From: hotrod@dixie.com (The Hotrod List)
Subject: Re:  RPM's and Gears
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 21:35:42 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.
To: hotrod@dixie.com
Reply-To: hotrod@dixie.com
Posted-Date: Friday, Jan 22 16:35:38
X-Sequence: 3588
X-Gifs-To: met@sunset.cse.nau.edu
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Dennis responds
> JCA wrote
>> Although I am a firm Chevy man for drag racing, I hesitate to categorize 
>> any particular manufacurer's engines as weak or strong...
>> The mopar engines I have known (I haven't owned any personally)
>> have been stronger than Hell!  A friend has run a 340 in his Barracuda drag 
>> car for several years that he _launches_ at 9,000 RPM and shifts at 
>> 11,800 RPM!!!!  He also has a B1 Wedge motor that he runs to 10,000 RPM.  
>> Of course my best friend used to shift his LS-6 crate 454 at 7500 RPM 
>> without any problems.  Another friend shifts his 327 Chevy II wagon 
>> (street car) at 8,500 RPM.
>
>Now may I ask if these are stock engines.  
HEEEELLLL NO!  (extra emphasis ;-)  The LS-6 was (when he used to shift at
7500 RPM) a stock engine.  [We went back through it for more power!]
Is there a stock "Big 3" automobile engine that can reliably turn 10,000
RPM?  The (now extinct) LS-6 crate motor is the same engine that found
it's way into _lots_ of 70-72(?) SS454 Chevelles...

>I have seen quit a few  stock 426
>wedges and 440's that dropped there bottom ends.  I also know of a couple
>Hemi's that had complete bottomends put in and are shifted at 10,000 rpm's.
No design is immune to failure;  I suppose some are more prone.  OK, for
stock configurations, I concede that the Chevies are very durable.  (I've
just seen too many big block mopars have the dog shit run out of them and
hold together!)

>> I guess where my basic disagreement comes in is that lower gears is not always
>> the correct solution to a performance problem.  Many years ago my '68 396 
>> Chevelle was set up with 3.30 gears with a basic "torque" engine configuration.
>> (made all of it's power below 6,000 RPM)
>> Because my street tires were so short (245 60 R 14s  - had ~24.5" diameter)
>> The car actually got slower in the quarter when I switched to 4.11 gears.
>
>Sounds to me like too much torque and not enough bite into the pavement.
With ladder bars, racing springs and shocks, battery relocation, and lots
of fiberglass parts that car has absolutely _NO_ problem hooking up (then
or now!)  On a side note, my around-town gas mileage actually went up when 
I made the gear change!  Cool, huh?

>...  It seems like 45
>souls out there cannot believe that anything over a 4.11 is a performance
>axle.  Guess there more interested in the salt flats than minimizing there
>ET's.

Hee hee, I guess some of us are just a little more radical than others...
I think the most important thing we agree on (the golden rule of performance)
is that _all_ of the parts that make up a combination really need to match
to get any sort of respectable result, otherwise the parts just end up
"fighting" each other...

Later,
JC.  jca@fibercom.com

----------
Posted by: emory!fibercom.com!jca (J.C. "J. Hoss" Akers)
Newsgroups: alt.hotrod,wiz.hotrod