Since things are a little slow around here I thought I’d share my build and my first outing experience.
First off the car is a 1974 ‘cuda 4 speed with 3.55 gears. It’s all stock except motor, wheels, tires, and scatterhshield.
When I bought the car 10 months ago it had a 360, probably built in the early 80s late 70s with forged pistons, w2 heads, strip dominator.
I decided to stay busy to help my sobriety (8 months now) and year the engine down and freshen it up. Well then I decided it’s a great time to add a 4” stroker kit. Unfortunately I got the scat cast crank kit since I was just building a mild pump gas w2 motor. Well then I find it’s impossible to find valves and didn’t want to invest in new guides and ordered custom valves.
I then ordered a custom solid flat tappet from Duane Porter that’s 251@050 and .556 lift on 108.
I srtarted getting impatient knowing my car may be down all summer waiting, so I contacted my buddy Del who’s a member here and asked if he had any heads he’d sell to get me going. Well he did. So now I have a 360-1 top end with intake and 1.6 rockers and I couldn’t be happier. They are bowl ported by Duane with a little short side work is all and flow 312@650 and 297@550 which is all I’m using. I put it together within a week at this point and ran it Saturday at Woodburn. The build is now as follows.
11.5 compression
251@050 and .558 at the valve after lash ( yes the offset rocker robs that much lift I found).
Indy intake
1050/4150
2” headman headers
4speed
3.55
275 Hoosier radial ( did not work well)
So with only 3 passes I managed a terrible nice easy pass since I couldn’t get traction.
2.163 60’
12.08@120.23
I am happy with the power it’s making my first time out with no jetting or timing changes and with some bias and gears and timing it’ll only get better. Yes I plan to upgrade the crankshaft this winter lol.

AWESOME !!! 14 years

Love that car!!! Can you post up some front and rear photos.

Nice speed!!

Glad you got it going.

wow great mph

Tex

That thing was charging on the big end....

Very nice.
If you ever get it to get out of it's own way , it will be life changing.
That is big m.p.h. and will only get bigger when you get it to 60 '.
30 years here.
Worth every day.

Either buy another set of rims for a good set of bias ply slicks or mount them on the rims you have now, that will help the car a bunch on the line
It should dead hook and start breaking driveline parts
4 speed cars are hell on parts until you figure out exactly which parts will live in your car

Thanks Cab I plan to find out what it’s hard on and upgrading. I possibly see a Dana in the future. That’s all for the positive comments
I was pretty excited to see 120 on my first good pass. I told myself I’d be happy if this combo does 120 not expecting it to do that out of the gate wasting the first 60’ and untuned. I cant wait to see what this combo will do In the future.

You are going fast enough that you need to start spending money on a good clutch. Dead hooking a stick is the fast way to break everything. You need a clutch that you can control the application of it. Notice I didn't say make it slip. Two totally different things.

OP, I'm an e body guy....there was a time that I only cared about gen1 70-71 ebodies....

I've grown up since then. Your car is perfect. 72-74 ebody 4 speed, running 120 at the top end with a small block is what I've ways worked towards.

Cool car. Dont stop.

Great to hear it’s out and making passes. MPH suggests it it could be a 10 second car if you can get it to leave.

Nothing says '74 E-body better than those 3 point belts hanging in the windows. Have one myself.

That car is cool as heck. 120mph is hauling azz. Good work, and congrats on the sobriety too.

Very nice indeed. No hook for you as 120 mph is good for low 11's. I run 124 to 125 running 10.70's best. You have a nice car and a good running combo. Get her hooking good and run 11.20's or better. Ron

Very nice pass for the first time out. You found out the radials don't play well with a stick. As has been mentioned you need a good clutch and if it were mine I'd be making plans for a stronger rear and a good driveshaft. Otherwise I see broken parts in your future when it does hook.

Good luck and keep us posted.

The ONLY reason your radials are not working now is that your clutch is simply hitting them too hard. Simple as that. They are spinning because the clutch knocks them loose before the car has a chance to transfer any weight. Soften the clutch hit and everything else will come together with far less effort. In the end the car will be faster with radials, as a bonus you will be able to drive them to the track. Far less expensive overall, and the car will be more fun as a true street/strip ride.

If you switch to bias slicks without softening the clutch hit, the added sidewall flex will give the car more time to transfer weight. You will end up with the kind of dead hook that breaks parts- too much clutch hit combined with "too much" traction. You will be forced to either reduce traction to minimize the bog or beef up the drivetrain to take the extra abuse. The car will also be super sensitive to air pressure and shock settings while you search for ever changing perfect balance between bogging and spinning. The fix usually ends up being an expensive adjustable clutch, which brings the added inconvenience of switching the clutch back and forth between street and strip settings.

You likely have mechanical clutch linkage like I used to have on my '70 Challenger, but here's something to think about...
I have a hydraulic clutch hit control system on my current car. It basically converts my conventional hydraulically actuated clutch into a 2 stage system- initially the clutch hits on a softer 1st stage for the launch, then when the transition timer times out the 2nd stage of full clutch clamp pressure comes in to lock the clutch up. Setup is very straight forward and easy to understand, and I can change the intensity of the 1st stage hit by rotating a simple knob.

A few weeks ago I was experimenting with a 10.4" Ram dual friction organic/metallic disc, combined with a Ram 2800lb diaphragm PP. Normally a dual friction disc combined with a 2800lb pressure plate would be a super aggressive setup, but this one has it's hit softened by the system mentioned above. The car has a 2.78 1st gear, 3.73 rear gear, and 28" M/T 275 radials @ 28psi. The transition timer for the clutch was set to 1.0sec. I fired the car up, drove a few miles from the shop to warm the oil up a bit, then stopped to make a hit. Dead cold 275 radials on a random stretch of chip sealed county road, zero rubber down with no burnout at all. The 4500 clutch dump produced a dead hook launch with a peak of 0.98 G's @ 1.02sec. When the 2nd stage of the clutch kicked in at 1.0sec, it knocked the tires loose and as a result the accel G's dropped to .72.

I later did basically the same routine, except this time I bumped the transition timer setting up to 1.5sec. This time a 4900 clutch dump produced another dead hook launch with a higher 1.22 G peak @ 1.8sec in, well after the clutch's transition point. That simple addition of 0.5 sec to the transition timer setting improved peak accel by .24G's, also got the car to 50mph about .625sec quicker. No other changes between those two hits, just that .5sec addition to the clutch transition timer setting.

Dead hooked radials from a 4900rpm clutch drop on a random chip sealed county road with zero surface prep and no burnout at all. The dual friction disc doesn't complain at all about the 1.5sec slip time that it takes to bring it all together on the zero prep surface.

Grant

That MPH represents 10 second capabilities!

When you spin the tires badly at the starting line it will raise the mph for some reason. We all know that he has a great running car but mph on this run may be misleading.

God knows I've annihilated the radicals on my car many times with too much boost or RPM on the launch. Even letting off and getting back on it with 2.0 60fts, it always MPHs nearly the same as when it hooks.