Reddit reviews Smokey Yunick's Power Secrets

If you are building the motor, simply doing a 3 angle valve job will give you a few. Doing mild porting, you can do a head in a day with just a die grinder. You basically want to make the valve hole as round as possible, and smooth out other spots, you don't need to go crazy removing metal. You can also upgrade the rings to total seal type, helps efficiency, less blow by. While on pistons, those motors have low compression, if you could get to 9:1 that helps a lot too. If you go too high then you have gas problems. Depending on the amount of miles on it, the cam may need to be changed and you can pick a slightly more aggressive one. Keep in mind, that all the parts have to match, so if you go more lift, you have to be sure they heads can take it. I don't remember the intake and exhaust on those, but they are probably not too bad, but a free flowing exhaust wakes them up and makes driving more fun.

It says the Mk2 motor is 9:1 and makes 93 hp that ain't bad for a car that weighs 2000 pounds. If you have the Mk1 motor, then copy what they did on the Mk2. Besides raising the compression from 8.3:1 they probably added more cam, carbs are the same Su's. Just a nice rebuild and touching some minor things to make it more efficient, you should be around 110 hp and that should feel great. There was also the twin cam in '59 if you could find parts, but that is gonna cost ya, a bunch! The other stuff is just careful quality rebuild.

Also, people forget about suspension, fixing all the stuff in the suspension also adds power, or it doesn't lose power in sloppy rubber. Think of trying to run with a bungee cord attached to you, yea, now without all the slop, makes a huge difference. If you want to read up on engine theory, Smokey Yunick's book power secrets is an excellent read. They on drugs with the prices, you can find it on fleabay or a local used book store. He is pretty much the godfather of power.