quote:
Originally posted by Gary Allan:
Oh ..I truly believe you ..but if you can find a Eurotrash that puts out as much torque as the bottom of the line 383 2bbl (or 318 for that matter) and anything BUT some hiper current engine that can match the HP ..for more than a few exceptional engines ..that I'd like to see. Torque is torque sewing machine engines just don't produce much of it ..and how does hammering your drivetrain in the "off the line - 2000rpm" range possibly put less stress than something that has a toque peak that is somewhere in the stratusphere?? My 1961 318 2bbl (I believe) had around 180hp. The trans DOESN'T HAVE A CLUE to how many cubes are attached to it. It only knows torque and rpms (or torque applied over rpms).
I agree with you. Engines from back then generally delivered the American favorite "snappy" performance (0-40mph). And I also agree on the trans. Displacement technically doesn't matter. However, I am still trying to figure out if you are simply saying you like torque (as do I, I own two GM RWD vehicles with 350s) or are actually longing for the days of yore. I dunno, the 383 2bbl you cited, for example, is from an era when 15mpg on the highway was considered "economical." I realize it didn't matter, but I can't imagine you'd want that engine back now, in 2004, would you?
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Two or three speeds? What's that got to do with anything? The more speeds merely, again, compensates for pathetic or narrow range power. It has nothing to do with stoutness or reliablity. The overdrive had been used in the 1960's Caddilac and performed it's function hydraulically ..and reliably and didn't require "fast learn" or the ability to measure the cc's of fluid for each application so it could compensate for the clutch wear.
I don't know anything about that Cadillac system (though I'd like to), but I'd guess that it wasn't so efficient. As for the 2 or 3 speed thing. I am no transmission expert, but if you ask around, I think you'll find that when a modern 4-speed doesn't cut it for durability, a 3-speed is generally the solution. Again, I don't know why. The 700R4 was supposed to be the same internally as the TH350 yet a TH350 is a far more solid transmission for drag racing. One could speculate reasons (TH350 has been around longer so it is more widely known how to build it to last, extra "compexity" of the OD in the 700R4 somehow makes it less reliable, etc). And going further, for the even higher power apps where a 3-speed grenades itself, a 2-speed powerglide is often the weapon of choice. Don't funny cars have just one speed? It's about ability to handle power...and I think the evidence is there, even if I can't explain it. Of course, the Germans are just starting to market a ZF 7-speed automatic in their cars. But it's probably because a $10,000 (only speculating) 7-speed auto in a Chevy Malibu wouldn't really behoove the intended demographic of that car.
In engineering, you can generally pick two of the following three things for a product:
Low Cost
High Quality
High Reliability (substituted for the more general "time to develop" because of the topic)
If a product appears to break this mold, it's likely that the "high quality" characteristic is extremely debatable, since the other two are far more concrete and less easily argued.
