460 vs. 460?
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Joined: Jun 2005
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460 vs. 460?
Why do the 460's made before '73 have so much more HP than the 460s made after them? and is there an easy inexpensive way to make that great deal of HP back? i dont understand how a motor that gets 10mpg also is equipped with only slightly more than 200 HP. that is down right Honda 2.0 style. Somebody out there please explain it to me thoroughly. thanks
Mountain Pass
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 226
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I think that part of the deal is that they went from the BHP rating to the SAE rating for HP at about that time, they also began wrecking the motors with all the smog control parts that robbed power, but barely cleaned the emmisions, seems like there was a long time while they were figuring out how to make engines run cleaner and were trying all kinds of nonesense to do it. Also with the Honda power comparison, that would only cover the HP #'s, not many Honda's with 400 ft lbs of torque! I'm sure that there are others here with much more info, welcome to FTE!
Hotshot
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 18,423
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From: iowa
in 73 they changed the heads to lower compression, plus they changed the timing chain to retard the cam timing bot of which helped to reduce the power of the engine, and in 71 they also changed the deck hieght of the block to reduce compression also. BTW in 72 the actually changed the heads but those were an open chamber design that was VERY prone to detonation and are about the worst of all the BBF heads produced (with the exception of the 72 police interceptor heads that some say are the best of the production heads) then after doing all that they put a bunch of smog junk on the engine to farther restrict it.
Mountain Pass
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 226
Likes: 12
Lowering compression was part of the emissions thing from what I understand.
I had heard that about the timing chain before, but did not know if it was true. The guy who told me about it said that I could put one of the older timing chain sets on my 95 460 and make a ton of HP. I dismissed that as baloney at the time, was he right?
I had heard that about the timing chain before, but did not know if it was true. The guy who told me about it said that I could put one of the older timing chain sets on my 95 460 and make a ton of HP. I dismissed that as baloney at the time, was he right?
Hotshot
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 18,423
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From: iowa
I don't about a ton of HP but yes it will make some hp increases but not entirely sure on using it against the FI engine although I can't think of any reason not to, and have heard 18-25hp increases on the carbed engines.
Post Fiend
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 11,945
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From: Spokane, WA
If you do a search in this forum for timing set info there are several good threads that discuss the advantage of swapping to an earlier, non-retarded set. If I remember correctly it will also change the power curve giving you more power at lower RPM.
Butt-Head
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 9,418
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From: Reed Point, MT
Originally Posted by ivanribic
If you do a search in this forum for timing set info there are several good threads that discuss the advantage of swapping to an earlier, non-retarded set. If I remember correctly it will also change the power curve giving you more power at lower RPM.
Cody
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Cargo Master
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 3,208
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The 1987 and up 460 timimg sets are straight up no retard. The biggest issue with the 460 was the down grade in compression. Some of the early 429/460 had up to 11.5 to 1 comp from the factory and took premium to run. And they ran like Bats from you know where. If you put one togather like that now it will also run and have ton of torque. but you will be buying racing fuel for it. In 1978 they only had 7.5 to 1 compression The efi 460's are about as good as you can get and stay with regular fuel. You can bump them real close to 10-1 compression a get away with it as far as the computer goes the cam is the where you are limited by the computer the most. Unless you have one of the very few Mass air EFI motors. then you can have some real fun.
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