340 or 408?

Mean416 said
Again....

For anything that's gonna see street duty or any application other than straight line drag racing, the area under the curve will reign supreme.

Think of it this way. with these "apples to apples" comparisons where they only change displacement. What are they *really changing*?

The answer to that is the mass flow rate of air flow --- and in turn the amount of fuel burned --- and in turn the amount of energy output --- for a given cycle is going up as the displacement goes up.

These power curve overlays are really just illustrating the airflow limitations of the combo. Hence they all make about the same peak horsepower.

What they are also showing --- and this is crucial --- is that the larger combinations are taking greater advantage of the flow processing capabilities of the engine, over a much larger rpm sweep.

You just aren’t paying attention.

So gave you built a 500 hp small block and a 500 hp 408 and compared them driving around?

I can say this until my teeth wear out. A stoker will cover a bunch of errors that a 340 won’t take.

The tune up window gets smaller and smaller as the power goes up regardless of displacement. The smaller engine will always have a smaller tune up window.

If you can’t tune then build the biggest engine you can and live with it.

Will it drive better than a correctly tuned smaller engine? No if you can tune. Yes if you can’t.

And one of the major tune up issues is timing. If you think locked timing is a good thing, or the all in by 2500 curve then build a bigger engine.

What I’m saying is 90% of drivability is piss poor parts selection and crap tuning.