I'm thinking about building my '64 into a freeway-capable mid-12 second car; here's the rough (" tight budget") plan:
It's probably 3600 lbs, maybe as much as 3800; I'd add subframe ties.
446" 440, steel crank, LY rods w/ARP bolts, 9.5 CR probably forged pistons; 750 or 800 Holley DP on Performer RPM or similar; 230-ish @ .050, .510-.520 lift, maybe MP "528" cam; Budget roller rockers, double springs (safety margin); either the 452 heads I have or some Stealths (452s need guides & bowl-work/porting); big pan, 1/2" pickup, tray; MP elect ign; alum. H2O pump & hsg; inexpensive (Summit?) headers, and either the spare 3" system I have, or the 2.5" system on the car.
727, no more than 3000 stall, either a 3.55 or 3.91 braced 8.75, or a 3.73 Dana 60 if that ends up less $ than building the 8.75; 3800-lb SS springs, 28" drag tire/31" street tire on 15x8 steelies. Slicks or Drag Radials.
As stock-appearing as possible; things like stock fuel system easily upgraded if needed with stuff I have sitting around from my 10-sec car. Probably use a reverse-manual VB & Cheetah shifter so that's intuitive like my other car. Local track often sees 3500 DA, sea-level track is 6 hours' drive. Car is currently Poly 318, stick car (has floor shift & hump now), restored, so no cutting except the subframe ties. Input & suggestions welcome.

clean

Sounds like a plan. I would use the Dougs headers bump the compression to 10.5 and some how or another put a 4.25 stroker crank with a chevy rod journal in the motor. That way you can easily stay with an internal oil pick up. Then a 3.23 or 355 will be plenty of gear and that .528 will idle like an Imperial. Only problem you will have is staying out of the 11,s. You can run 11.50 without a bar if you can't hold it back.

go for it...!!!
wagons are cool!!!
that one looks like a doosey...
cheapst

Beautiful car. Freeway cruiser is perfect.

Thanks, I'd love to build it 500", which was the original idea, but 446" will have to do. Budget is tight. Actually there is NO budget for this, but I can't help myself!
Other details: hanging the battery from the R/R frame rail in a fabbed box, and some "period" ft mags from my '63. Bear in mind that it's gonna run an exhaust system, which probably means more exhaust-bias on the cam as long as dynamic CR doesn't suffer.

So why not stay with a stick shift? That way you wouldn't need to worry about to little or too much stall If you stay with the drag radial route you could use a 23 spline unit with some slippage on the tires or clutch
Gus

My old bee weighed 3840 with me in it. LB 451 stroker, 452 heads bowl ported and gasket matched heads stock valves, Hughes 223 230 @ 537 549, RAS 1.6 rockers, worked cast iron avs intake, 440 Avs converted to afb metering rods big needle and seats, HP exhaust manifolds, 10.8 compression with .38 quench 11 inch Dynamic converter and 3.91 gear. Early on the car ran a 12.48 at 110 on a sea level track and later with more tuning ran a 7.77 at 88 1/8 mile at 1200 feet with a 4.10 gear. Combo worked good but you need the gear with the smaller cubic inches. My next car will have more cubes and less gear.

Fourgear, the 727 is due to the car's weight and I'm more consistent that way. Pretty sure the power curve would make a 2800-3000 converter pretty much right.
Danny, 10.8 sounds pretty stout for CR; I have an Eddy-head 440 in another car (that's a 4speed) that at 10.3 needed the advance curve pulled way back. 92 octane max for this build.
I forgot to mention 1.6 rockers, and if $ works out in favor of the Stealths, pushing the CR a bit (maybe 10.0). The highway use part of the equation means not too much gear. So I don't want to over-cam the thing either.
I gotta find some scales around here to know the weight.

Cool project.Use the stealth heads,3.55 gear,and 2.5 exhaust.Build for torque.
6 hour drive = 3.55 gears

The .038 quench was what made it work 35-36 degrees on the total. When the temps would get into the 92+ degrees I would add 2-3 of gallons of 110 to the tank at the track to keep it from detonating. I think 10.5 would be safe, but our octane is 93. I was not recommending 10.8 just showing you what a budget build can accomplish. If I was doing it here with aluminum heads I would go for 11 to 1.

Thanks, Danny; no worries, I didn't misinterpret your post as a recommendation per se, and appreciate the info.
70MPH with 3.55s & 31" tire is very doable in my 4speed car @ 2700RPM; 3.91s would kick that up to 3100RPM according to the calculator, but I'd think an A/T would bump RPM higher yet.

That is why I would go with the cast iron heads for now and use that money on a stroker. Then you could use a 3.23 gear and stock converter. You could always add the stealth heads at another time. You would be getting to around a 2500 rpm cruising rpm which is a whole lot easier to live with on a long trip.

Is the plan here to fit this car into a 12.99 or quicker class ?

Yeah, Doc, mid-12s; maybe if the planets were to align, 12.20s, but that's pretty optimistic given the gear ratio.
I'm pretty much stuck with 446", as I have the parts (except pistons, pins & rings). Gotta spend at least $500 on the heads I think, which kills the budget for a stroker kit.
Not really a class, just a big footbrake bracket.

ts .. but what is the ET range in that FB class ?

Sounds great to me, motivates me to work on my 66 Belvedere wagon. My wagon's weight is supposedly a few pounds shy of 4000 pounds, so I like the idea of the street strip combo. Stick would be cool, but I would worry about breakage, so automatic is the way I would go too. Great car!

Thanks for the compliments, by the way. The car's a sweetheart as it sits, but it's one car too many unless it finds another purpose, and it'd take $20,000 for me to part with it.

Doc, the ET range is pretty wide, but the sweet spot seems to be 12.20 - 12.90. It could run 2 FB classes. Given the DA here, even the dead-consistent cars vary .3 from a good day to a not-so-good day.

Your proposed engine build is almost to a tee what I just built.I went with 9.0 compression,Stealths and the Mopar 557 cam.Run it on pump 93 all day with 38 degrees.If you can get it to run 12.00 flat,I'd hit the index classes every weekend with it.

Sorry to burst your bubble but with that compression and those gears you might see the thirteens. Back in the seventy's I had a car just like that with a stock bore 440 6 pack engine,906 heads,solid flat tappet 300 duration 525 lift Crower cam , torquer intake , 750 Holley double pumper .4.89 geared 8 3/4 that broke the gears allot and running a 833 slick shifted 4 speed. Best I could do is 12.40 . As you said 3600-3800 lbs. if not more is allot to get moving and those gears won't do it. Sure did like that car though even if it broke everything in the drive train multiple times. I drove mine on the street also and every day to work from as soon as the snow melted to when it started to fall again.