quote:Originally posted by george pence:
A fuel injected & blown 302 sitting in a Pantera engine bay, making 550 to 600 bhp, sounds BITCHEN. I mean totally BITCHEN.
George, first let me say you have more engine experience then me hands down! But I do disagree to some degree but that disagreement mostly lies in displacement Vs power output. I am assuming we talk of “stretable” engines probably even used occasionally at a track be it a local drag strip or a couple laps around a road course. Much of this I gain from the immense wisdom of by brother (who also is far smarter than I even though I look a lot better than he!). As I have said before he is running a 460 with aluminum heads getting gobs and gobs of power. His last major track event he was lapping ALL the turbo Lotus’s and most (not all) of the other Cobra’s. He took his car to several track events and what he has learned is, the guys with the turbo Lotus never make it back 2 years in a row. A couple of them blew their engines at the track. The guys with 302’s strung out rarely finish the week without a blown engine and never make it back the second year without a re-build. This is all fine for Racing. That’s what you do. But guys building Pantera’s (not racing Pantera’s regularly like say Dennis Quella) don’t want to re-build their engines on a regular basis.
Now a lot of guys at hot rod shows will tell you their engine Dynoed at 700hp bla, bla, bla. Often this is true and often these guys show up year after year at the same show BUT they never use the engine so to speek. They cruise around, park the car and that’s as hard as they push it. That’s all great for cruising but I don’t believe that is the mold that most Pantera guys fit into. I think they want to drive it at the track and take it out for dinner that night. I mean that is my goal at least.
I think everyone has a basis for their philosophy but my philosophy goes something like this.
-More cubes
-Lower Rpm
I think the best example and most extreme are the top fuel dragsters. Look at the power per cubic inch they run. The engine torn down after every run and pretty much thrown away after 10 runs.
The Pantera is made for a descent size engine. I don’t think there is any reason to limit it to a small engine and turbo it to make it run. Second, while big blocks are heavy, there are stroked Windsors and such getting cubic inches without the added weight. On top of this the aluminum heads give us some real weight savings.
As far as Overhead cams, this is far advanced from our traditional valve train no doubt BUT (the but word again) if your rpms are not exceeding 6K + rpm, they are not needed. If you run a big engine with lot’s of power and keep the rpms down, there is no need to go with a complicated and heavy overhead valve setup.
But that’s just my little opinion.
Have a great day, Gary