Well I hope the OP got his answer ‘cause we certainly hijacked this!
BTW Steve – keep it stock, change the air filter yearly Check your driving habits.
Most performance claims that seem to good to be true – are.
I can tell you though, with exhaust (turbo back 4”) tuner and some other stuff, level 6 was a blast to drive and from 0-70 I'd take it up against any Mustang or similar car.
OH - and a biggie – change the Allison spin on at the beginning of tow season and when you are done, top of the fluid and that trans will do you good. If I had another D/A combo I would consider the shift kit and deep pan. As long as you don’t mind a bit “crisper” shifts. The way you make an automatic trans shift nice and smooth is to “slip” it between gears.
Now off our regularly scheduled programming.
OK Duane, more trivia, most WW11 radial aircraft engines had the hemiphercal type heads. May have be the Chrysler design from the get-go. Yes I did know that the 331" was mostly used for stationary engines. If I remember correctly...you could punch the 331" out to make it a 354", but dont know if you could make a 392" from the same block.
For some of the younger folks....the Jimmy blowers came from the early GMC diesel inline 2 stroke truck engines. Here's what the numbers meant. 3-71..4-71..6-71... where all inline engines. The 1st number was the amount of cylinders and the 2nd number was how many cubic inches per cylinder. The 8-71 and up were V-8's. Then there was the 92 series, same thing except they had 92ci per cylinder.
I’m a MOPAR far, always have been.
Hemi’s – start to finish Fire Power or Fire Dome:
241, 270, 276, 291, 301, 315, 325, 330, 331, 341, 345, 354, 392
426 Started the “Hemi” years (trademarked name)
Modern day with the pansy numbering
5.7, 6.1, 6.4
5.7 = 348, 6.1 = 372, 6.4 = 390
The 396 was the beginning of great things to come out of Detroit and racing
As Bob mentioned, Blowers came right off of Detroit diesels until manufacturing caught up and started making quality replacements. (same applies to the modern day race Hemi).
Blowers were typically run at up to 30% over speed.
The 426 Hemi was the most powerful production engine made and still the only “factory” engine that was capable of being twisted to almost 5000 horsepower!
The 426 was conservatively rated at 425 horsepower back in the 60’s
And along with Bob’s “71” series listing we have 12-71’s and 16-71’s which were – you guessed it – 2 6-71’s or 2-8-71’s bolted together. The 71 series were great engines, identical side to side, front to back. The original Detroit Diesel 2 stroke came from the Gray Marine diesel. Best thing about these engine is you could rebuild them forever, as long as you don’t crack the block. Which is good, because I have a pair of 6-71 T’s in our boat.
There were also 2-71 and 4-71 series built for industrial apps
BTW – I think one of the reasons I like the 6-71 so much is because it is 426 cubic inches. 6-71 TI is turbocharger and intercooled pumping out 410 horsepower. Change the injectors and I can get 450 out them, bigger intercooler and I can get 485, but those are commonly referred to as “grenade motors”
The original 6-71 was 120 hp IIRC. (Same as the 3208 Cat, another great one)
If the story is true...it was "Big Daddy" Don Garlets that 1st installed a blower on a dragster and ran the car at the Smokers dragstrip in Bakersfield California. BOY I love the old front engine fueler...had to have big brass ones to crawl into one of those cars. 1500HP..on fuel...and a 96" wheelbase. The original "E" ticket ride.
I grew up at the Englishtown Raceway Park. My neighbor was a tech inspector and took me every weekend.
I love the front engine cars and was fortunate enough to have met just about every name there was in the 60’s-70’s and early 80’s
Here is one of my favorite videos, a 396 starting and warming up.
Started on alcohol, the car switches over to Nitromethane at the 2 minute mark.
This is the real deal car – no oil breather cans, no blower straps, not sure if it has the manifold “pop off” valves either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeX9mPoC8j0&feature=related
hey 8000 horsepower is hard to compete with.
