American Muscle question.

[JohnyPiston]

Hi,

Sorry to create a whole new thread BUT I honestly need to know and understand something. I have just been watching "Pinks all Out" and it is clear to me, as it has always has been, that when it comes to drag cars, they do not get better than cars in the USA. But I just do not understand it. Why is a "Chevy Small Block" so brutal?? Why is a BMW Straight 6 or an Audi V6 not as brutal in its application AND sound?!? Can someone explain it to me in simple terms or point me to a resource where I can find out more for myself? Also, why do people in other parts of the world not take a "Chevy Small Block" and plant it in, say, a VW Golf body ...or do they in the USA?

Thanks and really, I am only asking because I want to know.

 

[RDF97]

.

 

[homeforsummer]

There's so many factors it's hard to pinpoint just one. Everything from the size of the motor, the method of fuel delivery used, the induction and exhaust systems, the tuning... and that's before you get to the cylinder layout, where obviously a V8 is very different from a V6 or an inline six.

Even comparing more like-for-like, so a BMW V8 to a Chevy V8, you then have to take into account different firing orders, engine balancing, valvegear layouts (most Chevy small blocks are OHV with pushrods to my knowledge, and most BMW V8s for the last 20 years or so OHC engines, often with four valves per cylinder)... even engine mountings can play a part in an engine's feel and response.

To answer your other question, packaging comes into play. Asking whether people put a small block V8 into a VW Golf is no different really from asking whether people put a Rolls-Royce Merlin into a Golf - it's so different from the original application (not least driving different wheels) so as to be an extreme unlikelihood.

It's not logical. I'm sorry, but the matter is because its an American sport and therefore different to anything else in the world. The Americans have a different approach that appeals to Americans only but some yobs else where. Also American engines are so ashstmatic (forgive the spelling) that they only produce so little power for their size. If were talking about dragsters, thenthey don't hold the normal American Small Block V8, they have this thing called a "jet engine".

Whut?

Very little of that is either accurate, nor makes any sense. It's been a long time since you could reasonably describe an American engine as "asthmatic" (spell-checker, yo) - as far back as emissions-strangled engines of the 1970s, probably.

No, they don't have the specific output of some European engines or small-capacity Japanese four-pots, but then they operate in a very different manner. You couldn't put your foot down at 500rpm in top in a Honda engine with 100 bhp/litre (not singling out Honda - just using it as an example) and expect any acceleration, but you certainly could with a Chevy LS engine.

And no, not all dragsters use "this thing called a jet engine". Very few do, in fact - the vast majority of drag racing still uses highly-tuned internal combustion engines, albeit running on all sorts of volatile fuels.

 

[RDF97]

There's so many factors it's hard to pinpoint just one. Everything from the size of the motor, the method of fuel delivery used, the induction and exhaust systems, the tuning... and that's before you get to the cylinder layout, where obviously a V8 is very different from a V6 or an inline six.

Even comparing more like-for-like, so a BMW V8 to a Chevy V8, you then have to take into account different firing orders, engine balancing, valvegear layouts (most Chevy small blocks are OHV with pushrods to my knowledge, and most BMW V8s for the last 20 years or so OHC engines, often with four valves per cylinder)... even engine mountings can play a part in an engine's feel and response.

To answer your other question, packaging comes into play. Asking whether people put a small block V8 into a VW Golf is no different really from asking whether people put a Rolls-Royce Merlin into a Golf - it's so different from the original application (not least driving different wheels) so as to be an extreme unlikelihood.



Whut?

Very little of that is either accurate, nor makes any sense. It's been a long time since you could reasonably describe an American engine as "asthmatic" (spell-checker, yo) - as far back as emissions-strangled engines of the 1970s, probably.

No, they don't have the specific output of some European engines or small-capacity Japanese four-pots, but then they operate in a very different manner. You couldn't put your foot down at 500rpm in top in a Honda engine with 100 bhp/litre (not singling out Honda - just using it as an example) and expect any acceleration, but you certainly could with a Chevy LS engine.

And no, not all dragsters use "this thing called a jet engine". Very few do, in fact - the vast majority of drag racing still uses highly-tuned internal combustion engines, albeit running on all sorts of volatile fuels.

Yeah, you're kind of mistaking someone who cares. I'm not fussed on drag racing unless its light to light or your racing your own car against a mate.

Also the Americans can get power out of a V8 or a V10. But, and a big but homeforsummer. However remind me what power does the Viper prdouce and how big is the engine to achieve its output and workout its bhp/L while your at it. Oh, and also how much power can you get out of an AMerican V8 without being ridiculous with its displacement? Whatever the Americans can achieve has already been done by the Europeans and the Japanese when it comes to cars. For technological showcase when it comes to the automotive world, turn to the Europeans.

I'm not saying the Americans can't make cars but their cars aren't as good as those made anywhere else on the automotive map.

 

[Liquid]

Yeah, you're kind of mistaking someone who cares.

How rude.

*popcorn*

 

[Rage Racer]

Hi,
Also, why do people in other parts of the world not take a "Chevy Small Block" and plant it in, say, a VW Golf body

Well, in Russia, people plant big V8s in Volgas.
They may be American engines (like that Chevy small block), but they are harder to get, so they usually use Soviet-made V8s taken from trucks and buses and modify them.
But I think a car like Golf needs a reeeeal serious reinforcement to become able to carry that high-torque engine.

About the question: I don't know why, but we Russians like muscle cars, too. They look beautiful, sound great, and have some kinda... special spirit.

 

[homeforsummer]

Yeah, you're kind of mistaking someone who cares.

Then if you care that little to basically make up any old crap, this topic is probably better off without your contribution.

I'm also not that interested in drag racing (including the kind where you race your mates like a knob on public roads), but nor do I spew incorrect information into any old thread I come across either.

For technological showcase when it comes to the automotive world, turn to the Europeans.

You're assuming that American engines are less worthy than equivalents based solely on hp/litre. Which is just as short-sighted as assuming that a sports car is less worthy than an estate car because it can't carry as much shopping.

I'm not saying the Americans can't make cars but their cars aren't as good as those made anywhere else on the automotive map.

Let me guess... you've got this opinion from... Top Gear, maybe?

 

[Slash]

Yeah, you're kind of mistaking someone who cares. I'm not fussed on drag racing unless its light to light or your racing your own car against a mate.

Also the Americans can get power out of a V8 or a V10. But, and a big but homeforsummer. However remind me what power does the Viper prdouce and how big is the engine to achieve its output and workout its bhp/L while your at it. Oh, and also how much power can you get out of an AMerican V8 without being ridiculous with its displacement? Whatever the Americans can achieve has already been done by the Europeans and the Japanese when it comes to cars. For technological showcase when it comes to the automotive world, turn to the Europeans.

I'm not saying the Americans can't make cars but their cars aren't as good as those made anywhere else on the automotive map.

You're comparing 60+ year old technology to the present day. Think about that.


Anyway, things like the build itself, bore/stroke, firing order, cam etc can create all different kinds of sounds.

Example:

Stock 351W



Same engine with a monster cam



And at least on the street, in the early 70s compression started to rapidly drop due to government mandates so engines lost all kinds of power. Most of it came from head design, not liters.

Also a 350 is a pretty small engine in terms of a V8, hence small block designation. Though they range from 3.8L V8's all the way to 8.1L + (in stock form) there is way too much stuff to take into consideration.

 

[JohnyPiston]

Thanks everyone ...especially homeforesummer. You are right ...there are many factors involved and I have very little information. All I saw was a TV show. I will research the matter further. I must say though ...those drag cars sound epic and no, I am not referring to Jet engines. These are normal muscle cars of the type we see in GT. The cars do wheelies! Amazing show.

 

[Xavier2342]

Speaking of firing orders, here's a picture I found online showing the firing order of some fairly common engine's you'd see in some of the cars on Pinks All Out. Notice the difference in firing order even when you compare a traditional small block chevy (SBC) to a LS series engine (also made by GM).

SBC Firing Order:1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2
GM LS-Engine: 1-8-7-2-6-5-4-3

 

[Tornado]

Also the Americans can get power out of a V8 or a V10. But, and a big but homeforsummer. However remind me what power does the Viper prdouce and how big is the engine to achieve its output and workout its bhp/L while your at it. Oh, and also how much power can you get out of an AMerican V8 without being ridiculous with its displacement?

Fun fact: The LT5 from the old ZR1 was a fantastic, beautiful looking and sounding engine that would happily pull nearly 500 horses and rev to 8000 RPM with very little modifications.

Fun fact: The considerably larger in displacement (though much smaller in external dimensions), pushrod LS7 is better in pretty much every measurable way. You'd also find that many of the American V8s since the early 90s have as much horsepower as they do on purpose rather than not being able to get more power out of them.

 

[Slash]

Fun fact: The considerably larger in displacement (though much smaller in external dimensions), pushrod LS7 is better in pretty much every measurable way. You'd also find that many of the American V8s since the early 90s have as much horsepower as they do on purpose rather than not being able to get more power out of them.

This can be traced back into their heydays in the '60s though, as it is generally agreed on that most V8's that came out of Detroit were significantly detuned for street use, especially in the 1970s when the government decided to enforce strict emissions regulations.

There is a reason why these engines have a heavy aftermarket following.

A hefty stroke can produce a large amount of torque at a low RPM and that is what launches those beasts.

 

[Tornado]

The difference being that in the 90s the horsepower ratings actually had some semblance to reality rather than just being outright lies made to make the engines look better than they actually were stock.

 

[YSSMAN]

I'm not saying the Americans can't make cars but their cars aren't as good as those made anywhere else on the automotive map.

All of this would depend on a wide variety of things, depending on how you want to look at it. Ten years ago, sure, you could easily claim that, but here in 2013, the field is vastly different, and increasingly so, the Americans are among the best-rated in terms of quality, refinement, style and performance. Go figure.

We can throw numbers around all day, but what it really comes down to is what people are buying. In the last two years, in an increasing manner, it has been largely American vehicles. More interestingly, these new purchases have been made by younger and younger buyers, going against the grain of the "Playstation Generation" love for out-of-market foreign vehicles. The tides have changed, the Japanese and European brands became complacent, and thus far, the Americans and the Koreans are taking their market share.

 

[Slash]

The difference being that in the 90s the horsepower ratings actually had some semblance to reality rather than just being outright lies made to make the engines look better than they actually were stock.

I can't argue with that. But if you want to play that card then the '80s were like that too. Even the late 70s. Torque figures were spot on back then, horsepower for the most part was a little low.

Seriously why would Ford rate a 351C the same horsepower as a 428 haha

 

[Tornado]

That's also not the same.

Being purposely conservative with the power numbers your engine produces (like when GM said the last generation of F-bodies had identical LT1 (and later, LS1) engines to the Corvette but somehow produced 40 less horsepower; or when Ford drastically overbuilt the engines in the Terminator Cobra and SVT Cobra R then claimed they both had less horsepower than the Corvette) for whatever the reason is still different from taking a purpose built engine on 100 octane leaded gas, then running it on an engine dyno with no accessories attached and open headers. The adding of emissions equipment and chopping compression ratios down 40% compared to those engines from the 1960s but otherwise doing nothing to change them really did damage those engines ability to produce power rather than the companies just saying they had less power than they actually did; and only a handful of them (meaning you could count them on one hand) ever had nearly as much power as originally claimed in the SAE gross days anyway.

 

[Slash]

But they came much closer, more realistic when they switched power ratings from SAE gross to NET regardless.

 

[Kylehnat]

If were talking about dragsters, thenthey don't hold the normal American Small Block V8, they have this thing called a "jet engine".

You're funny! And not on purpose, either!

 

[Tornado]

But they came much closer, more realistic when they switched power ratings from SAE gross to NET regardless.

Yes they did. But that has no bearing on what they were rated at in the late 70s because by that point they really were completely gutless.





Let's say we have a hypothetical 400 cubic inch engine making 380 gross horsepower in 1968-1970. That engine in reality was making 280 horsepower on a good day. With the exact same hot cams, high compression and 4 barrel carbs from the late 60s, it was still making the same "380 horsepower" in 1971; but it was just rated accurately at the 280 horsepower it was really.

By 1974, the compression on that engine would have been dropped to 8.0:1 from the 11.0:1 it had been making. It would also now be run through a catalytic convertor and various other emissions equipment; plus a more restrictive exhaust, much milder cams and the crappiest carb they could put on it. So when they rated it at ~200 hp, they weren't underrating it. It really was that much of a pig. And when 1979 came around and the compression dropped even farther and the power dropped to 175, it still wasn't underrated. Yes, it would be fairly trivial to restore that lost horsepower by restoring those upgrades that had been removed to make it cleaner; and the engines of Detroit remained that way throughout the 1980s. But it didn't actually have that horsepower and they were just rating it lower. That didn't start happening until the late 80s, with the rapid advancements in head design and fuel injection.

 

[hawkeye122]

In my experience (Riding with some mates, One with a Mustang GT, the other with an Impreza STi), an American V8 will respond in most gears. Doing 50 on the freeway in 5th gear, step on it, and it will get on its way quite quickly. Meanwhile, the 4-pot turbo in the Subaru took quite a bit of time to find it's legs in 5th or 6th gear. This (to me at least) appears to be the Mustang having much more torque in the lower revs. Granted, once the Subaru got going, or was put in 3rd gear... game over, V8.

Off topic, my friends and I were discussing the possibility of putting a RR Merlin engine in a Viper... That would be cool. Doesnt make a ton of sense, but it would be neat to see it done.

 

[Slash]

In my experience (Riding with some mates, One with a Mustang GT, the other with an Impreza STi), an American V8 will respond in most gears. Doing 50 on the freeway in 5th gear, step on it, and it will get on its way quite quickly. Meanwhile, the 4-pot turbo in the Subaru took quite a bit of time to find it's legs in 5th or 6th gear. This (to me at least) appears to be the Mustang having much more torque in the lower revs. Granted, once the Subaru got going, or was put in 3rd gear... game over, V8.

Off topic, my friends and I were discussing the possibility of putting a RR Merlin engine in a Viper... That would be cool. Doesnt make a ton of sense, but it would be neat to see it done.

That's because most power was made under 3800 rpm. Peak horsepower was at 3800, peak torque was made right around 2200, give or take depending on the year. Assuming you're talking about the old school 5.0s.

@Toronado

Considering the crap tires, the weight of the cars etc 5-6 second 0-60s, and even up to 7 seconds still isn't that bad. Even a 9 second 0-60 will still put you in your seat.

 

[RDF97]

For the sake of out doing myself in a thread I shouln't have posted in. I have practically removed my post earlier. I'm sorry for posting in this thread but homeforsummer, if you still want a go at me go ahead!!!

 

[Cano]

Hi,

Sorry to create a whole new thread BUT I honestly need to know and understand something. I have just been watching "Pinks all Out" and it is clear to me, as it has always has been, that when it comes to drag cars, they do not get better than cars in the USA. But I just do not understand it. Why is a "Chevy Small Block" so brutal?? Why is a BMW Straight 6 or an Audi V6 not as brutal in its application AND sound?!? Can someone explain it to me in simple terms or point me to a resource where I can find out more for myself? Also, why do people in other parts of the world not take a "Chevy Small Block" and plant it in, say, a VW Golf body ...or do they in the USA?

Thanks and really, I am only asking because I want to know.

As Home for Summer already pointed out, there are a lot of facts involved not only with the layout of the engine as he said, but also in the build itself. The Chevy small block is one of the spinal backbones of hot rodding, it has been so for almost 70 years and counting, and the aftermarket has developed it tremendously. I'd be prepared to say there is no engine with as much development by the aftermarket as the sbC. The achitecture of the engine allows it as it is pretty basic and straightforward and responds with gobs of power to any mod.

Thusly, you can have a two-main factory cast block that can withstand 600 hp and still live, and then you have aftermarket blocks based on the sbC in aluminum with exotic oil passaging and other stuff like the Dart engines, or the Nelson Racing crate engines that are based on small block Chevys with two turbos that will give you an every-day driveable 1,200 hp. The engine is very versatile, but that is only because the aftermarket has made it so.

Other big factor is money. A sbC is the absolutely cheapest thing you can build dollar for dollar. I'm talking all levels here. From a basic bolt-on 250 hp street cruiser engine to an all out road race powerhouse that'll pull 8k rpm in every gear to a drag race screamer with turbos and nitro and whatever you want, dollar per dollar you're going to get more power from your investment using a small block Chevy than using any other engine ever made.

That is why the sbC is SO popular, the availabilty and variety of parts and formulas to turn it into whatever you want it to be, it's lack of secrets (by now even LS engines have no secrets whatsoever) and their ability to produce stupid power for cheap, or do it cheaper than any other motor out there, is why everyone goes with them for whatever the hell you want to do.

I am still surprised at what a well put together small Chevy can do. And in all this post I've talked about the traditional sbC, not the LS family which is an entirely different engine, way more efficient, but also, still, way more expensive.

 

[Slash]

Cano is spot on. Even though I'm a Ford guy, I can't deny the fact that a SBC is still cheaper to build than a comparable Ford.

 

[MrWednesday]

Hi,
Also, why do people in other parts of the world not take a "Chevy Small Block" and plant it in, say, a VW Golf body ...or do they in the USA?

SBC is an FR-platform engine, so it wouldn't be practical to stuff it into an FF car like the Golf, even in the USA. You do see SBC (and Ford 302) swaps into FR platforms. I've seen a 302-swapped FB RX-7.

I can't speak to the perception of the platform in the rest of the world, except that I doubt the engine was as prevalent outside the U.S. and one of its greatest attributes is its ubiquity.

Off topic, my friends and I were discussing the possibility of putting a RR Merlin engine in a Viper... That would be cool. Doesnt make a ton of sense, but it would be neat to see it done.

You'd need an MR platform to make it work. Like, say, an MR2.

Also the Americans can get power out of a V8 or a V10. But, and a big but homeforsummer. However remind me what power does the Viper prdouce and how big is the engine to achieve its output and workout its bhp/L while your at it. Oh, and also how much power can you get out of an AMerican V8 without being ridiculous with its displacement? Whatever the Americans can achieve has already been done by the Europeans and the Japanese when it comes to cars. For technological showcase when it comes to the automotive world, turn to the Europeans.

In the mid-'80's, Ford was making a turbocharged four-cylinder engine that made over 200 bhp (and could make over 200 rwhp with only modest modifications). Perceived technological issues with American cars are more about the American consumer and marketing than they are about the technical capabilities of the manufacturers.

 

[Dennisch]

You'd need an MR platform to make it work. Like, say, an MR2.

You do realize that a RR Merlin is a 27 liter V12 engine, right?
You'll need something like this to put that engine in:

 

[MrWednesday]

You do realize that a RR Merlin is a 27 liter V12 engine, right?

Oops, I knew it was an aircraft engine, but I thought it was a radial rather than a V.

I think I confused it with the American Wasp engine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_&_Whitney_Wasp_series)

 

[Cano]

Perceived technological issues with American cars are more about the American consumer and marketing than they are about the technical capabilities of the manufacturers.

Yup. As Tor(o)nado pointed out, not even in the dark 80s were the engines stretched to their full capabilities. Heck, not even in the crazy horsepower wars of today. You see the Z06 Vette with that stroker 427 and a gigantic cam, and still they could easily make it push 600+ N/A and still sell it with a warranty and emissions and all that crap. The limits of american V8s have always been far and away, specially today.

 

[xXKingJoshXx]

Dennisch, what is that? I think I'm in love.

 

[FordMKIVJ5]

Dennisch, what is that? I think I'm in love.

It called 'The Beast' and was created by John Dodd. Literally just a Rolls Royce Merlin engined car based (loosely) on a Rolls. 👍 Even used to have a Rolls grille, but they made him change it.