500hp & 600hp Bench Racing thread
I'm am processing what you have said, I value your knowledge, but have to make into a workable theory.
Same with Bewy's air's density comment I'm working into my thinking.
No one is breaking ground here, we're struggling to teach calculus to a parrot...
Here's some suggested reading: otto cycle, atkinson cycle. Read and compare, then get back to us.
Otto explains exactly where power comes from in internal combustion, including the effects of COMPRESSION and EXPANSION.
Atkinson explains why wide LSA reaps higher HP returns at high revs, see if you can figure out why/how.
The only way more cubes make less power, or even less power per cube, is if you cripple the combo.
Now, if the premise is that you want to build a 365ci engine, but can't afford or access a stroker and you want similar output (let's take this to mean comparable MPH at the track), that's a different discussion.
The idea that there's no simple answer to explain why more CI means more power is laughable.
Here's a link for your reading pleasure.
PV=nRT, where R is a constant and n has to do with the mass of air (think Bewy's comment). So pressure and volume varies with temperature. This is simplified, but helps understand where work (which is equivalent to HP) comes from. If you have more volume, then any change in temperature is going to create more pressure for the same change in temperature (think combustion). Remember, 70% of the air in the cylinder CANNOT be burned (ok, that's over-simplified, but burning N isn't gonna make you power), most of the work from combustion comes from heating the surrounding gasses. If you have more gasses to start, and thus more fuel to hold your AFR, then by definition you have more volume which is going to be heated and to a comparable temperature. Which means you finish with a greater volume of gas, and thus MORE WORK which is the exact same statement as MORE HORSEPOWER.
Thus: more displacement increases power through the increase mass of gas expanded.
@RustyRatRod's tacos make a return...
The only time this doesn't turn into more power in reality is when the head is so flow-limited that the charge density drops so low that the mass of the air in the cylinder is decreased and thus not equivalent to the engine volume increase.