i'd use as light of pistons, rods, and valve train components as possible. good oiling, good cooling. personally I think the goal is unrealistic, but never say never. I drive a 440 that has all these things and i'd never consider cruising it at 3500+rpm for hours.
Cars came the factory with 4.11’s. Pontiacs could come wi5h 4.33’s....
And people drove them daily.
I was there in the '60's and drove a low geared car every day. we didn't cruise them 4000rpm on the highway. the engines had a life span about half of true daily drivers; which didn't have a long life span.
This is what I recall too Lew. Cars with 3.23 gears were pretty much wore out at 100,000 miles. They were burning oil at 60,000.
The flip side is that today, it's rare for me to actually put more than 2000 miles per year on my muscle cars. So life expectancy never factors into it for me. Like someone else mentioned, I cannot stand listening to them running at higher rpm for extended times.
