Have you guys noticed?

[jaha2000]

Ummm, not really...
Two easy ways to increase HP on a car with a carb. Get more fuel in faster and get the exhaust out faster.
This is why you see the HO small blocks and some big blocks with things like tri power (3 2 barrels) or the real big stuff had dual 4 barrels on it.

Basically GM/Ford/Dodge were trying to keep HP down from the factory to keep your insurance costs down.

 

[woodie1]

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: woodie1

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: zerocool84
Put modern rubber on them and it'll help so much. I used to be into racing my old VW Bug at the drag and the old timers told me that the rubber is so much better now-a-days that it makes a huge difference.

You also have to remember that those 0-60 times were super fast back then.

some cars did 11's straight of the factory though, so they weren't all slow

Which factory cars? Are you thinking of dealer modified cars sold as new?

If you knew a dealer with connections you could buy a 'glass bodied "factory" built mustang that was ready for the 1/4 mile right off the delivery truck.

I was wondering if you were referring to the z-27 (not z-28 mistyped). There were very few built (~100?) since it was "so fast" that the insurance companies were freaking.

I don't think 12 second 1/4 mile times were unusual, though. They ran better if you filled up with 100 octane at the local airport.

I honestly can't remember if z-27 was it. I do remember they had to build 100+ to be considered a "production" car but I think they ran a modified production class. You could get 104 octane leaded at your local gas station then but 125/135 aviation fuel didn't hurt. Some 413/426 wedge mopars ran 12.5:1 cr or higher.

 

[TehMac]

Also, sorry guys, it is Ronstang with the muscle cars, while I'm sure Amused is doing quite nicely, it's Ronstang with the shiznat.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: zerocool84
Put modern rubber on them and it'll help so much. I used to be into racing my old VW Bug at the drag and the old timers told me that the rubber is so much better now-a-days that it makes a huge difference.

You also have to remember that those 0-60 times were super fast back then.

some cars did 11's straight of the factory though, so they weren't all slow

Which factory cars? Are you thinking of dealer modified cars sold as new?

i want to say it was the dodge dart, but i don't remember precisely.

i saw it on the history channel a while back

From what I remember the Dart 440 could do 12's with slicks.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: zerocool84

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: zerocool84
Put modern rubber on them and it'll help so much. I used to be into racing my old VW Bug at the drag and the old timers told me that the rubber is so much better now-a-days that it makes a huge difference.

You also have to remember that those 0-60 times were super fast back then.

some cars did 11's straight of the factory though, so they weren't all slow

Which factory cars? Are you thinking of dealer modified cars sold as new?

i want to say it was the dodge dart, but i don't remember precisely.

i saw it on the history channel a while back

From what I remember the Dart 440 could do 12's with slicks.

I'm drawing a blank about a 440 in a dart. I remember the dart as being exceedingly uninteresting (although it would be fun to have a 440 in one for that reason alone). Sure you're not thinking of a cuda, charger or challenger?

 

[jlee]

Originally posted by: seemingly random
From what I remember the Dart 440 could do 12's with slicks.

I'm drawing a blank about a 440 in a dart. I remember the dart as being exceedingly uninteresting (although it would be fun to have a 440 in one for that reason alone). Sure you're not thinking of a cuda, charger or challenger?[/quote]

http://musclecars.howstuffwork...dodge-dart-gts-440.htm

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: JLee
...
http://musclecars.howstuffwork...dodge-dart-gts-440.htm

How about that - 650 were made. Can you say "faster than a bat out of hell?" Still ugly though, imo.

 

[TehMac]

Originally posted by: JLee
http://musclecars.howstuffwork...dodge-dart-gts-440.htm

I like those quite a bit, I don't think they're as ugly as the Coronets, and they have a certain mopar "sleeper" vibe in my opinion.

Sure, there's a big scoop on the hood, but it doesn't necessarily indicate anything really powerful.

Slap some modern tires on that suck, put on some new brakes, and you got yourself an awesome ride.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: TehMac

Originally posted by: JLee
http://musclecars.howstuffwork...dodge-dart-gts-440.htm

I like those quite a bit, I don't think they're as ugly as the Coronets, and they have a certain mopar "sleeper" vibe in my opinion.

Sure, there's a big scoop on the hood, but it doesn't necessarily indicate anything really powerful.

Slap some modern tires on that suck, put on some new brakes, and you got yourself an awesome ride.

Hell yea if I ever got a hell of a lot of money I'd definitely get one but I'm sure they're expensive as hell.

 

[TehMac]

I'd just build one. Get all the materials they used back in the '60's, build a more efficient version of their engine, get IRS, get new brakes, new rims (that would hearken back to the period but would provide cooling), new tires, snap up the interior, and get myself a nice little handling hot rod.

 

[thedarkwolf]

Who cares about 440 darts when you could get a hemi dart

"In 1968, Dodge released one of the most feared drag cars ever: the 1968 Hurst Hemi Dart. Dodge would ship Dart body shells to Hurst and they would install a ram-inducted 426 cu in (7 L) Hemi V8 under the hood. Using fiberglass fenders and hood, belt straps for window cranks, and A100 seats for decreased weight, this car and its sister car, the Hurst Hemi Barracuda, would dominate Super Stock for decades to come; in fact, it still does today."

Thats the one everybody is thinking of

 

[TehMac]

Link/pics?

 

[CurseTheSky]

There are a number of factors including weight distribution, chassis flex, suspension, air resistance / drag, etc. The technology used in the engines plays a part, too.

I've done a lot of reading while working on restoring my Mustang. The general consensus seems to be that the cars are scary as hell past 100 MPH. You have to fight to keep them going in a straight line, and they don't "cut through the air" smoothly like modern cars.

I'm going to have to do various suspension upgrades just to get the car to handle a bit better. I'd love to switch to tubular control arms, but I don't have that kind of cash. At the very least, I'll be upgrading the shocks, sway bars, adding sub-frame connectors, and adding a monte carlo bar just to stiffen things up. Not to mention the disc brake conversion, 4-speed toploader swap, 9" differential swap, etc.

I'll never be drag racing it, but weight definitely is the sweet spot for some of these cars, especially the Mustangs. I think the '66 coupes were around 2700-2800 lbs stock. With aluminum heads, intake, oil pan, valve covers, no sound deadening, and a pretty much bare bones interior, I'll probably be looking at 2600ish lbs and hopefully hitting ~350 HP. Should be fun.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: TehMac
Also, I have another question about carburetor and direct injected engines. It seems carburetors were necessary because they directed airflow into these engines.

So basically a lot of V8s like the 289 were very good so long as they had a high performance carburetor. Is this sort of like supercharging, only carburetors were a requirement for all non Fuel injected vehicles?

You're talking about a handful of different things here.

A carburetor uses vacuum to draw fuel into the intake... in very very simple terms, air rushing past an open tube creates low pressure at the end of the tube, so the fluid comes out.

Direct injection refers to a fuel system that injects fuel directly into the combustion chamber, like diesel engines have done for years and gasoline engines are just now starting to use. The advantage here is much more control over when combustion takes place... you don't have to worry much about preignition if there's no fuel in the cylinder yet. The disadvantage is you need a pump and injector capable of atomizing the fuel immediately as it leaves the injector. Port fuel injection and throttle body injection don't necessarily have to, as the fuel is mixed with the air in the intake manifold and there's more time for the fuel to mix in with the air and atomize for the most efficient burn.

Supercharging is a method of forced induction and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with fuel delivery. You have positive displacement supercharges that a specific amount of air per RPM and scales linear with RPM and you have dynamic superchargers that move varying amounts of air based on RPM. You can more easily understand the difference if you say a positive displacement supercharger compresses air and shoves it into the intake and a dynamic supercharger throws air into the intake really hard.

 

[TehMac]

Well, afaik, Corvettes in the 1960s were making use of direct injection...or was that fuel injection? Is there a difference?

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: TehMac
Well, afaik, Corvettes in the 1960s were making use of direct injection...or was that fuel injection? Is there a difference?

The Corvettes in the 60's were fuel injected, not direct injected.

Direct injection is fuel injection, but fuel injection is not necessarily direct injection.

There's throttle body injection, which is very similar to a carburetor... the injector sits above the throttle plates and sprays pressurized fuel (in the neighborhood of 15-20 psi if I'm not mistaken) into the air stream as it passes through the throttle body.

Port fuel injection has fuel injectors usually in the intake runners of the intake manifold right in front of the intake ports on the heads. They spray fuel into the air stream as it's entering the intake port of the head, right behind the intake valve. (fuel pressure here is anywhere from 40 psi to 60 psi if I'm not mistaken)

Direct injection has fuel injectors in the heads that spray directly into the combustion chamber. (I have no idea what kind of pressure gasoline direct injected engines use, but it's not uncommon to see a diesel engine in a big rig or farm equipment at 30,000 psi or more)

*EDIT* A quick Google search reveals some gasoline direct injection systems use up to 3,000 psi as it exits the injector.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: TehMac
Well, afaik, Corvettes in the 1960s were making use of direct injection...or was that fuel injection? Is there a difference?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_direct_injection

 

[woodie1]

Originally posted by: TehMac
Well, afaik, Corvettes in the 1960s were making use of direct injection...or was that fuel injection? Is there a difference?

Actually, GM had fuel injection back in the 1950s. 1957-8 Pontiacs had it as well as some Vettes of that era.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: TehMac
Also, I have another question about carburetor and direct injected engines. It seems carburetors were necessary because they directed airflow into these engines.

So basically a lot of V8s like the 289 were very good so long as they had a high performance carburetor. Is this sort of like supercharging, only carburetors were a requirement for all non Fuel injected vehicles?

You're talking about a handful of different things here.

A carburetor uses vacuum to draw fuel into the intake... in very very simple terms, air rushing past an open tube creates low pressure at the end of the tube, so the fluid comes out.

Direct injection refers to a fuel system that injects fuel directly into the combustion chamber, like diesel engines have done for years and gasoline engines are just now starting to use. The advantage here is much more control over when combustion takes place... you don't have to worry much about preignition if there's no fuel in the cylinder yet. The disadvantage is you need a pump and injector capable of atomizing the fuel immediately as it leaves the injector. Port fuel injection and throttle body injection don't necessarily have to, as the fuel is mixed with the air in the intake manifold and there's more time for the fuel to mix in with the air and atomize for the most efficient burn.

Supercharging is a method of forced induction and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with fuel delivery. You have positive displacement supercharges that a specific amount of air per RPM and scales linear with RPM and you have dynamic superchargers that move varying amounts of air based on RPM. You can more easily understand the difference if you say a positive displacement supercharger compresses air and shoves it into the intake and a dynamic supercharger throws air into the intake really hard.

Great technical detail, but I think I can also answer his question (in the way he asked it).

Yes, a lot of old cars came with fairly low-flowing stock carburetors. It was a very common hot-rod move to throw a big 4-barrel job on an otherwise stock motor to gain a good bit of power, provided you did it right.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Cars weight LESS back then? I thought with fuel economy, modern materials (plastics, etc) and uni body construction that cars would be lighter today.

 

[Iron Woode]

seems to be a lot of incomplete info being bandied about in this thread.

1. very few factory musclecars were 12 second or faster 1/4 mile cars.

2. tires really did suck in the 60's and early 70's. hard and narrow didn't help traction one bit.

3. the only F.I. corvettes in the 60's were 327 equipped and it was a rare option.

4. Most Big Block musclecars were heavy (in the 3700+ lb range)

5. Most manufacturers over-rated their power figures. Some under-rated them to skirt insurance issues. Chrysler was mostly accurate in its figures.

6. Fastest musclecars in 1/4 mile were the 1968 Super Stock Barracuda and Dart. They were not street legal.

7. compression ratios were generally in the 10.5 to 11.5 range. some were higher due to it being meant for serious competition. Sunoco 260 was about as good as it got for these engines.

interestingly enough, up to 1983 you could order a Body-In-White from Chrysler. What that you got was the shell of a production car with no drivetrain and some other stuff. It was a way to create a race car without destroying a production car.

 

[Iron Woode]

Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004
Cars weight LESS back then? I thought with fuel economy, modern materials (plastics, etc) and uni body construction that cars would be lighter today.

cars were actually lighter in the 50's. They got heavier in the 60's and 70's.

today's cars are heavy because of the mandatory safety equipment required.

 

[fleabag]

Originally posted by: Iron Woode

Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004
Cars weight LESS back then? I thought with fuel economy, modern materials (plastics, etc) and uni body construction that cars would be lighter today.

cars were actually lighter in the 50's. They got heavier in the 60's and 70's.

today's cars are heavy because of the mandatory safety equipment required.

please, don't spread lies. Safety equipment doesn't weigh as much as you think and making a safe car that is light isn't an impossible feat by any measure, if anything it's EASIER as there is less energy to dissipate.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: fleabag

Originally posted by: Iron Woode

Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004
Cars weight LESS back then? I thought with fuel economy, modern materials (plastics, etc) and uni body construction that cars would be lighter today.

cars were actually lighter in the 50's. They got heavier in the 60's and 70's.

today's cars are heavy because of the mandatory safety equipment required.

please, don't spread lies. Safety equipment doesn't weigh as much as you think and making a safe car that is light isn't an impossible feat by any measure, if anything it's EASIER as there is less energy to dissipate.

so what exactly made the civic put on nearly 1000lbs in the past 20 years?

it's become a bigger, more structurally sound car.

 

[fleabag]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: fleabag

Originally posted by: Iron Woode

Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004
Cars weight LESS back then? I thought with fuel economy, modern materials (plastics, etc) and uni body construction that cars would be lighter today.

cars were actually lighter in the 50's. They got heavier in the 60's and 70's.

today's cars are heavy because of the mandatory safety equipment required.

please, don't spread lies. Safety equipment doesn't weigh as much as you think and making a safe car that is light isn't an impossible feat by any measure, if anything it's EASIER as there is less energy to dissipate.

so what exactly made the civic put on nearly 1000lbs in the past 20 years?

it's become a bigger, more structurally sound car.

Bigger and More structurally sound do not necessarily go hand in hand. Compare a Yaris with a Toyota Corolla from the 1980s and you'll agree with me that the Yaris is far more rigid and safer yet they're exactly the same size of vehicle, this isn't even considering the use of airbags.

I don't know if you're aware, but a vehicle can in fact receive a 5 star rating withOUT airbags, just look at the volvo 240, Nissan 240SX or Toyota Corolla AE86. Even better, the crash test ratings of the 70s and 80s done by the federal government are directly comparable to those done today by the federal government!

The only reason these cars have gotten heavier is because they've physically have made them larger, it's like Honda and Toyota simply can't help themselves but to constantly make their vehicles bigger, the same mistake their American counterparts have made....