Good question, i guess it all comes down to what you want to do with it.
A decision tree would be difficult to illustrate here, so i guess the starting point to remember is, if you rebuild it so it's like new from the factory, you will be able to do a standing burnout which is usually enough for a lot of people
From there if you just work on the airflow in terms of headers / intake etc you should be breaking past 200hp & torque (unless your lucky and have a pre 70's oil crisis engine and then you're looking at 300), which for a street application is good fun and a good sound. For me - this is enough. I want it to sound nice, run smooth (not restricted etc) and be able to pull away whenever i need to and have fun at a track / strip without worrying about overstressing the engine / components.
From there i guess you would decide what you want - drag racing, pro touring, road & track etc.
Procharmo on here is the extreme - he has a twin procharged pushing up in the region of nearly 2000hp from what i remember. sounds amazing and there's no doubt he won't have to worry about what pulls up to him at the lights.
From most converstations i 've had and heard, 500 tends to be the point where it turns into something that's more of a targetted setup, i.e taking part in competitive racing in some form. Crossing that line you're looking at the power moving intot he structure of the car, so subframe connectors, rollcages, upgraded brakes, rear axles etc all come into the picture to help make that power useful. I think there's a lot of power out there that is lost because the cars aren't setup for laying it down. For me 500 has always been a magic number limit. anything above 300 means you dont have to worry about it not doing the job and at 500 you'll need to start thinking more about why you are doing it.
Hope my thoughts are of some use, just things i have heard and read about and how i see things at the moment. could be wrong and totally off track, but hope it's useful in some way!
Cheers,
Ray
) would be to work out what you want from the car, and then your budget and then choose the best options from there.
