FalconSedanDelivery":21ut4w6q said:
I Think you boys need some tuners that work on V-8's , LOL , besides I have seen all the Mad Max Movies , and the V-8's rule , LOL
Mad Max was like ProStreet, once you removed all the Mopars, you could have fun watching Fords and GM products doing the tango...
Unlike American racing, the Antipodes have some really nasty tech inspectors, and in the US, the Al Turner Total Performance concept, where you threw a dollar bill at parts you could homologate by making them from any model line, just didn't work here. So when our blocks blew up due to detonation or oil starvation, a common V8 problem, it was end of race. The weapon of choice, the canted valve engines, wasn't up to the reliability of a really good I6. At the top level, Allan Moffats illegal Coke Mustang was a winner, but it had the cut away and channelled cat walk which so incensed Trans AM Group 2 inspectors, yet the Kiwis and Aussies let him use it, but told him to bolt on drum rear brakes. That was a winner, and you can bet, at the top level, the Ford Total Performance Anvil was sharp and hit with repeated fast cycles. A properly prepared Boss 302, or the Australian version of the Boss 351 which was our 351 GTHO engine, was probably even better than the US race versions, because almst 200 of them were production line made under QC requirements in Australia. The problem was we didn't use 105 octane and they were shoved in rolly polly Falcons, a mile high, and prone to create huge oil surge even with the best baffled sump. When the 1972 Falcon got 60"wide track instead of the old 57.5" track, and 15 inch wheels, it just got worse for surge and then they started getting welded up valves at the 155 mph top speeds the smoother late model improved production class was able to hit. The Valiant kept winning the small classes, and the Torana kept knocking back the 351's any time race conditions changed for the worst.
It wasn't that no-one could build v8's, it was that antipodean racing was hard and fast Laguna Seca style, not winston cup Nastruck. So the radical and fearless Ford V8's couldn't cope with the pace changes, and, without being vulgar, would muff its credentials and grenade like a teen on a hot date.
The funny thing is, therefore, all the good old 10.7:1 351 4V HO Cleveland's were detonation prone, worse with the Phase 3's 300 degree cam the than quicker Phase 2 with its 310 degree cam, even though they each dynoed 350 hp net at worst, while a 10:1 295 hp net triple 45 DCOE Chrysler could always take out an eight in a New Zealand flat circuit race. It was only at high speeds where the V8 showed supremacy, where a you'd only see 144 mph out of a Ford at any of the exceptionally fast air force base tracks in NZ, the Mopar would be doing only 132 mph, and 1000 rpm past its 5500 rpm rev limit, but perfectly safely. The 6150 electric rev limited was gone for the 351's, but 6200 was a safe maximum, as oil cavitation would take out a block in 25 laps if the full performance was downloaded to the pavement.
A wrung down the ladder to stock New Zealand assembled performance cars, V8's were even worse. The Mopar 318 was slower than the 8.5:1 compression 2-bbl 216 hp gross Charger770 SE, but even it could take out a 240 hp gross 2-bbl 302. Which was slower than the M code 170hp 250 2V.The point being, big or small Cleveland, the Ford engine was detonation constrained, and even though both cars had to run an automatic in series, the I6 had less drive train loss, more performance everywhere, and the whole package really sang. And those little 2v headed Clevelands had some dodgey valve problems with the 256 degree hydraulic cams. So it was never as good as it could have been if it came out with a 4350 and some more relaxed compression ratios like the 1972 US Clevelands and 400's had.
Which is as it should be...a 265 is nearly a big block 240 or 300.
Then, Fords 302 Clevelands were doing rods, doing main bearings, splitting bores and cracking blocks and not coping with 9.4:1 compression with 2-bbl heads and intakes. The stock sump was a fail, and had huge oil surge problems on a 60" track Ford. The nice long 6.06" rods and closed chamber 57 cc heads with 5.5 cc pistons were dropping valves and failing where the little I6's, even Toranas with 202's, were not having any issues.
And that, my friends, is why I love I6's. For our Aussie/NZ market Cleveland to have ever taken out a 265 Hemi, it would have had to have had a 4mv Quadrajet like they ran on the 428 for a season, the open chamber 75 cc 351 2V head and flat tops for a 8.6:1 compression ratio, a 300 I6 style 268 degree cam, and a really nice 2350 rpm stall converter to cope with the loss of torque. And thats basically a 1985 5.0 Big Valve Commodore SS 4-bbl / 5.0 Mustang GT 4-BBL spec engine, and there's no way Ford would have done that. That's why the US had a 265 hp gross 2v 351 for, it could do what it did with a mild 256 degree cam, 5200 rpm up shifts, and a 2100 2-bbl, and get 20 to the gallon in a Torino with the 1650 stall C4 or FMX. Canted valve engines were detontion limited, and the 250 isn't nearly as bad.
I'd like to shove that in my pontoon with some through hull exhaust tips, I was hoping to find a 5.0 with Aphla 1 (or Bravo) but the Volvo will do....