Why Is It?

318willrun said

Assemble engine. Race it. Desire 5 tenths quicker. Buy more performance parts. Try again. Want 2 tenths quicker? Buy more performance parts. All the while leaving a full second on the table by not taking the time to tune, and think through the actual first assembly.

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That, or its big brother:

I have a stock '63 Valiant. Runs good. I bought an 800cfm 4bbl, a Hurricane intake, a set of headers, a Procomp ignition, and I was gonna get a double-roller timing set but I found a gear drive instead. So my questions are:

1. How do I make these headers fit? Serious answers only, so don't be telling me "it won't fit" or "you will have to use a torch" or other BS like that (place I got them said they're for a truck but wtvr a slant-6 is a slant-6 lol)".

2. How fast will my car go? I expect at least 13-second quarters, maybe 12s.

I am ONLY putting on the parts listed above. I am NOT changing anything else. EVERYTHING ELSE IS STAYING STOCK, my wife will still be driving this car daily. NO NEW CAMSHAFT. NO THE HEAD IS NOT COMING OFF. NO I AM NOT MESSING WITH THE BRAKES OR PUTTING NEW WHEELS ECT. I do not want to get into any of that. As far as my experience goes, I have helped out with a couple of oil changes before, and I changed a taillight bulb once.

I'm exaggerating a little, not a lot. There were numerous cases more or less like this over on .org. Some of them reached advanced stages after the dillweed had read a bunch of articles—mostly the kind in magazines that amount to advertorials/infomercials—combined them all together like doubling or tripling a recipe, ignored the chorus of "you're doing it wrong" advice, spent tens of thousands of dollars on parts and labour, and their car ran like crap (if at all). Their conclusion was always the same: [type of car/type of engine] is useless junk, [forum] is full of idiots, and they're gonna go build [other type of car/other type of engine] instead.