[RichSchmidt]

You dont need C-clip eliminators,or a roll bar to run 11's. You need a bar to go faster then 11.50,and C-clip eliminators to go faster then 10.99,and to be honest,with an automatic,and under 5000 stall,I doubt you will brake stock axles even running well into the 10's.

I have done some real strong low buck combos. It all depends on the condtion of what you have. If the 454 isnt tired,you can pic up some power on a budget by swapping on a set of closed chamber large oval heads from a 60's era bigblock. These heads are still fairly cheap,and usually easy to find on Ebay ect. I wouldnt spend big money or effort on them though. I would have them freshened with a good 3 angle valve job and back cut on the stock valves,fresh springs,and have them milled about .030" . This will get you over 9:1 with the engine you have(which is probably really about 7.5:1 right now). From there,go with a mild flat tappet hydraulic cam that will keep you under 6000 rpm. I have run the Isky 280 Mega cam in a few combos like this. You can run that cam with stock rockers,but a cheap set of 1.8:1 rollers like Harland Sharps is money well spent. From there,find an older single plane intake,I prefer to original design Torker(the one where the carb sits crooked),and port match it to the heads. This intake likes a 1" spacer if you have the room for it. Top it off with any double pumper you can find that 750 or large cfm,and make sure that whatever air cleaner you use as at least 1" over the top of the choke horn. Either mill the horn,or use a riser under the air cleaner and a hood scoop to get the room. You will need to track tune the carb,and might not get to your goal out of the box. A good performance HEI and low resistance wires like MSD wires is more then enough spark. Use a set of inexspensive heads,my choice is the Hooker regular competition headers for the 70-72 application. They fit 73 and later if you cut a small notch in the upper part of the 73 and later motor mounts. You will need good exhaust. Summit makes a low priced kit in 3" that they sell without mufflers,and you can then add better mufflers to that.

I would use solid body mounts,and bolt inframe connectors,then have the connectors welded to the front subframe and welded to the braces that they come close to under the floors. This is much different then real weld in connectors that require cutting a channel out of the floor and doing a lot of other work.

From there,you should run about a 3000 stall convertor,and the biggest RV/Towing trans cooler you can fit into the front of the car. A shift kit in the trans doesnt really add any signifigant performance,it is just a personal preferance. With 28" tall sticky tires and slapper bars I would run 3.42's or 3.55's,while you could run 3.90's with 30" tall tires.

This is just a ball park on what you need to get a 3600# car into the basement 12's high 11's depending on the altitude and how fresh your parts are.

 

[RichSchmidt]

That cam and intake is toward the mild end of what I would like to see. You might be limited to low 12's with that combo. At the very least,port match the intake to whatever heads you use. As for which heads,the 781's are a looser unless you are talking about on an engine with domed pistons. Even if you milled the 781's .060" you wouldn't get 9:1 with true flat top or mini dish pistons(the most popular dished pistons for pickup truck 454s). I believe some of the peanut port heads have small chambers which would mean they are good for more compression,I have never used them because I always felt the ports were too small,but others are proving otherwise.

As for modifying heads,there are a few things to think about. When opening small valve(2.06" intakes) for larger valves you need to relieve the chamber around the valve or it will limit or even hurt flow. It also adds chamber volume,so you ned to mill the heads back to the correct spec. This is why back in the day a particular casting that was offered with both small and large valves would have a 96 or 100 cc chamber in the small valve version vs 107cc for a large valve.

How much work you have done is based on the condition of the heads and how reasonable the machine shop prices are. The price of a good 3 angle valve job has come down a bit since the popularity of Serdi type machines caught on in most rebuilder shops. They now cut all the angles in one shot vs the labor intensive old method of making 3 different cuts. Opening for larger valves doesn't usually cost much more then a regular seat cut,but remember about opening the chambers and blending the valve job into the bowl. If the guides are worn,I would be fine with thread in inserts on just about any heads. Some shops really push for doing the entire guide,and then will talk about how the exhaust guides go into water,and how it is so much work and so much money. I don't like the old slip in liners,but the thread in ones are fine. I don't like knurled guides. If you go for larger valves you will need new valves. I use inexpensive stainless rebuilder valves in all my street strip stuff. There are many sources for these valves,the one I have had luck with is a seller named Racersoutlet on Ebay. They sell Elgin valves,springs and retainers as very reasonable kits. There are plenty of sellers for these parts,thats just the one I always use.

I have 2 shops that I use to do heads. One shop I use for my stock and street/strip stuff does excellent work,they are very cheap on their prices,and will do things to my specs. They are limited on the scope of the type of trick work they can do,and don't really take on any work that involves serious resetting up of their equipment or is very timing consuming ect. The othr shop is a full race shop. They do everything,but my gripe is that everything is expensive. They swear that the Serdi setup isn't as accurate as the setup that they have,but their setup is much more labor intensive and cost much more for te job. They always replace ALL the guides on used heads,and just run up a huge tab on everything. I bought them the 461 camel hump heads that I have on my street car along with a bunch of the rebuilder quality parts and got beat over the head with a $700 machine shop bill,and that was using stock size valve springs,no screw in studs or any of that. So you need to get the prices up front. Spending over $800 including parts for parts and labor on stock heads with stock size valve springs is starting to get expensive.

As the vacuum secondary carb,they can work fine,you need to get the secondaries to open quickly,or it will cost you power. Many people worry that a double pumper will bog if its too big,but with a 2500+ stall,it wil never be an issue.