How much horsepower is too much?, for a road car.... Options

[tadink]

Hey all -

I've been looking at options for increased HP and have run across some crazy stuff, and that got me thinking about "how much is too much"?

This would be an occasional track car, AX often, mostly street, preferably reliable.

I've seen recently, in no particular order: 3.2L pretty stock, 3.3L race prepped turbo, 2.7 or 2.8 race prepped, v-8 twin turbo (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) , and other various mixes of suby-turbo, McMark's turbo 1.7L project, etc etc.

so, for you high HP guys out there - when does the car get just too silly to be practical on the street? 300bhp? 400bhp? 600bhp? 900bhp?

and what makes it not so enjoyable to drive around 'normally'? One guy described his 2.7 race engine as just too high strung for the street - - - so that means that you have to get into higher revs to get the power from the cam? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

edumacate me pls......

td

[Jgilliam914]

A friend of mine had a 1971 Hemi Cuda with dual quads. The PO had it set up for 1/8 mi drags. That was too much power in that chassis for street driving. You couldn't get the tires to hook up to launch the car. But boy if you did that would have been a fun ride. He tried to sell it to me in 1981 for $2500. Shoulda woulda coulda... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)