What do you think the best power/drivability combo is?

-

TrailBeast

AKA Mopars4us on Youtube
Joined
Mar 11, 2011
Messages
22,313
Reaction score
11,678
Location
Arizona
It seems to me injection and turbo charging is probably the best combo for decent horse power vs reliability.
I'm talking 5-600 HP bursts with multi hundred mile freeway jaunts.
Sound familiar?
 
Well, that’s two totally different ways to go about it. NA vs turbo. In the big picture, the turbo would be better as it would be easier on parts and allow a smaller cam. The draw back is initially the cost and plumbing. Air and fuel lines.

You also lay out a pretty big spread in power levels.
I have no plans to turbocharged anything. My next couple of engines builds will be strokers. Making 500+hp on a small-ish engine, (370 & down) is more stressful than on a big engine. The bigger the engine, the easier it becomes. And less rpm as the stroke and cid goes up.

IMO, for something easy to drive while being NA, a stroker small block or better yet, a 440/500 cube engine would do it easy. And with less stress.
 
Just look at what the new car manufacturers are doing for your answer; going back to smaller engines with fuel injection and turbocharging to make up for the losses. Modern diesel engines also show this to be true.
Everyone understands that moving air and supplying fuel makes power, no matter how you get there.
I like the simplicity of naturally aspirated engines, but I have been itching to do a boosted build for a street strip car. Going to be a while for me.
Once plumbed properly, and if the riggt parts are chosen, and if not too greedy with timing, a boosted small block should live a long happy life in the six hundred horsepower range.
 
Just look at what the new car manufacturers are doing for your answer; going back to smaller engines with fuel injection and turbocharging to make up for the losses. Modern diesel engines also show this to be true.
Everyone understands that moving air and supplying fuel makes power, no matter how you get there.
I like the simplicity of naturally aspirated engines, but I have been itching to do a boosted build for a street strip car. Going to be a while for me.
Once plumbed properly, and if the riggt parts are chosen, and if not too greedy with timing, a boosted small block should live a long happy life in the six hundred horsepower range.

That's the way I see it.
Any thoughts on what this does to freeway fuel economy?
 
I agree with Bobzilla. If the cost of building your own turbocharged ride isn’t to scary for your wallet, it is a home run IMO.

The great thing about a turbo is how easy it is on engine parts. In a over simplified way.
The engine is basically running down the Hwy. on zero boost and doing what it would do as a NA engine. So a small engine, like a 273, 318, can get 20-ish mpg and then get a boost from the turbo for power when you he demand comes in from you.

As always, a big roll in mileage and power come from the camshaft. Finding a cam that can deliver booth is the trick. Unless, there is no care in mileage. At 5/6 hundred ponies, I don’t think you car. LMAO!!!!

As I said earlier, it will take a lot less cam to do that power level. Bigger engine, smaller cam, moderate boost levels.

Are you pondering a turbo build and if so, at what displacement?
 
Gas mileage will depend on your foot and how often you.get into boost lol. You can get some great mileage, just depends on the size turbo. Low boost numbers usually help mileage like under 10 but still giving you good power too. Open distance I would go with air to air. Thinking twin or just a single?
 
Agree with turbo ,and F.I.... a distant, second ...: centrifugal with F.I. ,...or well scienced carb setup.
 
I agree with Bobzilla. If the cost of building your own turbocharged ride isn’t to scary for your wallet, it is a home run IMO.

The great thing about a turbo is how easy it is on engine parts. In a over simplified way.
The engine is basically running down the Hwy. on zero boost and doing what it would do as a NA engine. So a small engine, like a 273, 318, can get 20-ish mpg and then get a boost from the turbo for power when you he demand comes in from you.

As always, a big roll in mileage and power come from the camshaft. Finding a cam that can deliver booth is the trick. Unless, there is no care in mileage. At 5/6 hundred ponies, I don’t think you car. LMAO!!!!

As I said earlier, it will take a lot less cam to do that power level. Bigger engine, smaller cam, moderate boost levels.

Are you pondering a turbo build and if so, at what displacement?

Gas mileage will depend on your foot and how often you.get into boost lol. You can get some great mileage, just depends on the size turbo. Low boost numbers usually help mileage like under 10 but still giving you good power too. Open distance I would go with air to air. Thinking twin or just a single?

Just kind of toying with the idea at the time, but I have other things I want to do first.
I need to get my 8.25 locker with disc brakes and maybe a triple pass 2-one inch core tubes radiator first, and then I'll need something else to do.:D
Very likely add AC as well.

If I end up doing it, it will be with my 5.9 and very likely throttle body injection.
Right now the cam is 214/224 with .512 lift and 110 LSA with the Hughes 1110 spring kit.
I would probably go with something like the self learning EFI, but not sure what brand.
I already have 3/8 EFI line all the way up and back and I can build an in tank pump setup.
 
Is say yes to the low 500’s if the (heavy) weight and stress of hard launch were removed. There strong enough to move a slightly over 3K weight big block Duster into the 11’s. It’s not a rear end I would pound on with big torque.
 
Just curious but can a 8.25 handle the 5-600hp goal?

Is say yes to the low 500’s if the (heavy) weight and stress of hard launch were removed. There strong enough to move a slightly over 3K weight big block Duster into the 11’s. It’s not a rear end I would pound on with big torque.

I plan to keep semi hiway gearing and as they stand, some of the Cherokee rear ends come with 3:55 gears.
I will need to cut about 50 pounds of brackets and crap off and then put my perches on it.
Since I run that A500 trans I should be fine in the top end.
Not ever planning on hard launches, just some mean acceleration, but then again I have twisted the poor 7.25 enough to break shock eyelets off.
That can't be good.:D
Actually I'm surprised it hasn't flown out in pieces yet.
 
FWIW, I'd make the car as light as possible. I don't know what your car is and what it is used for, but weight reduction would be on the to do now list.
I think you'll break it sooner than later, but, a lot as I said is how it is driven. It is the torque that scares me. Hair drier super chargers and turbos act similar via pushing the torque peak higher and higher with higher boost.
 
I run a 3.23 sure grip on my single turbo 5.9.
Highway cruising is smooth and with the turbo I have power on demand. It will smoke street tires in 2nd gear at 50mph. It's a great balance between power and drivability. I think the next best combo would be a strong stroker N/A and similar gearing.
 
Unless you spend a lot of time and money on the rear suspension and tires, even 375/400 blows the tires off, in second gear, at 50 mph, with 3.55s. That's an LA 367/ 230* cam, Eddies and 180psi. And same engine goes 93 in the 1/8th with a 2.44plus 60ft..........@3467 pounds.
so I gotta wonder about the 600hp number.
Oh and same engine with, with a 223 cam,now 190plus psi. I got as much as 32 mpgUS .
You asked "best power and driveability" and later asked about fuel economy. No budget talked about.
I am only real familiar with small blocks, so
I'm gonna vote 360 with a small Solid flat tappet cam of 225 to 228@.050, and 190 to 200psi cylinder pressure,lol, and a close ratio 5-speed manual, with an overdrive.
If you wanna keep that A500,that's a bit of a compromise . As you already know, the easiest way to mpgs is a low cruise rpm.Which is easy to get with that unit. But the splits are .56 and .65, so it wants a low-rpm/ wide LSA- type cam, or an engine with a lot of torque.
If I were faced with this restriction, I would use the 5.9 with a 3.79 stroke, aluminum heads,a small solid lifter tight-LSA cam, and cylinder pressure at near 190psi.
That makes 387 cubes, a 4800/5000rpm peak power, mega torque for the A500/ stock TC; and I'd run 3.91s, for a cruise rpm of 2100 with 28s..I'd run a dedicated spreadbore, metering-rod carb on the hiway, and MechanicalSecondary DP sport carb the rest of the time. It only takes a few minutes to swap them. Or a really big spreadbore carb; like a TQ or "goggle-valve". If you got the bucks for an EFI, that solves this nicely.
The toughest decision to make will be the overlap period. Of the three cams I have run, all with similarly high cylinder pressures; My best mileage was made with cam that had 53*. The 292/508 was a disaster in the fuel-economy arena at 76*. My current cam at 61* does not do very good, despite 65=2230 rpm gearing, and at up to 60* cruise timing. So I'd have to say the sweetspot is closer to the 53*, or less.. The 32mpgs was done with 65=1590, gearing.
Those 3.91s will put you at 65~5100, so you won't need much cam, the 225 to 228 is plenty to hit this mark. On a FTH you can get that perhapa as small as, say a 262/268/108 with overlap of 49*
With the above reference points;
Mr Wallace says; With an ICA of 58*
Static compression ratio of 10.9:1.
Effective stroke is 3.11 inches.
Your dynamic compression ratio is 9.12:1 .
Your dynamic cranking pressure is 189.51
PSI.
at 800ft elevation
V/P (Volume to Pressure Index) is 180

Let that simmer for a bit.

Hyup you're gonna need a way to keep the tires from self destructing; You're gonna be saying " boy, they don't make tires like they used too....."

That 262 cam could be had as a 222 *.050 as a FTH, or as a 216* as a HFT

I don't know
anything about big inch engines, but I know a VP of 180 is almost 20 numbers higher than my 223 cam was......and it was a tire fryer.
So you could easily give away some of that torque, either in cubes, or to a bigger cam, although, I can't see either until the traction issue is resolved.
Oh yeah with that 387, you don't really need the 3.91s; you could run anything you want back there. I chose those 3.91s to optimize your 60mph trapspeed at about where the hp peak is and for the 2100cruize-rpm.That is the compromise with the wide ratio auto-trans.
I chose the 108LSA because as a streeter you are a 2-gear run to the speed limit. Your engine will not feel the loss of power on the 1-2 shift because it has more than enough power to keep right on spinning in second. Yeah it might get a little sluggish on the 2-3 shift, comparatively speaking, but that shift does not need to occur until 81 mph/6100rpm. And the drop here is to ~3960, so as a streeter you would be fine. And finally, with just 49* of overlap, the headers need something to work with, so I gave 'em a 108.
The same 262 cam on a 114LSA would lose 12* overlap, drop 10psi cylinder pressure,and 17 points of VP, and lose efficiency in the extraction mode, and the rpm of peak power would drop in the neighborhood of 100 to 150 rpm, taking something like 10 or 12horsepower with it.
High Compression Small block is all I know.
 
I guess I will die a stubborn old backwards geezer, cause I ain't gonna use EFI or turbos.
 
I guess I will die a stubborn old backwards geezer, cause I ain't gonna use EFI or turbos.
Fan of N20 ,: When you want it ,where you want it ,you can control the beastie...
I never saw the Lufewatte Germans going "Ka -Boom"....
 
I guess I will die a stubborn old backwards geezer, cause I ain't gonna use EFI or turbos.
I totally respect that opinion.
I am like two totally different people. One prefers the clean simple look and road feel of a single four barrel carb and the unsilenced style air cleaners. The other, however, is like a little kid that needs to try all different kinds of setups because I can't make up my mind, and definitely want to try a turbo setup at some point.
Only turbo cars I drove were the front wheel drive stuff from the 80s and 90s, but even those had the "pull" that gets your attention and makes me want more.
 
Fun to drive? Hard to beat the throttle response of a roots supercharger. That and the torque down low can get you in a lot of trouble. And what power adder does Dodge use on the Demon engine? No snails there. A belt driven positive displacement supercharger. And I believe chevy and ford do the same with their top hp engines. Of course your idea of drivable might be different than mine.
 
LOL! Luftwaffe. N20. They would run on the bottle 20-30 minutes straight! That's if they didn't get shot down. Emergency power! Another one they used was water/meth injection. They had to deal with poor fuel. 87 octane. Allies had 100-110 octane. So much lead plug fouling was a problem.
 
Dodge top of the line power plant, big inch,positive displacement supercharged v-8. Roots style blower gives great bottom end torque and instant throttle response. That will get you in trouble!
 
-
Back
Top