Yeah, that makes no sense to me either. Clutching at straws maybe?
I stand by the fact that 383s are pretty much useless. An oversquare engine should be able to rev like crazy but the factory 383 redline is like 5,200.
What's funny about that though is the '74 360 redline is probably even lower. Without looking it up I'd bet it's 4,500 at the most.
Both are pathetic in factory form. That's not necessarily the engine itself but the restrictions that were placed on them for normal people that don't care about max performance. Factory hydraulic cams are the antithesis of performance.