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Yeah, I recently took one of the period muscle cars on a road trip of a few hundred miles. Bias belted tires, drum brakes, stock steering, tri power....I was very glad to get back into my 928......and the muscle car's advertised 400+ hp was more like 275hp on today's dynos..... and this car per its owner had never run better. He had many thousands of $$$ in it making it perfect "like the day it left the factory".
Yeah, I recently took one of the period muscle cars on a road trip of a few hundred miles. Bias belted tires, drum brakes, stock steering, tri power....I was very glad to get back into my 928......and the muscle car's advertised 400+ hp was more like 275hp on today's dynos..... and this car per its owner had never run better. He had many thousands of $$$ in it making it perfect "like the day it left the factory".
Pre 1971-1972 cars were rated with gross HP. No water pump, fuel pump (mechanical back then) fan belt removed etc....
That is why if you look at Corvette history, there is a sharp drop in HP numbers from 71-72 yet the engines did not change.
Friend of mine who restores Corvettes and prepares others for track use, discourages owners of big block Vettes from participating in Dyno Days since they usually come away very disappointing.
A lot of 'performance' was optimistic at best, with 'ringers' sent for magazine testing. Owners were not really willing to share that their expensive performance toy didn't come close to the 'popular' performance numbers. FWIW, this practice was hardly limited to US-built cars. A friend's new 512BB US model had trouble reaching 150. Cali-certified Ferrari's were even worse. Real-world 928 performance, even with the early 4.5 and 4.7 US versions, was impressive compared with real-world road-going examples from US manufacturers. Not particularly good times for Corvettes; except for some zero-miles 'collectible' pace-car versions, mid-70's to early 80's Corvettes are not too hard to get into if you can find a nice one.
TV sucks, i don't mind the show but i'd rather go out and do something rather than wallow and watch someone else accomplishing what i want to do. It makes me even more depressed about not accomplishing what i want to do.
A wheeler dealer is someone who flips cars (i don't know if it's an actual term for a flipper). When flipping, you fix what's broken and improve areas that customers look at most often, you don't care about what happens down the road because once it's sold it's their problem.
Bob is right, 70's cars were terribly smogged up. It was a time of learning, the infancy of emission reduction strategy's. They were trying to make existing technology work because of the bean counters at the domestic MFG's. From TBI to feedback carburetors (both terrible ideas) to EGR, it was all to save money. A simple vacuum/thermal regulated EGR system is much cheaper to implement than redesigning a cylinder head and/or licensing a transistorized ignition system. Not only that but every MFG skewed their numbers back then. The environmental and health ****'s have admittedly improved cars indirectly by forcing MFG's to meet emissions, which of course they discovered, also happens to improve driveability and performance at the same time. Although i think the clamping down on diesel engines has been heavy handed for the past few years, not enough research on the effect of particulate matter has been done IMO.
Cars are fantastic nowadays, but you don't get anything extra when it comes to design for most daily driver cars, apart from some new models dragging on legacy engines from a different era to put off designing a new engine. Oil pumps with "just enough" flow and volume to float the bearings, to eliminate HP loss. No engine lift brackets, too much weight. Dual thermostats, rising cooling system pressures. Everything in new powertrains is "just enough", no fat. Nothing extra is given. Engineered to within an inch of their lives.
working on the Car Chasers TV show the worst days were when we had to shuffle the cars around in the gallery....firing up old carbureted hot rodded cars inside a showroom ! Fortunately we had overhead doors on two sides of the Gallery so you could air it out. Often we would push cars outside before starting them. Yea the good old days of hotrods and no emission controls
Me and Mari got to meet Ed China and his wife Imogen tonight at dinner. Lovely people and he was kind enough to sign my WSM! I promised him I would plug the new season of Wheeler Dealers starting on the 21st. They made another WD garage in Huntington Beach, close to Chip Foose's place. Said they film winters here in CA and summers in the UK.
I'm not usually the most popular person when hanging around "muscle car" guys since someone always says: "They don't make them like they used to" and I always reply: "Thank goodness, cars today are actually fast!!"
12-31-2014, 01:47 PM
