Patrick Budd: Polishing a Set of Sneakers
Great article.
It's not as hard as most people think to put a well-sorted BBC deep into the 10's--even the "baby" rats.
Back in the `80's the staging lanes at our local tracks were filled with 10 second bracket bombers, and there were more crate LS7 engines than you could shake a stick at. Those engines make an <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline">honest</span></span> 480-ish HP in stock form and will make low-mid 500's with a cam and intake swap. Add a halfway-decent prepped car with a converter and a gear and you'll run 10's until the cows come home.
There was one guy with a BONE stock (save for headers) `69 L78 Nova with 400 Turbo and 4.10 gears, and with sticky street tires he was running high 11's-low 12's depending on the weather.
John's numbers are more than plausible.