My original 402 had some simple mods that woke it up which included a 750 Holley, dual plane aluminum intake, headers, electronic ignition, hotter cam (I do not remember the specs), and the heads milled for a bit more compression. It ran pretty good, went from a stock high 15 second quarter mile to high 13 second quarter mile times.
Eventually I put a 502 in it and cut off another 2 seconds in the quarter.