Easy things to make it peppier? 68 Newport

[PurpleBeeper]

Best bang for your buck (short of nitrous) is gears....all day long... gears. I've many different gears, and these guys are correct. 3.23's or maybe 3.55's if you do any highway driving at all. You will definitely notice the difference vs. 2.76's and as mentioned, you can swap gears in a day as long as you have the center sections set up and ready to go. Pretty easy swap

 

[Knebel]

Okay yes. Mine was a pain as well but I also have it control timing. I have the 600hp version.

 

[Just Carbs]

3.23 or 3.55 gear.
Or 3.91 to 4.33 and spend the $3000 to put an A518 overdrive trans in it.

 

[496 polara]

Like others have suggested ,gears for the win. 3.23 is hard to beat for an all around gear. If you do more spirited driving and less highway then 3.55's are fun.
consider adding a sure grip while you are in there if not already equipped.

Past that nothing is cheaply upgraded. While not "needed" small diameter long tube headers are a torque boost in the low and mid range as well as a little more top end hp,even on a stock engine.
Hard to find these days but the old Hooker super comp headers for C bodies are great! 1 3/4 tubes. Even the Hedman 1 3/4 shorty headers (or TTi) are an improvement over manifolds and the mini starter to clear is a plus.

Don't get me wrong the manifolds are fine. Some don't like the hassle of headers and I get it

 

[Blusmbl]

Agree on the Hooker C body headers- they fit surprisingly well as far as headers go and the plug access is still great.

 

[Triple Pickle]

Just make sure not to set your expectations too high. If you’ve driven a modern V6 minivan and think your Newport (or any old close to stock car from the ‘60s) should be as peppy as it is you’re going to be disappointed. It would take a lot of work and money to modify these old cars to keep up with the new ones. And what you end up with is robbing yourself of the old car experience with a bastardized drivetrain, or making a fast car the old school way of making it miserable to drive farther than a quarter mile.

 

[Outsider]

You people saying 3.23 gear max, ever have a car with more gear? I've driven thousands of miles over the years with 3.5-3.9 gears, and a fare amount on the FW going to shows and tracks. If your cooling system is right, 383/400 motors don't mind it a bit, only down side is the worse gas mileage. I don't drive 50 year old cars to work 50 miles each way every day, so I'd rather have the performance and a little fun than good gas mileage.

 

[Boydsdodge]

I say max 3.23 because I use my cars on many drives to shows in far away places not just my local area, but that's how I like to use all my cars. I have plenty of torque to get up and go with 2.94 gears and then be able to stay with today's highway speeds and not be in the way.
2 hour to 10 hour drives are common for my cars.

 

[Triple Pickle]

I say 3.23 gears straddle the fence between performance and economy/ drivability. Can you go lower? Sure. But, with a 3.55 you’ll be stepping into performance territory and will need to make other modifications to fully take advantage of lower gearing.
With close to stock diameter tires and no overdrive, going down the interstate with everyone doing 80 mph absolutely sucks with anything lower than a 3.55 and even that isn’t fun after about 10 miles.
If you want a drag car, a C-body is not a good platform to start with. That’s what B body cars are for.
The OP wants more pep. He didn’t say he had a grudge match coming up with Big Daddy!

 

[PurpleBeeper]

I've run 3.91, 3.55 and 2.76 gears in my current car with basically the same motor (cam change). I ran it for years with 3.55's and it was a good "all around" gear. In my opinion, not much different than 3.23 gears. I was running an old purple shaft 292/509 cam and the car loved the 3.91 gears for "spirited driving around town" and would bark the tires in 1st/2nd/3rd. HOWEVER, without an overdrive, it sounded like it wanted to spit a rod out the side of the block on the highway it was revved so high....3200 rpm at 70mph (roughly). I wanted to drive the car cross-country & I didn't want to spend $5k-$6k on an overdrive, so I put a 2.76 posi centersection in the rear end, tallest rear tires I could fit, and a slightly smaller comp cam....much less off the line acceleration, but it cruises at 2300 rpm (roughly) at 70mph and I can drive for hours and hours with no noticeable issue. My mileage went from 10mpg highway to 14mpg highway

 

[Triple Pickle]

In my neck of the woods people drive 55 in a 35, 70 in a 55 and 80+in a 70.
Around town, low gears are great but you don’t get to go around launching off every stop light or disintegrating the tires before Johnny law rightfully shuts you down.
Going to the strip? Don’t half-*** it with anything numerically smaller than a 4:11! You’ll also need some sticky Mickeys on the back if you’ve got the engine to back it all up. You might even outrun some kid in a 4cyl tuner if he misses a gear!

 

[fury fan]

I recently changed from 3.55 to 3.23 in my 68 Fury (which has a 69 440) and honestly didn't notice much decrease in acceleration, if any. Maybe a G-tech meter could tell, but I sure can't. In fact, after driving it again with teh 3.23, it actually caused me to call the prior owner of that engine to ask if he had put an RV cam or anything else in it, because it pulls so well. He said no.

I'm with the others that have said it - ignition timing is the key to responsiveness and pep. Read this:
Everything you wanted to know about ignition advance

I have an MSD-6 with the add-on timing adjuster module, and when the engine is cold, adding 7-8deg more timing makes it noticeably more responsive.

And I also fully agree with this:

Just make sure not to set your expectations too high. If you’ve driven a modern V6 minivan and think your Newport (or any old close to stock car from the ‘60s) should be as peppy as it is you’re going to be disappointed.

Modern cars have have deeper 1st and 2nd gears, variable valve timing, intake manifolds tuned for the purpose (akin to the Crossram engines of the Letter cars), cylinder heads built for max efficiency (which increases HP also). Those advantages are huge compared to our drivetrains.