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Interesting look at Mercedes' racing history

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Fantastic article, but I noticed that American muscle cars in the '60's get a lot of flak for having massive 300-440 cubic inch engines and only producing 300-425 hp.

From what I have read, these "official" numbers were severe under ratings by the American manufacturers in order to evade the high insurance costs and open up the market to more people.

The Hemi 440 I know was able to get around 501 hp (officially it was rated around 400 hp) and the Hemi 426 was able to get around 550 hp (officially it was rated around 425-450 hp).

Also, I noticed some of the Corvettes were beginning to get Fuel injected engines, which always excites me.

The fuel injected 283 from GM for vettes was rated at an impressive 315 hp, so thats a ratio of more than one hp to cubic inch of engine displacement.

I'm not sure, but I think this engine was underrated as well, possibly got around 400 hp, but I'm not sure.

Then in 1962, there came out a fuel injected 327 cid V8 that was rated at 360 hp, again, not sure how much hp it really put out.

I think Ronstang and Zv would know quite a bit more than I.
 
My dad told me a while back how he would be driving with his uncle around the Bay area in California, and they drove past a dealership, where one of the SL Gullwings was on display, and he said it blew his mind.

But now, he couldn't give a damn about cars lol
 
The problem is twofold: first, the measuremont of the Horsepower: prior to '73, all measurements were performed without ancillaries, with longtube headers, and with favourable air temp/humidity. after 73, the measurements reflected the real world installation of the engine (more or less)

Stolen from the internets: Since 1973, net figures were published. This confusion caused many people to suppose that their engine had been seriously de-tuned when they saw that the same engine in 1972 had 400 hp but in 1973 had only 235 hp. (This example is from the Cadillac 500 cubic inch engine)

Secondly, emissions requirements. Its easy to make loads of horsepower when you don't give a fuck about lead, HC, CO, NOx etc. The carmakers had to lower compression, restrict cam and ignition timing, and all that good stuff to meet the new restrictions.
 
TehMac said:
Fantastic article, but I noticed that American muscle cars in the '60's get a lot of flak for having massive 300-440 cubic inch engines and only producing 300-425 hp.

From what I have read, these "official" numbers were severe under ratings by the American manufacturers in order to evade the high insurance costs and open up the market to more people.

The Hemi 440 I know was able to get around 501 hp (officially it was rated around 400 hp) and the Hemi 426 was able to get around 550 hp (officially it was rated around 425-450 hp).

Also, I noticed some of the Corvettes were beginning to get Fuel injected engines, which always excites me.

The fuel injected 283 from GM for vettes was rated at an impressive 315 hp, so thats a ratio of more than one hp to cubic inch of engine displacement.

I'm not sure, but I think this engine was underrated as well, possibly got around 400 hp, but I'm not sure.

Then in 1962, there came out a fuel injected 327 cid V8 that was rated at 360 hp, again, not sure how much hp it really put out. Not sure what the output was but that car was fucking fantastic in the snow.

I think Ronstang and Zv would know quite a bit more than I.
Click to expand...

My first car was a 1973 SAAB 99LE with a 4 speed manual gearbox and a 2.0 liter fuel injected engine. I don't know how much hp it had but it was fucking fantastic in the snow. That car had near 50/50 weight distribution, FWD, and heated seats.
 
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JulesMaximus said:
My first car was a 1973 SAAB 99LE with a 4 speed manual gearbox and a 2.0 liter fuel injected engine. I don't know how much hp it had but it was fucking fantastic in the snow. That car had near 50/50 weight distribution, FWD, and heated seats.
Click to expand...
1973 99 LE 2.0L is 110 HP.

My first car was a 1979 Saab 99 Turbo coupe with a 2.0L fuel injected 143 HP (if you don't count my Datsun truck as the first vehicle).
 
Yea, I was actually reading about gross vs. net hp.

The editors of mopar magazine don't think that the restrictions really had any effect on these V8 engines, the real effect was the gross vs net ratings.

Mopar Mag took a 426 HEMI rated at 425 hp, which on their dynameter rendered around 315 hp, yet on wikipedia, I read (on a different page) how the 440 on modern dynos gave an output of around 505 hp with ~450 lbs-ft of torque. That makes me super confused.

Mopar said their hemi was running stock, in which case it's possible all this other stuff has had significant boring/stroking/carb tuning.

How stuff works.com claimed that the famed L88 engine with aluminum headers (the famous one on the ZL1 Camaro) was noted to produce around 600 hp

Frustratingly, they didn't specify on which dyno/what specs.

All this leads to me being really confused.
 
Wow that's incredible. I was like NO WAIII when I first saw it. But it looks like it's F1 level tech of that time.
Compare that to today we pump out 700HP out of a NA 2.4L V8. Both are utterly astonishing when seeing mans utmost potential when creating the ne plus ultra of racing machines.
 
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