To swap or not to swap

Hello all.

So I have a question for you guys , In building a Muscle car dragster is there a large difference when swapping the engines. Stock V8 vs the Racing V8 they give you to choose. Iv always swapped it with the racing V8 engine because it made sense but do stock V8 engines make better power on some of the vehicles.?

I think alot of it has to do with whether of not you’re doing the unlimited online lobbies or if you’re doing a custom “street racing” lobby where they will pick hp limits. In custom lobbies I would say the difference is the power bands of the different engines (what rpm’s they make the most hp and torque). In the unlimited I would say just do the racing engine probably. It is a good engine. I haven’t done allot of different builds yet but I haven’t seen any muscle car engines that can match it even with turbos or anything else on them. I like the 5.7 liter(I think it is) v8 swap though. It’s the 2002 camaro engine. If they would add hp restrictions to the online lobbies that racing engine would only be an unlimited class engine in my opinion.

If your just talking all out, racing v8 is your best bet, as opposed to the 5.7 or 7.0. Power curve is much better for straight line racing on the racing v8. You may make more hp w a twin turbo, but the power curve typically is somewhat peaky, it won’t stay in the power for much of the rpm range.

Race v8… nascar motor. Most of the a class leaderboard muscle cars have this motor and stock gearbox.

I use the racing v8 engine in most of my drag cars. Some of them have great acceleration and some have great long distance pulling power. I prefer to drag race American muscle cars . I will have to do a few tests on the cars I struggle with and see if a different motor helps it . I have the tuning at a good point now just to fix the other minor issues.