, cuz she doesn't have the cylinder pressure to come back up on the cam.
Everybody talks horsepower, but for a streeter, HP is NOT what you need.
HP is required in a drag car cuz the wind-resistance sucks it up almost as fast as the engine produces it. It takes 4 times the power to go two times the speed, and it's almost all going to overcome wind-resistance..
But a streeter rarely sees speeds over 50/60 mph. I mean you stand on the gas for more than 5>6 seconds, and the car is speeding, and you got the attention of every cop in the neighborhood.
So no, for a streeter, hp should be secondary, cuz 300hp for a mostly stock 318 with bolt-ons, always comes way up the rpm band
For a 318 streeter, the primary things, should be, IMO, to have;
> the right gear at the right time,
> a halfway decent launch,
> a car that goes where you point it, and
> a power-curve that doesn't die on the one-two shift. And this is the toughie with a TorqueFlite cuz the 1-2 split is 59%. That is to say, no matter what rpm you shift at, at WOT, the rpm will fall to 59%. So if you shift at 5000, the Rs will drop to ~2950. If your 300hp cam doesn't wake up until 4000, well then, you got a problem. and the only things that will get a NA-streeter with a given engine thru that, is cylinder pressure......... or around it, with a High-stall TC.
Now then, the Lo-Compression 318s barely make 135psi on a good day. But then you put a Whiplash into it, that just scrubs the pressure lower. Without doing the math, I'll guess the CCP might fall to ~125 psi. Which super sucks, but sucks worse with a 2000 stall and 2.76 gears..
What good is having 300 hp at 5000 rpm, when the teener only makes IDK say less than 100 hp at 2000?
So like I said; if the engine is not coming apart for a pressure increase, just install a Hi-stall and gears; and go have fun..