Thanks for the clarifications.
Back in 1975, when I bought my '70 Monaco Brougham 4drht, with the 383 "N" "High-Performance" (Chrysler terminology) motor, I also had a friend in college that had a '69 Super Bee. The Bee was stock, but had the OEM Holley 4160 on it. He had drag raced it, so he had a cigar box full of extra gaskets, with some jets and power valves left over from carb kits. Same 3.23 gears as was in the Monaco.
I was always impressed with the sharpness of off-idle throttle response from the Holley. No matter what I did, I could not get that same sharpness out of the OEM AVS on the Monaco. I did try to no avail. At a car wash, with the damp concrete, it was easy for him to spin his G60-14 rear tires. The Monaco could not do that. Yet, on the road, at 75mph cruise, I could get 16.5mpg as he usually got 15mpg. So I was happy, whether I wanted to be or not. His car also had factory a/c as did the Monaco.
Now, the Bee had F70-14 frt and G60-14 rr tires on slot aluminum mags. With the different aspect ratios, the car sat level, as it should have anyway, but with the "drag strip" look of skinnier front tires and wider rear tires. Bias-ply, white letter tires. My Monaco had Pirelli P76 radials, JR78x15 all around. So I had "more traction" due to the better tread contact and a bit heavier weight. With the "N" engine came the smaller 10.75" torque converter, so a higher stall speed, similar to a '68 Road Runner engine.
Back in 1968, a friend who lived next door to us, ordered a new '68 Satellite 2dr ht, with the 383 4bbl V-8. It looked to all the world to be the Road Runner 383 (open element air cleaner, high-rise exhaust manifolds) with factory a/c. It had the stock 7.35x14 Goodyear bias-ply tires of the time. It would easily spin the rear wheels with "more" throttle input. 3.23 gears, too. Tire tread width was probably in the 5.0" range? So, it definitely needed more tread on the ground, but that would have killed the "stock" look with wheel covers on it. So he learned to drive it better, with good results in the weekend "main drag" contests on the main drag street in town.
In the road test that "CAR AND DRIVER" did of the 1968 Barracuda 340-S car, they noted that with the factory D70x14 Goodyear tires, the car probably had too much traction. Seems they tried to "lay rubber" with it, but only got chirps instead. Once used to that, they also noted how fast the car was when it didn't spin the rear wheels. Besting most of the other competitors in its field. Plus some other larger cars with bigger engines, too. So they came to enjoy the "no drama" (as we might now term it) situation. Just tromp it and hang on to setter, basically. Otherwise, it just worked.
In one respect, spinning rear tires (and related tire smoke) has been besmirched by modern cars. Smokey doughnuts in "street takeovers" at intersections, to show off AND the many late model Mustang exploits on YouTube, where the car lays rubber, starts to fishtail, (AS the driver fails to get out of the throttle!!) and crashes/property damage results. As if THAT is a badge of honor for them? So, laying rubber can still be fun, but in a straight line! Hopefully, with two black stripes rather than just one.
I understand the "carb guys" not being around any more. This can be good and it can be bad. If you look at some of the carb tuning articles from back in about 1968 in the magazines, it was about "richer main jets" (even pre-emission), "blocked power valves" (in Holleys), pure mechanical advance in the distributor, faster mechanical advance, and more initial spark advance settings. Then with drag strip results. But those who did the same things on their cars usually got the power they desired, but image of having doing these "race" things to their car, but with higher fuel costs. Others finessed the Holley metering block orifices a bit, kept the power valve operational, might have limited the amount of vac advance, and got similar results in their more-sophisticared work. My orientation was more like quicken the mechanical advance, keeping the vac advance for cruise economy, and THEN adjust the main jets if the spark plugs indicated things were a bit too lean. If it clattered on premium fuel, back off the timing a bit. Otherwise "fiddlin' and tweaking" . . .
Take care,
CBODY67
