390 / 428 owners

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by Parksparky

My 390 started as a budget thing but took a turn for the $$ early on.

I think this is representative of one of the most common mistakes in performance car building. The extreme, but common example is something like a stripper Honda Civic that sold for maybe $8k new... with $ks and $ks of performance gear bolted, bonded and riveted on. So fine, it's all the kid could afford when he needed a car, but the foolishness of putting a huge chunk of each paycheck into something that's NEVER going to pay off, not in real performance nor in resale return, is sometimes heartbreaking to see.

If you start with an inexpensive engine option, you should stay on the realistic build curve with it. If all of a sudden you feel the lure of extensively ported heads, drag-grade rotating assembly, fancy intake etc., you really should back up to square one and start with an engine choice that makes sense. Putting $10k into a 390 or wedge block engine is going to to leave you short of where you should have gotten spending that much money, for this application.

Years ago, I read a line in Car and Driver that's stuck with me: "All the re-engineering in the world won't turn a Pinto into a Porsche."