New performance Slant article in Hot Rod
This just looks fun. Maybe I won't make a plan for BB displacement for my D150 afterall!
I think a turbocharged slant six properly belongs in a vehicle in which the ready-to-race weight needs not to exceed about 3,000-pounds. My '64 Valiant 4-door weighs 2,680, ready-to-race, with nobody in it.
My "daily-driver" is a 1993 Dakota short-bed, regular-cab pickup and the lack of weight on the drive wheels is painfully-obvious, especially, on rainy days like today, when apprently, the oil in the asphalt is somehow, brought to the surface and causes wheelspin even at light throttle settings. I can't imagine what it might be like to drive with 400. turbocharged, horsepower. A bigger, full-sized (D-150) pickup might weigh more like 3,700 pounds, but its fowward/rear weight distribution would likely mirror the egregious, front-bias I experrience in my Dakota.
I think a 500cid. engine in that D-150 might also be really hard to hook up.
The problems a slant six would have in the engine bay of that truck would be different, but, just as hard to deal with.
My Valiant is not without SERIOUS (traction) issues, itself. The last time I had it at the drag strip, (with a spool-equipped 2.76:1, 8.75" rear end,) it spun the tires so bad at 60mph, the driver had to lift the throttle THREE TIMES before the eighth-mile... which surely affecteted the 91.5 mph, eighth-mile speed... and, that was on some fairly-new 9"-wide Hoosier slicks. If somebody told me that, I would think they made it up... but, it's the truth; It actually happened.
I don't know how to deal with it. Maybe 200-pounds in the trunk... dunno. But, I gotta do SOMETHING...
All I know is, it makes a LOT of difference which chassis that engine goes into.
