They are torque monsters but weren't really all that fast. My friends ran 14.8 or 9. His had the TH400 trans and would smoke the tires at will which was fun. I hope you have fun with it, it looks real clean.
I saw one for sale on e-bay once that says it was de-stroked to 427 and had a Whipplecharger. I imagine it screamed. I guess that would be a 396 crank in the 454 block? Not real sure.