340 Vs 360

frosty_the_punk said
I agree, torque and RPM are equally important in making horsepower.

I do think though that for a car, sacrificing RPM to increase torque is a beneficial trade-off for increased performance. This is the appeal of a longer stroke.

If we were talking motorbikes, or go-karts.. sacrificing torque for an increased RPM may be more beneficial. Probably why diesel motorbikes aren't popular.

Rpm doesn't have to be sky high taking a 360 peak hp from 4500 rpm to 5000 rpm is a good bump in power probably 50 ish hp same to 5500, 6000 and so on can build pretty good power under 6000 rpm.

frosty_the_punk said
I'm not really aware of any top end configuration that would make less horsepower by being bolted to a larger displacement engine.
Would you mind elaborating on this for me?

Different engines are gonna like different cam timings port shape intake exhaust etc.. The differences in a engine that makes from ok to great lbs-ft per cid. Off the shelf parts are gonna respond slightly differently to each and it maybe generally in favor of larger engines but I'd careful from saying always or even near always.

frosty_the_punk said
Having an additional 20ci is objectively an advantage.

That's basically what the factory did 170/198/225 318/340/360 350/361/383/400 383/413/426/440 each slightly more power than the one before keep peak hp rpm low

frosty_the_punk said
Whether it's a "big" advantage is relative.
As you get closer to maxing out an engine's potential, the gains get exponentially smaller and cost exponentially more.

Let's imagine our A-body cars had mostly came with 440's from factory.

There would be very few people who would go to the effort and expense of swapping to a smaller, rarer small block engine which also takes a different transmission.
It'd be 440's all day and twice on sunday.

I hope one day go from 360 to 470

frosty_the_punk said
Now, let's instead imagine that you could go to a wrecking yard and pull a 440 from a 2001 ram with closed chamber heads, roller cam, 1.6 rockers and basically bolt all your factory accessories straight on to your 340ci engine.
Again, it'd be 440's all day!

You're right that larger displacenent engines usually have bigger bores, but I'm going to have to disagree that that bore size is the reason they have more potential.

The reason bigger displacement engines have more potential is that they are bigger displacement. And bigger displacement makes more torque.

A 400 has a easier time than a 408, feeding high rpm high hp, but ya that's gonna be way up there, for the average not so much difference even a 273 bore is probably good for 400-425 hp without going with a super crazy build, so most bore 3.91 and up are big enough for what most people do.