At MuscleRides we are keen on just one thing: functionality. Although some of us push functional to extremes, eschewing all manner of creature comfort in favor of the pure act of doing, the rest of us welcome a power-assisted something here and there, and maybe even air conditioning. Everything else about the theme of the car is left to subjectivity. But our rides are toys. We use them when the weather is hospitable, the roads are fit, and the nights are warm. Snow tires just don’t make it.

            A fat, flat, oily torque curve is best because it plots a nearly horizontal line with nary a spike or dip anywhere along the way. We want that crisp throttle response with a minimum of pedal pressing. Although the suspension and brakes could always correspond with the power band, this might not always be the case. Street and strip cars and new Pro Streeters are prone to engines with very healthy lungs, ones that could easily overpower the “handling” chassis…because that’s what they do, an immediate whoosh straight down the line.

            I couldn’t abide that. I’ve driven too many cars that thrive on a balance between power and handling and I have built my MuscleRide accordingly: big tires in front; big brakes all around; a double-overdrive transmission in the middle; and a chassis imbued with true-tracking traits. While I know that the 1,000+hp 395ci twin turbo motor sittin’ in my garage would be just bitchin’, it’s not going to happen. Even in a 4,000 pound ark, it would lead to all kinds of hell that I wouldn’t want to pay, changing out the six-speed transmission to an automatic being the least of it.

            I’m not much for juice, either. When I came up, the only power adder in the hot rodding world was a supercharger (Paxton, Latham, and the 71-series GMC, and only the first two were anywhere close to a bolt-on). Call me real old school. Though juice is cool, I’d rather just do it on nuts alone. No tune-up to fuss with, no bottles to fill, no pills the change, no stuck solenoids to cloud the situation. More than 575 foot-pounds of naturally-aspirated grunt will get the job done nicely, slap some Corvette lips, and waddle happily home in the aftermath. How do I know this? Spinning its street tires all the way through Low gear and puffing through a closed exhaust, it’s run 12.20s at 115.

            I was lambasted more than once for not sticking a Rat in it and some people even flinched at its EFI. The LS1-type engine was new, lightweight, and showed tremendous potential. I wanted to marry the latest in drivetrain technology with the vintage sheetmetal, and made a conscious effort not to repeat the norm. That was my take on the proposition, but it surely might not be yours.

            Now, the power situation has reached clinical proportions. You can buy or build as much grunt and horsepower as you think you can imagine. And in this masturbatory hobby of ours, the popular enthusiast media would have you think that bigger is always better, right?

            Fat numbers generated on a dyno engine are not real world and therefore subject to scrutiny. Most of the time, these bullets don’t run accessory one, save for an electric water pump. What’s the parasitic loss with all the street stuff involved? How much does the drivetrain absorb before that power gets to turn the wheels? Does the camshaft provide the proper amount of vacuum? Is the motor civilized enough to make a long trip?

            You could approach these concerns by building an engine that makes so much power that you could never use it all and suffer the obvious: abysmal fuel mileage and having a temperamental bitch that needs constant petting. Experience with an all-aluminum 632ci Rat taught me that it loved to eat expensive spark plugs and required frequent valve lash corrections for the solid lifter camshaft. As street engine, its 10.1 produced 750hp and 750 lb-ft in a 3,500 pound car. Kicking the Turbo 400 down to Second at 80 would haze the tires and the back end of the car shuddered like it was coming off the line on wrinkle-walls. Indeed, the tires would leave tracks simply accelerating from a stop light. Considering the original intent of the car, this fat Rat would qualify as stupid power.

            The street world is just now celebrating the awesome capabilities of the turbocharger. Gross output of 1,500hp and just as much torque from a big-inch small-block is pricey but quite easily done. The engine idles like a stocker and doesn’t make a peep until you get after it. But even with some sort of traction control system and staged electronics you’d better have a plastic Jesus blessed by the Pope hisself stuck to the dash. You can’t reliably harness 500hp on street tires much less three times that much. No, the engine won’t beat you up like a BIG-displacement motor or one with a nasty-ass camshaft, but it still qualifies as stupid power. Mine’s a lot bigger than yours? Maybe so, but try to keep sight of “it’s not the meat, it’s the motion.”

            Here’s real good example of a great sensible-power, ransack-and-pillage combo. A friend of mine and his pal built a normally aspirated 402 LS1 and a 406 small-block (both carbureted) with a budget not to exceed 10 grand. Both engines were spec’ed out the same (save for camshaft timing). Both produced identical 580hp peaks and came within a few foot-pounds of one another, but the small-block needed much a hairier camshaft that didn’t produced enough vacuum to be really streetable. Yes, the valve angle on the LS engine (23 degrees for the SB) is a distinct advantage. A much milder camshaft yielded 12 inches of vacuum, while the traditional small-block could barely muster 6. Which would you rather drive?