Tom,
Thanks for the detail. I was curious how much (on my computer the Gonkulator) the mods you describe might make. I was pretty conservative in describing the changes in the computer but here is what I got.
I compute the gross torq/power of the 196/138hp as
Torq 175 at 2800
Powr 130 at 4500
In your car, the stock engine should run as:
2.51 60ft time
11.53 at 58.7 1/8 mile
18.23 at 73.1 1/4 mile
12.0 0-60mph
With the mods you've done to the engine and exhaust-no other changes:
Torq 182 at 2900
Powr 148 at 4800
I do NOT know if the bottom end of this engine is strong enough and has a good enough damper to shift at 5200rpm, but "shifting" the computer there it calculates to run:
2.48
11.05 at 62.0
17.40 at 77.2
10.36 0-60mph
That's almost a full second quicker in the 1/4 and almost 2 seconds quicker 0-60mph. Not bad!!
The cam you chose seems to me plenty big to be in the rpm range you want to be in. It is starving for air with that little 2v-Weber carb on it, but I know the intake manifold trough looks like it limits what can be done. Just for fun, I calculated what might happen if you grafted three of those 2v-Weber carbs onto the intake trough:
Torq 184 at 3300
Powr 156 at 5000
2.47
10.97 at 62.6
17.25 at 78.1
0-60mph 10.1
Seems it would be fun, but you may be near the law of diminishing returns already. I dug around for a few more AMC details along the way (6 and the old 250-287-327 v8 too) so learned a lot. Thanks again for posting on this rare engine.
