mikep I agree that 95% of the time piston to valve clearance with that cam won't be a problem. But the last time I gave someone that type of a blanket response it happened to be in the other 5%. A guy at work had asked if he might have any problem with a Comp 292 Mag and flat top piston. He had recently got a good deal on a 355 SBC from a guy at the track and was going to detune it for his street machine. The seller had recommended that the 10.5 compression with flat tops and the 292 cam would be a good HIPO street engine. He never offered anymore information and I never really thought to ask. Several of us told him no problem! Well we were wrong! There was a lot of missing information: For starters the 64cc heads were not standard 23 deg heads, second it had 1.7 rocker ratio on the intake and 1.8 on the exhaust, but the killer was the pistons. They were truely flat tops and for use with heads having non standard valve angles and required custom machining for valve reliefs. He claimed everything cleared when he turned it over by hand and at low RPM. Once he rapped it up he had some serious damage. So now I always say check it "better to be safe than sorry".
I didn't get the impression from his post that he was planning to race.
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And just to note....this truck when finished will not be a daily driver...it will never tow anything... strictly a street/show truck.
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As far as the power band goes I have no personal experience racing these trucks. But I go out to the races every now and then and when I see one of these trucks that run well I normally try to chat with the owner and find out what he's running. I've only come across a couple or 67-72s that were really quick. All of them were running BB 454-510 cid. All using relitively small roller cams 245-255 @.050 and aftermarket or ported heads. Most had more than a 3.73 gear and came out of the hole with a few inches of air under the front tires. I'm not sure of their 60 ft times but these trucks were in the low10's to low 11's and went thru the lights at about 6500rpm. They all were using stock trailing arms that had been boxed and coilovers with 12-14 inch rear tires.Claimed they hooked up very well. But I'm sure there are plenty of trucks running as well or better with less CID. I have a buddy that shares your same veiw and he runs his 350 Camero thru the lights at 9 grand and has put plenty of the BB guys on the trailer in heads up racing.
As far as ported factory heads vs the aftermarket. Couldn't agree with you more. I really was just talking about some basic pocket porting that would only require an investment of his time. The crate engine I refered uses a set of Performer RPM with a bowl clean up and flowed about the same as the vortech heads.
Sorry about the long post.