What cam? What heads? What manifold?

[Dangerous Doug]

Since my Cobra will be my first toy car in about seven years (since my Porsche...), I'm having difficultly putting the rpm into context for my driving purposes.

For example, if you're going to putz around the neighborhood and not scare anyone, I would imagine that you'd have little need for a motor rev'ing up beyond 5500 rpm, correct?

But, for road racing what type of rev's should I be looking at? I would think you'd have to rev up to ~6500 rpm, but I have no V8 context to compare to. Any of you tracking your Cobra's? What rpm's are you hitting at max?

Also, for Autocross, you need a pretty wide power band, but you also need to rev high to reduce the need to shift frequently. What rpm would be applicable here, for a SB Ford?