Newbie - Engine Question

[SPF1061]

Chris -
Everyones comments and observations so far are pretty much spot on. If you've spent months researching options, you should have a pretty good handle on the +/-'s of the different available replicas. SPF is a great choice for your stated intended use. As others have said, call Dennis Olthoff. He is a straight shooter and will point you in the right direction. One observation, if you really intend a lot of extended cruises, gas mileage can become a real factor. I bought SPF1061 new from Dennis 11 years ago. I've logged 63,000 miles. I started out with a 392 Ford Motorsports stroker. "Good" performance. 22mpg is a pretty big deal if you are going to do a lot of long range highway cruising. This was a mild mannered, well behaved motor with a little more oomph than a stock 351. I continually had Dennis make performance mods trying to get a bit more out of it until I grenaded it (36,000 miles) racing at Carolina Motorsports Park. Dennis replaced it with a Roush 427R. BIG performance leap. Lot's more fun to track and drive for short blips. Much less fun as a highway cruiser. 10mpg makes long trips expensive. It is also on the ragged edge running 93 octane. It is much happier when I mix a few gallons of 110 octane into every tank.