by John C. Carpenter

Created on: December 23, 2009

High Performance Cars

Everybody wants their their muscle car to have a high performance engine in it, but then they also want to save money, and the two just don't work together very well, you need to strike a compromise between what you want, and how much money you have to spend on it.

That being said, let's talk about building your high performance engine for your muscle car, there are a lot of things to consider before you move forward with the build of your engine, first an foremost, what will your be doing with the car.

Is it a weekend boulevard bomber, or a daily driver, and do you mind how noisy the car is, the more radical you build the engine, the more of it you'll hear in the passenger compartment, if this bothers you, maybe you'd better consider going a bit more mild with your camshaft.

You've got to realize that you can't have the best of both worlds, you either get high performance, or something in between, their really is no way to have both, high performance means a noisy, bumping, rattling muscle car that is basically a race car put on the street.

While high performance appeals to most muscle car builders, you really need to take the time to plan what your going to use the car for, does it have an automatic transmission, or is it a standard, this can affect how you build the car.

With an automatic transmission you'll need to match a stall converter to your camshaft's rpm range, a stall converter will allow the car to get to the cam's rpm range before in launches, something like dumping the clutch with your standard transmission.

But it also make the car more miserable to drive on the street, it can feel like the car is gutless until it reaches the stall rpm on the converter, with a standard you just keep the car in the cam's rpm range by leaving the transmission in a gear that put's it in the range.

You can get pretty good performance without going overboard, you can build the car with a factory muscle car cam, these cams are usually pretty street-able setups, and can still do a good job on the race track, there are a lot of factory cam choices, and they all do a fair job on the high performance front.

However you more then likely will get beat at some point in time, so if your looking for a that is very hard to beat in a race, but you don't like the noise, you're go to be looking for a long time, you need to settle on a camshaft the just doe's what you want it to, and can live with.

In the end it's still up to you, but I would suggest to spend some time thinking about this, with me the noise doesn't bother me in a muscle car, if it's my grocery getter, I don't know it may bother me, high performance car can be undependable for an every day driver.

Back in the day high performance meant an engine that makes at least one horsepower per cubic inch, obviously that has changed a bit, with the new technology you can get a lot more performance, with a lot less lump and bump, it all depends on what your looking for.

muscle cars

Car Restoration

Learn more about this author, John C. Carpenter.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.