I believe the highest FACTORY hemi was 475 and the Chev L88 aluminum big block was 430(500+ was more realistic).
The Viper motor is AWESOME but I'd guess its net horsepower around 575 given a 15% accessory drive loss. To those who guessed 427 thunderbolt WITHOUT mentioning SOHC I'm sorry, I can not accept that answer but it still puts you above the knowledge of a certain olds owner here.. j/k!!
Should have known. Guess what? I suggested that the "cammer" was one of the best V8 engines ever produced back when this string was started. A few posters jumped all over me because of the dreaded "timing chain stretch". Big deal. What an engine!
I have one problem, though. Was the SOHC 427 ever put in a production car? I know you could order the motor through a dealer and have the dealer install it, but did Ford ever actually roll out a model with this monster under the hood? If not, I stick by my Thunderbolt answer.
well sort of!!! First, the trivia ? was factory rated HP and not production #'s. But Ford did claim to put some in a few Galaxies to appease NASCAR. Rumor has it they showed pictures to Bill France of all these different 427 SOHC Galaxies but in reality it was the same car painted different colors!!! Chrysler cried soooo hard about the Cammer that NASCAR would only let it run with a 425 pound weight penalty!!!! Ford threatened a boycott( like chrysler did with the hemi) But NASCAR didn't budge. BTW I don't believe the Hemi was ever banned but Chrysler was made to run the larger sedans as opposed to the intermidates(sp?). Weight was not penalized, though.
I believe the Thunderbolt was factory rated @ 425 HP and was not a match for the Hemi......until the CAMMER!!!
This topic could mean so many things. People have credited Chev with ease of performance and pure production #'s. The Hemi is a great motor. People have brought up mechanical firsts. Personal choice is always listed. But the Ford FE in all its different roles gets my nod(this is a VERY recent decision BTW) It has done EVERYTHING from win LeMans(1-2-3 finish one year!!!) to Nascar to TOP Fuel drag races. It has served in mundane grocery getters and heavy duty trucks. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Americas most storied and possibly most widely used V8 in history: The Ford FE!! This, IMHO, maked it the best V8 engine.
I can't see how the size of the combustion chamber could have anything to do with the displacement of the engine.
Work with me here. Swept volume (the displacement of a cylinder) is cylinder diameter (bore) times the distance a piston travels (stroke). An engine's displacement is the swept volume of each cylinder times the number of cylinders.
For a combustion chamber to be a part of the cylinder's swept volume, the piston would have to travel into the chamber.
This does happen occasionally but it doesn't increase displacement.
BTW I think the flathead had a deepskirt design with the skirt extending below the centerline of the crank.
As far as I know it was never put into any production car that Joe Schmoe could buy from a dealer. If we enter that motor then it seems it would also include all the new crate motors. I believe the 454 LS-6 was the highest rated engine of the muscle car era at 450 horsepower. But as all you motorheads know horsepower doesn't always make one engine better than another, we must also consider torque and powerbands. I meant this topic to mean street motors only and a fat torque curve is much preferable to high end horsepower in a street motor. I started this list with a large bunch of engines because I honestly think there is no one best,but I thought it might be interesting to separate the good from the bad and the ugly. I am a Mopar guy and therefore almost by default I think of the 426 Hemi as the ultimate prize, I realize not everyone agrees and I'm not going to argue about its merits and flaws because I am not an engineer and do not begin to fathom all the intricacies of the design of an engine. I would like to thank everyone for their participation and say that even though I'm a Mopar man I still love all old musclecars and am fascinated by all the old iron regardless of make. P.S. Saw an Olds 442 just a couple of days ago Yellow and black and SWEET!!!
On the street...there is obviously no comparison in factory support, aftermarket support, cost per hp. The Chevrolet simply has orders of magnitude more development and manufacturing dollars poured into it throught the years.
On the track...Ford has done well in cases with unlimited factory support (LeMans) or goofy politics (Grand National). Chevrolet dominates (or used to, these are old examples) in all cases where independents rule (which is most cases). Circle track, V8 classes in road racing, Can-Am (pre-917). One exception that comes to mind is top fuel (I doubt you can count a Keith Black hemi as an automotive engine anyway). Honestly, comparing Ford to Chevrolet racing victories (taken in the aggregate) is laughable. Heck, even the vaunted 427 Cobra hardly won any races at a national level back in the day.
Numbers please. Ford and Chrysler ruled NASCAR in the big block era(FE). Ford split Trans Am with Chevy(from memory) Bob Glidden(Ford) dominated Pro Stock, even with the weight penalty of the Cleveland head before the Shotgun, until Ford pulled support. Ford's Bronco(Parnelli Jones) ruled off road racing when trucks were close to factory. CAN-AM was Chevy but I seem to remember just one car(Gulf 66?) dominated EVERYTHING.
Local circle tracks in the past were Chevy dominated but that, IMHO, was due to interchangability and the sheer numbers available. Since the resurgence of the 5.0 there have been Fords in the local ranks and WOO that have won(Dave Blaney comes to mind)
The markIV is the big block, as I know you know, but a lot of the other classes you mentioned included small blocks also which is why I went off track.
BTW, I have a Supercharged(sometimes) 502 MarkIV in my tunnel boat, so I don't think I'm biased. AND it AINT CHEAPER than a small block Ford to build!!!
I wasn't a big fan of the FE until I did the research on the SOHC and learned about the tunnel port and high riser and the Thunderbolt . I knew of Lemans. There's companies that are resurrecting this motor by selling NEW castings just for replica Cobras.
The SBC and BBC as well as the small Ford belong on ANY list of great V8's. I'm just kind of stuck on the International history aspect which swayed my final choice.
as released in 1966 was first conceptualized by Oldsmobile in 1954. The intake manifold on the '66 model 425 was a weirdo in that the base of the carb sat lower than the intake ports of the heads. Seems like that would really screw things up, but you haven't seen a burnout until you see one of those monsters light up the front wheels. Both wheels, as the '66 and '67 I know had a locker style FWD system. You had to let up, 'cause all that smoke from the front tires would block your view. BTW, as a young man, I was asked to ride with a lady to her house and bring her '66 Toro back to the shop. On the way, I saw a large block of cement in the highway. When I realized she intended to stradle it, I nearly fainted. Dead centered the cross-member and ripped a hole in the transmission pan. When I finally could breathe again, I explained to her that the '66 Toro only had about 5" of ground clearance on a GOOD day. We towed the car back to the shop, replaced the pan and noted that the crossmember was barely scarred. Those were the days when frames had a LOT of steel in them.
Just a couple of responses (and really, this is all such soft, opinion based stuff, its hardly worth the amount you're paying for it).
Trans-Am: Pretty much depends on the year, Chevy: 68,69 Ford: 70 AMC: 71,72
I think a big difference here is that the Chevrolet effort was essentially non-factory (Traco/Penske) while the Ford deal was a full-blown factory effort including development of an entirely new engine (the tunnel port followed by Boss 302). SB Chevy's dominated in sprint car racing, stock block road racing classes like Formula 5000. It seems to me that in general, Chevrolet engines have dominated over Ford in racing series which lacked full-on factory support (the implication to me is better general support for the engine and better design).
As far as the big engines go, with the exception of the LeMans cars (another hyper expensive factory deal) and prostock (my excuse here is that those guys so heavily modify the engine designs at a basic level, that the make does not matter. I'll bet that Warren Johnson's motors have *very* few parts you could think of as OEM.) there seems to be very few non-Chevrolet engines (oh,oh, now I have to go find statistics to back this up) in things like offshore racers, super modifieds, A-Production road racers, Can-Am (not just McLaren, but Lola, Jim Hall's cars, and the umpteen teams that used 'last years' McLaren).
Just seems to me that, in general, the FE motors never made much of a dent in racing, comparatively speaking. Some early super stock wins, LeMans, some interest in top fuel (Mickey Thompson), and a mild success with 427 Cobras (the 289 cars were much more successful).
I will hold to my opinion that the hp / dollar ratio favors 427 Chevrolets over 427 (or 428) Fords.
Is the interchange. Sorry for you guys who know all this (and hey, this is the web, the potential for misinformation is nearly 100%) but Chevrolet really didn't build too many high performance engines. There really isn't a lick of difference (aside from bore/stroke) between the 302/290hp, 327/325 hp, and the 350/360(370) hp engines. Same goes for the 396/375hp, 427/425hp, and 454/450hp engines. In addition, there is none of that Ford weirdness of transmission interchange.
Ford, on the other hand, seemed to be a member of the engine-of-the-week club. So you get a litany (and this is only partial) of:
FE 352/390/427/428 with a fair amount of differences between these, especially in head design. FE+ SOHC
Crazy.... I'll bet they would have been better off building two motors, say, the 351W and the 429 in various sizes, and spent the time perfecting head designs, metallurgy, oiling designs, etc. As it is you've got an alphabet soup of engines with oddball interchange issues.
Here's a nice example of Chevrolet interchange. ZL1's came with a 6 cylinder sized clutch and flywheel (the smaller diameter gives much the same effect as a lighter weight). If you want to put one of these on your 396/427, buy the ZL1 parts, get a 6 cylinder bellhousing and starter nose (ie. nothing exotic) and voila, instant throttle response.
(except the better design part, LOL!!!) Never understood all the design changes at Ford. The offshore racing scene is a mixed example in that most "chevy" big blocks have NO GM parts including the blocks! Some builders use Merlin some use Dart and the main advantage is the availability of the tall deck in the aftermarket IMHO. I have my opinion on the Clevelands(BTW you forgot the 351 M and the 400 was never a Cleveland) It would have been the best small block ever if the gas crisis and EPA hadn't reared it's ugly head. (The oiling issues were addressed with simple restrictors like the olds motors.)Those heads (in design at least) are still used in NASCAR with the Yates name on them.
I based my original choice on this topic on what "I" thought were important qualifers: International success and the highest rated factory horsepower #'s. The fact that these motors were everything from grocery getters to Top Fuel motors is why I chose it. Other peoples reasons may be something else, which is cool with me.
Heck, the VW flat four in pure #'s far exceeds anything as far as production but it's not a better motor than a DOHC 4 valve Japanese motor.
Has any Chevy fan noticed the LS1 heads are near copies of Ford's Windsor head??? I'm talking # of bolts, port symmetry and shape. So much for the legacy of interchangeability.
I expect that from now on Chevrolet (well, GM generally) will follow the path of large scale redesigns every few years. It seems to me that the reality of large scale production and increasing noose tightening by the US government and their competition results in designs that stray from simplicity and interchangeability.
Honestly, I don't see how even dealerships can deal with subtle repair issues anymore. If nothing else, years of hot/cold cycles and vibrations will raise cain with connectors and sensors (and we'll see more of both). I admit that new cars are darn reliable, but the user serviceability is going to evolve to that of the PC (RR of all major parts is the only option, bad motherboard? pitch it... bad hard disk? pitch it...).
As the ability to fix stuff gets pushed up the foodchain (can a dealer really properly rebuild a complex modern engine? BMW V12 maybe?) it seems to me that warranty repair work could evolve into long block replacement (in the case of engines). I'll bet that the holy grail in this world would be 'sealed for the lifetime of the car' lubrication systems. Weld the hood shut. Stick gas in the thing and thats it.
I'm glad that modvptnl mentioned the Ford 351M in his post as being one of the great under-appreciated motors of all time. Had that motor come along in 1966, we may be having a different discussion.
The M with it's taller deck, bigger mains, REAL BIG chambered Cleveland heads and [non-permissible content removed] bell housing pattern was sort of a pooch.
it offered a better, more durable platform for building a high performance motor than did the Cleveland. Unfortunately, the 1970s ruined most enthusiasm for building high performance vehicles and relegated the M to work-a-day status.
I'm no Cleveland expert but my guess is that the M's bigger mains would actually work against it because of increased friction. The large combustion chambers would make it hard to get a decent CR without pop-ups and somewhere in the back of my mind I remember a flat-top piston is a better configuration. The taller block means 351C racing manifolds won't fit.
The 400 looks interesting but with that square bore and stroke it seems more of a street engine.
I had a '67 Cougar with a stock '70 351C-4v and I'm convinced you can spot a 4v Cleveland just by the sharper exhaust note. It was a pleasure to hear it idle and not because of the cam--the stock cam was pretty mild. Maybe it was those "too-big" ports and valves and the 11:1 CR. I've had 302s and even a 351C-2v and they just don't have the same authority.
I had a Torino with 351C-4v (not quite stock) and could not agree with you more about the sound. Mine was a really cheesy unit with big chrome side pipes and flames painted down the side. My Torino also had the 4 speed which just begged me to rev the hell out the motor. God, I miss that car.
I should have qualified my statements about the M series motors. I firmly believe that they offer a better, more durable platform for making a sound performance motor for the street. High compression ratios are great but can pose drivability problems with modern "low" octane fuel. The "M's" beefier bottom end may be able to put up with more abuse than the Cleveland's. Finally, the "M's" heads flow characteristics and bore/stroke dimensions (400) are a great starting point for building a torque champ.
The Cleveland style heads do flow great at high RPM's. They had a little too much port volume for low end grunt. The problem with the M is like speedshift stated, the higher the RPM the more friction there is on the larger mains. So you have a paradox with a high RPM motor with less than optimal mains. The oiling system on both sucked but was/is easily fixed. Believe it or not the C crank with the 2.75" mains was stronger than the 3.00" M mains due to material differences. And the 429/460 bellhousing limits your transmission choices with the M
It's all moot anyway. The Windsors have a waaaay better after market including aluminum heads that flow more with smaller valves and ports which is what real performance is based on. The 3.00" mains on the 351(the 302 uses 2.25) can be shimmed down to use a Cleveland sized crank for high performance. In fact ALL the Motorsport Windsor(351) blocks use the 2.75" size mains.
What always struck me about the 351-4v were those huge ports and valves combined with the mild cam and small Autolite 480 cfm(?) carb. But I guess Ma and Pa needed that for acceptable throttle response with automatic and freeway gears.
Personal ratings from Good to Very Good to inefficient, gas guzzling, gutless lumps of iron. I mean, about 200HP from 500 CID is nothing to brag about. Rest in peace, FWD Eldorado.
How would a 500 CID engne compare, at least, to some of the watered-down 454's, 455's, 460's, and 440's of the era? I came close, about 5 years ago, to buying an old '76 Newport with a 440 that put out all of 205 hp, and I know some of those other big-blocks were equally depressing.
Must've been really sad back in the '70's for Cadillac when the Seville, with its Olds 350, put out almost as much hp as some of those 500's!
How about the throttle-body injected 350 V-8 that could be had in certain GM B-bodies starting in 1992? These were great engines with good acceleration and decent gas mileage, right?
I think that engine was first available as an option for the Cadillac Brougham starting around 1990 or so. It only had about 185 hp, versus the 305's 170. But it had tons of torque...something like 300 ft-lb. I'm not sure what the old 305 back then had. Edmund's lists it at 225 ft-lb, but that sounds kinda low. It had 245 ft-lb back in 1985, with a 4-bbl and 165 hp.
Depending on the car and the gearing, and presuming it's stock, I'd guess the 185-hp 350 would do 0-60 somewhere between 9-10 seconds. When you consider that just about all of these cars were over 4,000 lb, and had relatively tall gearing so they'd fudge the EPA tests, that's really not bad.
The thing is, TBI really isn't that efficient of a fuel injection system. It's basically a carburetor with a fuel injector in it. In fact, looking under the hood, they look like carburetors at a quick glance. Just like a carb, it still depends on engine vacuum to suck the fuel-air mixture into the combustion chambers, instead of applying it more directly like a port fuel injection system.
As for gas mileage, they weren't bad for what they were, but the 260 hp LT-1 that arrived for 1994 made a world of difference. They were faster (under 8 seconds for the most part, and even the big 4600+ lb Brougham could do it in about 8.5), yet got better fuel economy! I forget the exact EPA numbers though. I want to say 17/26 for the LT-1 engine and 16/25 for the old 185 hp engine.
Actually, that's the era I was wondering about...the '70's where we had the big, emasculated 440, 454, 455, 460, and 500. I just got sidetracked with the Chevy TBI and LT-1 350's when Jrosamc brought 'em up.
Just out of curiosity, how was the Cadillac 368? Not the tragic V-8-6-4-0 model, but the normal one, that put out a measly 140-150 hp. I think it was only offered from '80-81, and considering that a 307, 305, or 301 put out around that much hp, I thought it was pretty sad too. Still, I guess it would've out-torqued those smaller engines by a fairly wide margin. I guess the 368 was the last fairly reliable Caddy engine before the variable displacement, Olds Diesel, and aluminum 4.1 put Cadillac back into the dark ages.
Cadillac engines from 1949-1980 cover a whole lot of territory.
In the '50s Cadillac engines were popular swap material, partly because they were some of the biggest engines around, partly because they were smooth and partly because of the prestige. The Olds made good torque and was just about bulletproof, the Chrysler hemi made great power and the Cadillac was kind of an all-rounder.
Cad engines pretty much disappear from hot rodding in the early '60s. I think that's mostly because the cheaper brands offered big cubic inch engines by then. Cadillac had a 390 since 1959 but Pontiac had offered a wide variety of 389s since 1959, some of them very hot. Chevy and Ford had the 409 and 390 since 1961 and even the earliest versions of these engines put out more power than the Cadillac.
I have specs for the '71 472/500 and they're not bad. The cam has fairly generous lift and duration and the valve sizes are pretty decent as well. Intake is 2", Chevy 402 and small-port 454 are 2.06", Pontiac 400/455 is 2.11". Exhaust is 1.625", Chevy 1.715", Pontiac 1.657". Unless the combustion chamber design is hopeless these engines should produce decent power. I don't know if there's much in the way of aftermarket parts though.
...in an old hot-rod magazine that my Dad had (and might still have...he's a worse packrat than me!), I remember they did an article on swapping a 500 into an early '80's Coupe DeVille. They did some stuff to hop it up too, but I forget what. Still, just dropping the engine into a body that was around 1000 lb lighter (well, maybe less, considering that an '80's engine was lighter than a 70's engine, too), must've improved performance quite a bit.
1. Chevrolet Small-Block. 2. Chrysler "Xeron" engine- they're developing a street version of the Nascar Winston Cup motor and that'll be good. 3. Ford Hemi- Until the McLaren F1 came around, a Torino 429 HEMI was the most powerful street-legal car ever built. 525-550 hp, stock.
About the Firebird, Pontiac didn't offer a 350-4v after 1969 so the 400-2v would have been the next step up. You probably picked up another 50 lbs.ft. of torque.
With the Q-Jet's small primaries I suppose it's possible to get better fuel economy than the 2v. It's certainly a more sophisticated and flexible carb.
As far as I know, the only 427 available in '68 was the automatic-only 427/390-hp with low-riser heads and 390 GT cam. This was replaced mid year by the 428 CJ using the same heads and cam. Rated at 335 hp but actually quite a bit stronger.
The 4.6 is a tough little motor. I've got a SOHC version of that engine in my T-Bird, with 198,000 on it (almost to the 200,000 mark), and it's still running strong. Of course, with the right tweaks here and there, the DOHC versions can hit 400 horsepower naturally aspirated. These motors have also proven their reliability in cop cars (The Crown Victoria owns the police car market right now), as well as taxis (ditto), and thanks to Mustang GT's, we can be sure there will be plenty of performance parts for thses engines.
Displacement was what i was referring to. The thing's only 280 CID (Ford advertises 281, but they are notorious about fudging both HP and displacement numbers to make the spec sheets look better). My first car had 400 CID. Now that's displacement!
...The new-generation Hemi is standard in the heavy-duty Rams, replacing a 5.9-liter conventional V-8. The Hemi probably will be available in standard-duty trucks once the heavy-duties are launched.
The 5.7-liter Hemi has 345 horsepower, 365 pounds-feet of torque. The name refers to the hemispherical combustion chamber atop each cylinder. The design lets air flow more freely through the engine, creating more power. The new Hemi also uses two spark plugs per cylinder instead of one, a technique adopted from Mercedes-Benz.
Chrysler manufactured hemi-head engines for street cars from 1951 to '71. Their extraordinary power confounded rivals on racetracks and in the stoplight grand prix, earning the Hemi V-8 respect bordering on reverence....
Not all Chrysler Hemis were particularly powerful or efficient compared to other V8s (even other Chrysler V8s) of the time '51-'71. Only the 426 is "legendary" in any true sense of the word. The rest is just PR fluff imho.
Hemi engines and twin plugs have been around a long, long time. It was the 426 that made the word "Hemi" famous. I've never seen a twin plug in a Mercedes production car, but I have seen them in Alfas ten years ago and I believe Japanese cars before that. Of course, race engines had them 50 or more years ago.
Doesn't Mercedes use twin plug heads on their 3.2V6 with three valves per cylinder? I thought that was the reason they went with three valves - to make room for the extra plug.
are there mostly to make up for the very large bore and TERRIBLE shape of the piston which really screws up flame travel.
I've said it in the past and will say it until proven wrong; I highly doubt the new "Hemi" will be a true Hemispherical combustion chamber. It is just not an efficient design for a low RPM street emissions motor.
As far as the power #'s that are being thrown around, What's so earth shattering about them??? You've got mild 5.4's making near the same torque and 5.7 wedge heads from GM bettering those numbers RIGHT NOW!!!
Great marketing using a respected moniker from the past but nothing more.
Comments
http://www.geocities.com/infieldg/v8sohc427.html
I believe the highest FACTORY hemi was 475 and the Chev L88 aluminum big block was 430(500+ was more realistic).
The Viper motor is AWESOME but I'd guess its net horsepower around 575 given a 15% accessory drive loss. To those who guessed 427 thunderbolt WITHOUT mentioning SOHC I'm sorry, I can not accept that answer but it still puts you above the knowledge of a certain olds owner here.. j/k!!
I have one problem, though. Was the SOHC 427 ever put in a production car? I know you could order the motor through a dealer and have the dealer install it, but did Ford ever actually roll out a model with this monster under the hood? If not, I stick by my Thunderbolt answer.
red fenderwells?
ram air package?
Lansing built?
methinks there's a head difference too....
I believe the Thunderbolt was factory rated @ 425 HP and was not a match for the Hemi......until the CAMMER!!!
This topic could mean so many things. People have credited Chev with ease of performance and pure production #'s. The Hemi is a great motor. People have brought up mechanical firsts. Personal choice is always listed. But the Ford FE in all its different roles gets my nod(this is a VERY recent decision BTW) It has done EVERYTHING from win LeMans(1-2-3 finish one year!!!) to Nascar to TOP Fuel drag races. It has served in mundane grocery getters and heavy duty trucks. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Americas most storied and possibly most widely used V8 in history: The Ford FE!! This, IMHO, maked it the best V8 engine.
Work with me here. Swept volume (the displacement of a cylinder) is cylinder diameter (bore) times the distance a piston travels (stroke). An engine's displacement is the swept volume of each cylinder times the number of cylinders.
For a combustion chamber to be a part of the cylinder's swept volume, the piston would have to travel into the chamber.
This does happen occasionally but it doesn't increase displacement.
BTW I think the flathead had a deepskirt design with the skirt extending below the centerline of the crank.
I believe the 454 LS-6 was the highest rated engine of the muscle car era at 450 horsepower. But as all you motorheads know horsepower doesn't always make one engine better than another, we must also consider torque and powerbands. I meant this topic to mean street motors only and a fat torque curve is much preferable to high end horsepower in a street motor. I started this list with a large bunch of engines because I honestly think there is no one best,but I thought it might be interesting to separate the good from the bad and the ugly.
I am a Mopar guy and therefore almost by default I think of the 426 Hemi as the ultimate prize, I realize not everyone agrees and I'm not going to argue about its merits and flaws because I am not an engineer and do not begin to fathom all the intricacies of the design of an engine.
I would like to thank everyone for their participation and say that even though I'm a Mopar man I still love all old musclecars and am fascinated by all the old iron regardless of make.
P.S. Saw an Olds 442 just a couple of days ago Yellow and black and SWEET!!!
On the street...there is obviously no comparison in factory support, aftermarket support, cost per hp. The Chevrolet simply has orders of magnitude more development and manufacturing dollars poured into it throught the years.
On the track...Ford has done well in cases with unlimited factory support (LeMans) or goofy politics (Grand National). Chevrolet dominates (or used to, these are old examples) in all cases where independents rule (which is most cases). Circle track, V8 classes in road racing, Can-Am (pre-917). One exception that comes to mind is top fuel (I doubt you can count a Keith Black hemi as an automotive engine anyway). Honestly, comparing Ford to Chevrolet racing victories (taken in the aggregate) is laughable. Heck, even the vaunted 427 Cobra hardly won any races at a national level back in the day.
Local circle tracks in the past were Chevy dominated but that, IMHO, was due to interchangability and the sheer numbers available. Since the resurgence of the 5.0 there have been Fords in the local ranks and WOO that have won(Dave Blaney comes to mind)
The markIV is the big block, as I know you know, but a lot of the other classes you mentioned included small blocks also which is why I went off track.
BTW, I have a Supercharged(sometimes) 502 MarkIV in my tunnel boat, so I don't think I'm biased. AND it AINT CHEAPER than a small block Ford to build!!!
I wasn't a big fan of the FE until I did the research on the SOHC and learned about the tunnel port and high riser and the Thunderbolt . I knew of Lemans. There's companies that are resurrecting this motor by selling NEW castings just for replica Cobras.
The SBC and BBC as well as the small Ford belong on ANY list of great V8's. I'm just kind of stuck on the International history aspect which swayed my final choice.
Jim
Just a couple of responses (and really, this is all such soft, opinion based stuff, its hardly worth the amount you're paying for it).
Trans-Am: Pretty much depends on the year,
Chevy: 68,69
Ford: 70
AMC: 71,72
I think a big difference here is that the Chevrolet effort was essentially non-factory (Traco/Penske) while the Ford deal was a full-blown factory effort including development of an entirely new engine (the tunnel port followed by Boss 302). SB Chevy's dominated in sprint car racing, stock block road racing classes like Formula 5000. It seems to me that in general, Chevrolet engines have dominated over Ford in racing series which lacked full-on factory support (the implication to me is better general support for the engine and better design).
As far as the big engines go, with the exception of the LeMans cars (another hyper expensive factory deal) and prostock (my excuse here is that those guys so heavily modify the engine designs at a basic level, that the make does not matter. I'll bet that Warren Johnson's motors have *very* few parts you could think of as OEM.) there seems to be very few non-Chevrolet engines (oh,oh, now I have to go find statistics to back this up) in things like offshore racers, super modifieds, A-Production road racers, Can-Am (not just McLaren, but Lola, Jim Hall's cars, and the umpteen teams that used 'last years' McLaren).
Just seems to me that, in general, the FE motors never made much of a dent in racing, comparatively speaking. Some early super stock wins, LeMans, some interest in top fuel (Mickey Thompson), and a mild success with 427 Cobras (the 289 cars were much more successful).
I will hold to my opinion that the hp / dollar ratio favors 427 Chevrolets over 427 (or 428) Fords.
Ford, on the other hand, seemed to be a member of the engine-of-the-week club. So you get a litany (and this is only partial) of:
FE 352/390/427/428 with a fair amount of differences between these, especially in head design.
FE+ SOHC
SB 260/289/302/351W (with deck height difference)
SB+ Boss 302
SB+ Tunnelport
MB 351C/400C
Lima 429/460
Lima+ Boss 429
Crazy.... I'll bet they would have been better off building two motors, say, the 351W and the 429 in various sizes, and spent the time perfecting head designs, metallurgy, oiling designs, etc. As it is you've got an alphabet soup of engines with oddball interchange issues.
Here's a nice example of Chevrolet interchange. ZL1's came with a 6 cylinder sized clutch and flywheel (the smaller diameter gives much the same effect as a lighter weight). If you want to put one of these on your 396/427, buy the ZL1 parts, get a 6 cylinder bellhousing and starter nose (ie. nothing exotic) and voila, instant throttle response.
I based my original choice on this topic on what "I" thought were important qualifers: International success and the highest rated factory horsepower #'s. The fact that these motors were everything from grocery getters to Top Fuel motors is why I chose it. Other peoples reasons may be something else, which is cool with me.
Heck, the VW flat four in pure #'s far exceeds anything as far as production but it's not a better motor than a DOHC 4 valve Japanese motor.
Has any Chevy fan noticed the LS1 heads are near copies of Ford's Windsor head??? I'm talking # of bolts, port symmetry and shape. So much for the legacy of interchangeability.
Honestly, I don't see how even dealerships can deal with subtle repair issues anymore. If nothing else, years of hot/cold cycles and vibrations will raise cain with connectors and sensors (and we'll see more of both). I admit that new cars are darn reliable, but the user serviceability is going to evolve to that of the PC (RR of all major parts is the only option, bad motherboard? pitch it... bad hard disk? pitch it...).
As the ability to fix stuff gets pushed up the foodchain (can a dealer really properly rebuild a complex modern engine? BMW V12 maybe?) it seems to me that warranty repair work could evolve into long block replacement (in the case of engines). I'll bet that the holy grail in this world would be 'sealed for the lifetime of the car' lubrication systems. Weld the hood shut. Stick gas in the thing and thats it.
The 400 looks interesting but with that square bore and stroke it seems more of a street engine.
I had a '67 Cougar with a stock '70 351C-4v and I'm convinced you can spot a 4v Cleveland just by the sharper exhaust note. It was a pleasure to hear it idle and not because of the cam--the stock cam was pretty mild. Maybe it was those "too-big" ports and valves and the 11:1 CR. I've had 302s and even a 351C-2v and they just don't have the same authority.
I should have qualified my statements about the M series motors. I firmly believe that they offer a better, more durable platform for making a sound performance motor for the street. High compression ratios are great but can pose drivability problems with modern "low" octane fuel. The "M's" beefier bottom end may be able to put up with more abuse than the Cleveland's. Finally, the "M's" heads flow characteristics and bore/stroke dimensions (400) are a great starting point for building a torque champ.
It's all moot anyway. The Windsors have a waaaay better after market including aluminum heads that flow more with smaller valves and ports which is what real performance is based on. The 3.00" mains on the 351(the 302 uses 2.25) can be shimmed down to use a Cleveland sized crank for high performance. In fact ALL the Motorsport Windsor(351) blocks use the 2.75" size mains.
Must've been really sad back in the '70's for Cadillac when the Seville, with its Olds 350, put out almost as much hp as some of those 500's!
Depending on the car and the gearing, and presuming it's stock, I'd guess the 185-hp 350 would do 0-60 somewhere between 9-10 seconds. When you consider that just about all of these cars were over 4,000 lb, and had relatively tall gearing so they'd fudge the EPA tests, that's really not bad.
The thing is, TBI really isn't that efficient of a fuel injection system. It's basically a carburetor with a fuel injector in it. In fact, looking under the hood, they look like carburetors at a quick glance. Just like a carb, it still depends on engine vacuum to suck the fuel-air mixture into the combustion chambers, instead of applying it more directly like a port fuel injection system.
As for gas mileage, they weren't bad for what they were, but the 260 hp LT-1 that arrived for 1994 made a world of difference. They were faster (under 8 seconds for the most part, and even the big 4600+ lb Brougham could do it in about 8.5), yet got better fuel economy! I forget the exact EPA numbers though. I want to say 17/26 for the LT-1 engine and 16/25 for the old 185 hp engine.
Just out of curiosity, how was the Cadillac 368? Not the tragic V-8-6-4-0 model, but the normal one, that put out a measly 140-150 hp. I think it was only offered from '80-81, and considering that a 307, 305, or 301 put out around that much hp, I thought it was pretty sad too. Still, I guess it would've out-torqued those smaller engines by a fairly wide margin. I guess the 368 was the last fairly reliable Caddy engine before the variable displacement, Olds Diesel, and aluminum 4.1 put Cadillac back into the dark ages.
In the '50s Cadillac engines were popular swap material, partly because they were some of the biggest engines around, partly because they were smooth and partly because of the prestige. The Olds made good torque and was just about bulletproof, the Chrysler hemi made great power and the Cadillac was kind of an all-rounder.
Cad engines pretty much disappear from hot rodding in the early '60s. I think that's mostly because the cheaper brands offered big cubic inch engines by then. Cadillac had a 390 since 1959 but Pontiac had offered a wide variety of 389s since 1959, some of them very hot. Chevy and Ford had the 409 and 390 since 1961 and even the earliest versions of these engines put out more power than the Cadillac.
I have specs for the '71 472/500 and they're not bad. The cam has fairly generous lift and duration and the valve sizes are pretty decent as well. Intake is 2", Chevy 402 and small-port 454 are 2.06", Pontiac 400/455 is 2.11". Exhaust is 1.625", Chevy 1.715", Pontiac 1.657". Unless the combustion chamber design is hopeless these engines should produce decent power. I don't know if there's much in the way of aftermarket parts though.
-mike
Including the "Wedge" "413" in this classic:
http://imperial56.freeyellow.com/60vert.JPG
V-8, 413cid, twin 4bbl carbs, 375bhp @ 5,000rpm, 495ft/lbs @ 2,800rpm, 3-speed auto
V-8, 413cid, twin 4bbl carbs, 400bhp @ 5,200rpm, 465ft/lbs @ 3,600rpm, 4-speed manual
2. Chrysler "Xeron" engine- they're developing a street version of the Nascar Winston Cup motor and that'll be good.
3. Ford Hemi- Until the McLaren F1 came around, a Torino 429 HEMI was the most powerful street-legal car ever built. 525-550 hp, stock.
With the Q-Jet's small primaries I suppose it's possible to get better fuel economy than the 2v. It's certainly a more sophisticated and flexible carb.
I know that "supposedly" a 427 was available in '68ish but that would have had at the most 425HP and there have been none documented.
In '70-71(?) you could get a 429SCJ (not a BOSS semi-hemi) with around 365 HP.
As far as I know, the only 427 available in '68 was the automatic-only 427/390-hp with low-riser heads and 390 GT cam. This was replaced mid year by the 428 CJ using the same heads and cam. Rated at 335 hp but actually quite a bit stronger.
The 5.7-liter Hemi has 345 horsepower, 365 pounds-feet of torque. The name refers to the hemispherical combustion chamber atop each cylinder. The design lets air flow more freely through the engine, creating more power. The new Hemi also uses two spark plugs per cylinder instead of one, a technique adopted from Mercedes-Benz.
Chrysler manufactured hemi-head engines for street cars from 1951 to '71. Their extraordinary power confounded rivals on racetracks and in the stoplight grand prix, earning the Hemi V-8 respect bordering on reverence....
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2002/02/11/chicago-show.htm
Not all Chrysler Hemis were particularly powerful or efficient compared to other V8s (even other Chrysler V8s) of the time '51-'71. Only the 426 is "legendary" in any true sense of the word. The rest is just PR fluff imho.
Hemi engines and twin plugs have been around a long, long time. It was the 426 that made the word "Hemi" famous. I've never seen a twin plug in a Mercedes production car, but I have seen them in Alfas ten years ago and I believe Japanese cars before that. Of course, race engines had them 50 or more years ago.
-Jason
-mike
I've said it in the past and will say it until proven wrong; I highly doubt the new "Hemi" will be a true Hemispherical combustion chamber. It is just not an efficient design for a low RPM street emissions motor.
As far as the power #'s that are being thrown around, What's so earth shattering about them???
You've got mild 5.4's making near the same torque and 5.7 wedge heads from GM bettering those numbers RIGHT NOW!!!
Great marketing using a respected moniker from the past but nothing more.