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Most 348 's were hydraulic lifter ,small valve jobs. The ones with the larger valve heads and solid lifter cams could be made to run pretty well. When I was running my 60 Biscayne there was no timer at the strip, just a flagman and a guy at the end who said who won. I never got a time with that car but I had no problem beating 352 and 390 Fords, now there are some boat anchors for you. I also did fairly well against most Chrysler products that were standard shift. The Chrysler automatics would rip you a new one off the starting line and you had a tough time catching up.
The 409 I had ran real well. The best time I got with it was 12.01 at 114 mph. Thats not so hot nowdays but it was very good back in the mid 60's. I had absolutely no problems with 390, 406 Fords and no problems with Chrysler 413 except for the Torqueflites. Chrysler had no 4 speed in the 1963 's and that helped me somewhat with them.
The W block Chevies would run but you had to have them tuned, The boat anchor rep comes from there being so many on the streets that weren't tuned and they were boat achors. They were tempermental things and had to be tuned. I sometimes had to set the valve lash several times a raceday until I switched over to threaded rocker studs. The AFB's could be tempremental too.
I had my 409 into 1965 and it didn't take a back seat to the so-called muscle cars that came out in 64. I didn't race as much in 64 or 65 but never did lose to any of the newer muscle cars. One man's boat anchor is another man's racer.