high HP crate engines

[Lloyd Smale]

must have been a hell of alot more then 500 crank hp. it would take north of 700 crank hp or over 600 wheel hp to push a gto to even mid 11s and even then back in the day it would have about had to have been changed to ladder bars and slicks. my gtx was rated at 375 hp and ran mid 14s. my ls6 chevelle stock was 450 hp and ran mid 13s and with headers uncapped and slicks did a best of 13 flat which is about identical to what my 2011 475hp 392 challenger will do. even getting that one to low 12s would require a supercharger and at least another 100 hp or about 600 crank hp or 500 wheel. a hellcat with 707 hp will in the real world run mid 11s a redeye hellcat with 800hp will run low 11s. honestly when i raced a lot back in the early 70s i can probably count on one hand the number of cars i saw break into the 11s that didnt need a trailer to get a 100 miles home. keep in mind that all out race pro stock cars at that time were running 10s'

i had a 70 ramcharger (the real blazer style ramcharger) with a factory 440. it was alot of fun. it could pound blazers broncos and the pickups of the day but fast? not really. buddy bought a new 74 z28 camaro and by then the camaro glory was over. he outran me a number of times in the quarter mile on the street. never got a timeslip with it but im sure it was somewhere in the 15s which was FAST for a trck then but my ram would absolutely destroy it. buddy had the coolest truck around back then. he bought my 77 chev 2x4 black short box stepside from me. it had a peppy built 350 in it and already had a dana 44 with 410s and a detroit locker. he bought a 427 tri power motor that came out of a wrecked 67 vette from another one of our buddys and the 3 of us slapped it together. that thing was a real sleeper. only problem was launching it. it either it went up in a cloud of smoke or when we ran slicks even with traction bars you had to baby it off the line or you would get axle wrap and massive wheel hop. even babying it off the line it took the lunch money from a lot of muscle cars. that's one old truck id love to have back but honestly it probably could run with some of the ls powered old trucks ive seen. but that thing was about quiet and delicate as a bazooka

[Idaho45guy]

must have been a hell of alot more then 500 crank hp. it would take north of 700 crank hp or over 600 wheel hp to push a gto to even mid 11s and even then back in the day it would have about had to have been changed to ladder bars and slicks.

Attachment 314532

[Rickf1985]

You know what that GTO would be worth now if it still had the 389 in it? Easy 6 figures!! My neighbor has a GOT Judge, a 1968 Judge. Think about that for a minute all of you Pontiac fans. The Judge did not officially come out until 69. Her husband bought the car brand new so it is a one owner car and she even has the special papers showing it was special pre sale build. She called me last year not too long after her husband passed and told me to come over as I would love this. A big time car guy came over with a suitcase full of cash wanting to buy the car. She turned him down. She is a very smart cookie and knows what the car is worth and that 1.2 mil in the large suitcase was not even close!!!! Now I have been lucky enough to work on some very high dollar cars for some VERY high dollar clients so I have gotten to see a lot of cash float around in my time. Unfortunately not in my direction but I have watched cars be sold in the same garage I was working in for many hundreds of thousands without a bat of an eye. This was probably the most cash I have ever seen in one box at one time. How many of you guys would have turned it down? Keep in mind that this car is a 100% restored original car.

[TD1886]

must have been a hell of alot more then 500 crank hp. it would take north of 700 crank hp or over 600 wheel hp to push a gto to even mid 11s and even then back in the day it would have about had to have been changed to ladder bars and slicks. my gtx was rated at 375 hp and ran mid 14s. my ls6 chevelle stock was 450 hp and ran mid 13s and with headers uncapped and slicks did a best of 13 flat which is about identical to what my 2011 475hp 392 challenger will do. even getting that one to low 12s would require a supercharger and at least another 100 hp or about 600 crank hp or 500 wheel. a hellcat with 707 hp will in the real world run mid 11s a redeye hellcat with 800hp will run low 11s. honestly when i raced a lot back in the early 70s i can probably count on one hand the number of cars i saw break into the 11s that didnt need a trailer to get a 100 miles home. keep in mind that all out race pro stock cars at that time were running 10s'

i had a 70 ramcharger (the real blazer style ramcharger) with a factory 440. it was alot of fun. it could pound blazers broncos and the pickups of the day but fast? not really. buddy bought a new 74 z28 camaro and by then the camaro glory was over. he outran me a number of times in the quarter mile on the street. never got a timeslip with it but im sure it was somewhere in the 15s which was FAST for a trck then but my ram would absolutely destroy it. buddy had the coolest truck around back then. he bought my 77 chev 2x4 black short box stepside from me. it had a peppy built 350 in it and already had a dana 44 with 410s and a detroit locker. he bought a 427 tri power motor that came out of a wrecked 67 vette from another one of our buddys and the 3 of us slapped it together. that thing was a real sleeper. only problem was launching it. it either it went up in a cloud of smoke or when we ran slicks even with traction bars you had to baby it off the line or you would get axle wrap and massive wheel hop. even babying it off the line it took the lunch money from a lot of muscle cars. that's one old truck id love to have back but honestly it probably could run with some of the ls powered old trucks ive seen. but that thing was about quiet and delicate as a bazooka

I knew a guy that ordered a special pickup truck from Chevy back in middle or late 60's. It had a 375 HP 396 in it with 4:10 gears. Can't remember the tranny. The interior was diamond pleated leather and the rear windows were diamonds. He waited a long time for it and when he got only kept it for a few months and sold it because he said it was undriveable, especially in the rain. The back end broke loose all the time at just a touch of the gas pedal. I didn't know Chevy would do orders like that, or if I believed the story. Yeah the back end would spin out easy on a pickup, what do you guys think?

[TD1886]

You know what that GTO would be worth now if it still had the 389 in it? Easy 6 figures!! My neighbor has a GOT Judge, a 1968 Judge. Think about that for a minute all of you Pontiac fans. The Judge did not officially come out until 69. Her husband bought the car brand new so it is a one owner car and she even has the special papers showing it was special pre sale build. She called me last year not too long after her husband passed and told me to come over as I would love this. A big time car guy came over with a suitcase full of cash wanting to buy the car. She turned him down. She is a very smart cookie and knows what the car is worth and that 1.2 mil in the large suitcase was not even close!!!! Now I have been lucky enough to work on some very high dollar cars for some VERY high dollar clients so I have gotten to see a lot of cash float around in my time. Unfortunately not in my direction but I have watched cars be sold in the same garage I was working in for many hundreds of thousands without a bat of an eye. This was probably the most cash I have ever seen in one box at one time. How many of you guys would have turned it down? Keep in mind that this car is a 100% restored original car.

You sure? I watch both those car auction shows on satellite TV, the one is in Scottsdale, AZ, the other I can't remember where it's held. Very few cars go make the high six digits and when they do they are very very rare. I'd like to see what that 1965 Impala Convertible SS with the hypo 409 in it with the racing tall port heads, GM/Wieand manifold, 750 Dayton AFB carb, 11 inch clutch, M22 rockcrusher 4 speed with Corvette short throw shifter, 3:73 posi traction, and full instrumentation, plus power all the ways around would go for today. It was in mint shape too when I bought it. All white with red bucket interior, and the convertible top had the Herculian glass back window, not that crappy plastic thing. It had the high compression and was running an L88 experiemental solid lifter cam. Blew it up!!! Build a build to the hilt 327 for it, never ran like that 409 did. I still have one of the TRW/GM pistons from it for a momento. I saw those pistons go for quite a bit on Ebay. I remember I was selling parts from the engine after it blew and this teen bopper was building a hypo 348 for his 55 Chevy. He bougth the head. I asked if he wanted the special intake and he said no. Couple days later he was back and was really stressed out if I still had the intake. I said I did, but why did he want it now. He said when he and his dad put that 4 barrel cast 348 manifold on it that even the outer edges of the manifold didn't cover all the intake ports. Yeah, cause my 409 had the racing heads with the tall ports. BTW way what happen was the engine sucked number 6 intake valve and blew up quite impressive. Wasn't racing, was out on date and was just turning a sharp right hand turn and shifted second gear up to 3000 rpm and BOOM! Nothing impressive, didn't know except all the lights came on the dash as the engine went dead. Pulled over to the side of the road and popped the hood and saw part of the paper/metal head gasket sticking out a little between the head and block. Aw hell I though it just blew a head gasket. When I was tearing her down and I pulled the intake off her and there was a hole in lifter valley you could have stuck a large grapefriut in that I knew I was screwed. Too late, but an other fellow that raced them told my best friend that if you run it hard, after the third time pull your valve pan covers and check your valve stem keepers. Those valves were big and heavy in 409 and the valves would float and the keepers would come up a notch. On the last time they came off some of the valves. The one that came off was on an intake, the biggest heaviest valve in the engine. Don't know if that's all true or not.

[MaryB]

Attachment 314532

That is figuring you get ALL the power to the track and no wheel spin anywhere...

My Gremlin weighed 2,000 pounds, 750 rear wheel HP without the nitrous(only used for grudge races and required a tune change), it was a mid to low 9's car, and while I occasionally drove it on the street it wasn't a street car. It was to hard to control it in slow traffic... wheel spin was all to easy coming off stops and that was on street legal slicks. Race days it was towed to the track. I drove it to our local races but had a friend in front of me to keep cars away so I had space coming off a stop... 30mph was instant LOL Local races were a 5 mile drive on county roads with minimal traffic.

[TD1886]

That is figuring you get ALL the power to the track and no wheel spin anywhere...

My Gremlin weighed 2,000 pounds, 750 rear wheel HP without the nitrous(only used for grudge races and required a tune change), it was a mid to low 9's car, and while I occasionally drove it on the street it wasn't a street car. It was to hard to control it in slow traffic... wheel spin was all to easy coming off stops and that was on street legal slicks. Race days it was towed to the track. I drove it to our local races but had a friend in front of me to keep cars away so I had space coming off a stop... 30mph was instant LOL Local races were a 5 mile drive on county roads with minimal traffic.

Did you see the Road Kill show where they shoved a 440 in a Gremlin?

[Lloyd Smale]

Attachment 314532

there talking 550 WHEEL HORSEPOWER which would mean 650 crank hp. probably even more drivetrain loss in an old car and them your only in the high 11s tack on another 100-150 to get it to low 11s. it takes a bit over 700 WHEEL HP to get a redeye hellcat or supper stock hellcat that might tickle high 10s with tires mostly because the suspension was designed to transferer weight and because of it it isn't really a good street car and it also has line lock. dont really need a quarter mile calculator because it only factors hp and weight and anyone that has raced knows car setup in just as important as either of those. you can put 1500 hp in a 3000 lb car. then have an open rear a road race suspension and poor tires and get your but handed to you with a well set up car with a third the power

[Lloyd Smale]

You sure? I watch both those car auction shows on satellite TV, the one is in Scottsdale, AZ, the other I can't remember where it's held. Very few cars go make the high six digits and when they do they are very very rare. I'd like to see what that 1965 Impala Convertible SS with the hypo 409 in it with the racing tall port heads, GM/Wieand manifold, 750 Dayton AFB carb, 11 inch clutch, M22 rockcrusher 4 speed with Corvette short throw shifter, 3:73 posi traction, and full instrumentation, plus power all the ways around would go for today. It was in mint shape too when I bought it. All white with red bucket interior, and the convertible top had the Herculian glass back window, not that crappy plastic thing. It had the high compression and was running an L88 experiemental solid lifter cam. Blew it up!!! Build a build to the hilt 327 for it, never ran like that 409 did. I still have one of the TRW/GM pistons from it for a momento. I saw those pistons go for quite a bit on Ebay. I remember I was selling parts from the engine after it blew and this teen bopper was building a hypo 348 for his 55 Chevy. He bougth the head. I asked if he wanted the special intake and he said no. Couple days later he was back and was really stressed out if I still had the intake. I said I did, but why did he want it now. He said when he and his dad put that 4 barrel cast 348 manifold on it that even the outer edges of the manifold didn't cover all the intake ports. Yeah, cause my 409 had the racing heads with the tall ports. BTW way what happen was the engine sucked number 6 intake valve and blew up quite impressive. Wasn't racing, was out on date and was just turning a sharp right hand turn and shifted second gear up to 3000 rpm and BOOM! Nothing impressive, didn't know except all the lights came on the dash as the engine went dead. Pulled over to the side of the road and popped the hood and saw part of the paper/metal head gasket sticking out a little between the head and block. Aw hell I though it just blew a head gasket. When I was tearing her down and I pulled the intake off her and there was a hole in lifter valley you could have stuck a large grapefriut in that I knew I was screwed. Too late, but an other fellow that raced them told my best friend that if you run it hard, after the third time pull your valve pan covers and check your valve stem keepers. Those valves were big and heavy in 409 and the valves would float and the keepers would come up a notch. On the last time they came off some of the valves. The one that came off was on an intake, the biggest heaviest valve in the engine. Don't know if that's all true or not.

have to agree. a garden variety 389 goat mint is a 50-75k car. a mint judge might get you into 5 figures but barely. now there are BIG buck cars that might go a million but there the real rare ones like a 71 hemi cuda convertible or maybe a boss 429 or the daytonas and superbirds. there are some rare ones that will go over a 100k like my old ls6 chevelle tri power vettes, any hemi cuda or challenger a road runner hemi will be close too. some oddball stuff like 427 impalas and even 409s. only gtos or 442s ive seen go 5 figures were ram air IV judge convertibles an w30 442 convertibles. biggest regret i have is at a local relatively small car show a guy had a red 70 ls6 chevelle original right down to the two horned air cleaner and exceptional original paint with 60k on it and a one owner car. talked to him and he told me hed part with it for 75k. that was about 6 years ago and prices were down so it was a fair price but not a giveaway. i just didnt have the money but it probably would have been a better investment then gold. I should have found a way. if it happened today id RUN to the bank. but to be realistic my challenger would probably whip it in the quarter. seem to be a few that never actually got a timeslip and unleashing even a 400 hp car in the 70s would leave some memories. todays cars?? id bet my wife could get into the 12s with the challenger with the sun roof open and the stereo plying the eagles so something would feel like the 70s. i could do it eating dairy queen

[Lloyd Smale]

heres a cool car story and reality of a 340 cuda https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-pr...9164843e04a8b5

[MaryB]

Did you see the Road Kill show where they shoved a 440 in a Gremlin?

Yup! Roadkill is one of my favorite car shows! To bad Finnegan is no longer doing it. He hit burnout and wanted more family time.

[Rickf1985]

there talking 550 WHEEL HORSEPOWER which would mean 650 crank hp. probably even more drivetrain loss in an old car and them your only in the high 11s tack on another 100-150 to get it to low 11s. it takes a bit over 700 WHEEL HP to get a redeye hellcat or supper stock hellcat that might tickle high 10s with tires mostly because the suspension was designed to transferer weight and because of it it isn't really a good street car and it also has line lock. dont really need a quarter mile calculator because it only factors hp and weight and anyone that has raced knows car setup in just as important as either of those. you can put 1500 hp in a 3000 lb car. then have an open rear a road race suspension and poor tires and get your but handed to you with a well set up car with a third the power

And I think this originally was in reference to a 65 GTO? That is a barn door you are pushing down the track and that is actually a mathematical formula for that, I do not remember the exact numbers so I will not quote any but over a certain speed you have to figure horsepower in multiples. Not in 5-10 more horsepower but double and then quadruple. And that math has proven to be quite accurate.

Ok, I looked it up. This will make your head hurt but it explains a lot about why some of these claims just ain't happening.

The horsepower , H(s), required for a racecar to overcome wind resistance is given by the function : H(s) = 0.003s^2+0.07s-0.027 , where (s) is the speed of the car in miles per hours.

[TD1886]

And I think this originally was in reference to a 65 GTO? That is a barn door you are pushing down the track and that is actually a mathematical formula for that, I do not remember the exact numbers so I will not quote any but over a certain speed you have to figure horsepower in multiples. Not in 5-10 more horsepower but double and then quadruple. And that math has proven to be quite accurate.

Ok, I looked it up. This will make your head hurt but it explains a lot about why some of these claims just ain't happening.

The horsepower , H(s), required for a racecar to overcome wind resistance is given by the function : H(s) = 0.003s^2+0.07s-0.027 , where (s) is the speed of the car in miles per hours.

This is interesting. Let's take the 65 GTO's cousin the 65 SS Chevelle. It too has a pretty flat front and the car isn't very aerodynamic. With that said there's a race out west somewhere, where they have a road mapped out and it's bases on the fastest time to get to point B from point A. I want to say Nevada. I forget who was racing in it but they beefed up a 65 SS Chevelle. The guy driving had it up to little over 165 mph. He was talking about how the oil temperate went up at that high speed and how much the oil pressure dropped. He talk also about tar strips on the road at normal highway speeds are just blip blip, but at 165 mph they made the front end of the car come up. He though "I bet the engineers that designed the car never imagined it would be doing 165mph. He also wonder if his damn universal U-Joints broke and the drive shaft catapulted him. It was pretty interesting. Yes you need lots more hp to drive at those really high speed while pushing that air damn.

[Rickf1985]

I would have to actually be there and see the radar for myself before i would ever believe a 65 Chevelle going 165. What kind of transmission and gears was he running? Was this fairly recently? If so then running a LS engine at around 8500 rpm you would still have to be pulling 3.73-3.50 gear. And that would be with probably 2,000 plus horsepower. Now here is where the BS meter pegs, the guy builds a car for a max high speed run but does not put race shocks on it to control tire bounce? And no driveshaft loops. Was he also running WalMart special tires? No roll cage? And I am sure the speed was certified by a State Police officer. You would not believe how many times I have heard that one.

[TD1886]

I would have to actually be there and see the radar for myself before i would ever believe a 65 Chevelle going 165. What kind of transmission and gears was he running? Was this fairly recently? If so then running a LS engine at around 8500 rpm you would still have to be pulling 3.73-3.50 gear. And that would be with probably 2,000 plus horsepower. Now here is where the BS meter pegs, the guy builds a car for a max high speed run but does not put race shocks on it to control tire bounce? And no driveshaft loops. Was he also running WalMart special tires? No roll cage? And I am sure the speed was certified by a State Police officer. You would not believe how many times I have heard that one.

Long time ago. I think I say it wasn't a big block. Everything on the car was special and hell even I know you got to have gears down in the 2.? somethings to get that kind of speed. A friend in Germany and have discussed this much. He wanted to run his 73 1/2 Camaro on the autoban and I told him he was going to need a real low gear ratio and horsepower. The guy was just emphazing how tar strips feel at that speed. He name a lot of things like keeping the front in down. I forget what they did about that. Even talked about the air coming through the grille. It was an official race and they had all the instrumentation to get accurate reading.Yeah you definitely not going to get those kind of speed with 3:55's or 3:70. RPM's would be out of sight and no Chevy engine is going to hold together that those rpm's. And that's not counting the big horsepower you need. Back when I was a young fellow my 1st cousin was a State Strooper. He stopped over to the house to question me about what two of his traffic troopers told him patroling a turnpike road at 3am in morning. They said a light blue flash went by and radar read 213 mph. He asked what did I know that could do that on the street. This was waaaaaay before anything like a Viper. I said I needed more info, did they see anything distinquishing? When he said a wedge nose and great big fins on the back witha spoiler. I knew right away what it was and I'll bet you do too!

[TD1886]

This may have been the event. Don't forget this was a road course, not around in ovals like Indy. I didn't say that Chevelle did 165 the whole course, pretty impossible back then.

As an aside my friend in German told me that the Vettes that shipped to Germany had oil coolers. They could do the autoban speed alright, but the oil got mightly hot in a short time as substained speeds. This too was a lot of years ago.

Here's a formula for rpms: MPH x Axle Ratio x 336 -- Divide that number by the Tire Diameter
Here is is for speed: RPM x Tire Diameter -- Divide that number by the Axle Ratio x 336

[TD1886]

Here's more on it. So you can see they have to meet all the rules.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver...ssic_Challenge

[Rickf1985]

I am familiar with that speed run, I have never been there but I have been to several like it at abandoned airports in the deserts. As I thought, these are NOT factory stock cars in any way, shape or form. They are covered in aero with all kinds of special goodies on them. Did you note the Lingenfelter engine mentioned in Big Red. A 540 CI Donovan aluminum block pushing 800 horse. I guarantee that if you put it on a dyno you would find that figure is very conservative.

[TD1886]

I am familiar with that speed run, I have never been there but I have been to several like it at abandoned airports in the deserts. As I thought, these are NOT factory stock cars in any way, shape or form. They are covered in aero with all kinds of special goodies on them. Did you note the Lingenfelter engine mentioned in Big Red. A 540 CI Donovan aluminum block pushing 800 horse. I guarantee that if you put it on a dyno you would find that figure is very conservative.

If you read the history of it that they have differecnt classes. So it's very likely that some car magazine ran a 65 Chevelle in it's proper class and got the speed they say they did. Remember it didn't do the 165 mph the entire 90 miles.

[snowwolfe]

I must admit, some of you have very "interesting" memories of how fast your old cars would go as far as top speed and 1/4 mile et's. Most of you would be shocked to sit in the front seat of a car that is capable of running low 11's in the quarter. I been around hot rods since the mid 60's and those older cars were not what they are cracked up to be. They didn't handle, and once you got them above 85 or so the front ends would lift. Brakes sucked as did fuel mileage.
Pay attention to what Lloyd has to say. His recollections of older muscle cars, performance, and values are spot on.