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Re: Cars vs. Big Trucks - Cubic InchesPosted by Hal/WA on June 30, 2002 at 00:00:00 from (208.8.194.32): In Reply to: Cars vs. Big Trucks - Cubic Inches posted by AGEN on June 29, 2002 at 16:17:23: The muscle cars arose out of the fact that the car manufacturers had some large engines for their luxury and large cars, and some folks figured out that without too much hassle and cost, the large engines could be installed in the smaller "intermediate" cars and those cars sold like hotcakes. The 1964 GTO sold so much better than Pontiac thought it would that they had to add a whole lot of production. The 1968 Road Runner, which was Plymouth's idea of a cheap muscle car, was actually very similar to the very well received Satellite police car (remember Adam-12?), only with 2 doors and a cartoon and horn gimmick. Only a very few of the muscle cars had really exotic engines, like the Hemis, the Ram Air Pontiacs and the Buick stage 2's. And most of those are worth big money now, due to their rarity. Why did they sell so well? Image.... Back to trucks. Most trucks larger than a pickup are built to do specific jobs the cheapest way possible. A 318 in that old Dodge would haul a lot of stuff and not tear up the drive train. Most of those trucks had a 4 or more speed manual transmission with a granny gear that would pull you out of most any hole, just not very fast. A buddy of mine had a larger IHC flatbed that originally had a fairly big 6, somewhere around 300 CI. That engine went bad and it would have been very expensive to rebuild it. He also had not been satisfied with the power it had produced. He had a good 455 Buick and turbo 400 that he had received for some work he did for someone and really didn't know what he was going to do with it. He ended up putting the Buick and automatic transmission in his International. Suddenly he had a truck that would climb hills with ease, loaded or unloaded. And strangely enough, the gas mileage was better with the Buick transplant. He drove it for 5 or 6 years and hauled all sorts of stuff, including his A-C Dozer. The only thing he said he did not like about the modified truck was that without a manual transmission, engine braking didn't work very well and he scared himself a couple of times on steep, windy downhills. To your question about horsepower, the truck engines are built for low end torque for putting large weights in motion. The muscle car engines were designed to put much lighter weights in motion much quicker and most had very high compression and were designed to operate at fairly high engine speeds. (And most had inflated horsepower ratings for advertising purposes.) A muscle car engine in a large truck would not work well. A truck engine in a car would work better, but would not rev like the car engine normally would.
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