hey whittey, where can i learn more about the Frenchtown flier?

That thing looks sweet!

 

FTF hangs out on the Inliners International board and Fordsix.

Majisto: I'm going to have to disagree with you on some parts. That long stroke isn't as bad as you may think. There are plenty of long stroke little motors turning very high rpms on the street (3.74" stroke 4cylinders turning 9,000+rpm comes to mind). My engine builder has built 300's for truck pulls that turn 8000rpm. The valvetrain is still the limit on a OHV engine.

As for the 1000ft-lb cat motor vs a 280ft-lb 302, given the same vehicle and weight that cat motor will wreck that 302. Simple math. 1000ft-lbs at 2000rpm is 380hp. 280ft-lbs at 7000rpm is 373hp. The cat would wreck you off the line and pull you the whole way. But thats not really what this thread is about....

My main point is this: If you look in the 300 forum, what do you see everyone saying? "I want more power without losing any lowend torque." Well, discounting forced induction that makes it damn near impossible. At idle you're talking 200ft-lbs or more. There aren't too many motors that can match that (I saw a dyno of a 383 built by one of the 4wd mags and it couldn't match a stock 300 at 2000rpm (where they started their run from)). If you can handle that lack of below-2000rpm of damn near every motor out there, you can make a 300 scream.

I'm not knocking people who don't want to lose anything in their quest for higher power. I myself didn't go crazy when I did my motor because my use is mostly highway cruising (aka, back and forth to/from work). We all (should) know by now that nothing is free. Everything is a tradeoff and not too many want to trade...


-=Whittey=-

 

I don't mean to pick apart your stuff, but I know this is wrong. I have a friend with a v6 Isuzu. He can outrun a lot of people when unloaded, but if you add a trailer, it's not even close.

Take for example a little rice burner (with major modification) and a classic with a big block. The rice burner could possibly beat the older car, but add a significant amount of weight and re-run the race. I bet the result would be different. This is the difference between HP & Torque.

Thus the discussion of HP vs. Torque continues....

 

I believe he meant proportional weight to the vehicle.


great discussion guys.

 

As Whittey said: "At idle you're talking 200ft-lbs or more." That's why I don't want to mess with my 300 straight six. It may be slow, but when I punch it I really feel the torque--something I cannot say for my wife's equally horsepowered (and lighter weight), but 100 foot pound less, 3.0 Aerostar. Now my F150 and the Aerostar are pretty close on acceleration. Probably the Aerostar would be a tad faster (or so said a computer 1/4-mile calculator program), but load them up and the F150 will kill the Aerostar. I know because we towed the same 2000 lb trailer with both (2000 miles with the Aerostar, quit while we were ahead, and took the next 4000 with the F150). All this with a 3.73 in the Aerostar and a 3.08 in the F150. The Aerostar was huffin and puffin and there was a strange tranny fluid odor (hot tranny?) while towing, but with the F150 is was a breeze. That 300 loves a workout. I have driven 300s for 27 years and never had such pleasure as I did hauling that trailer through the Rocky Mountains with a 300. It's fun to hear the little 3.0 wind out past 5000 rpm, but the 300 really sounds great (and more important, feels great) just winding past 3000.

 

long stroke isnt a bad thing...doesnt the 428CJ/SCJ/PI have a long stroke which makes it the torque monster that it is? dont really hear people windin them out really high. just thought id add that =)

 

optikal: Yeah, stroke is good for torque. My motorhome has a 460 V8 and I believe the stroke is around 3.85 long. That thing is a real torque beast (390 ft lb at 2200 I believe). I floored it and it shifted (automatic) at 4100 rpm. Sounds good, feels good.

 

You're missing the point. A ricer and a classic big block are not the same type of car. What I'm talking about is two F-150's, one with a 302 and the other with a 300. More often than not the faster truck is the faster truck regardless of what they're pulling. That little Isuzu doesn't weigh anything, so when a trailer is added his power to weight ratio changes much more drastically than it does on a heavier vehicle.

 

You read too deep and missed the concept.. I am just saying that it is not always the faster vehicle that will be faster when loaded. If I take a Ranger, put a seriously modified 4 cyl in it, then take the same truck, put a 300 six in it (and even add the difference in weight from engines to the lighter one to make you happy), you could win flat out in the 4 cyl, but add a trailer and try it again. It is a simple concept. That would be the difference between a vehicle with lots of horsepower but not a lot of torque and a vehicle with a little horsepower and a lot of torque.

 

http://rs-productions.com/RSP_Motors/tech/hptq/hptq.htm


-=Whittey=-

 

If the Inline-6 is so great, then why is it gone? Just curious, because it sounds like a very nice engine, but why did Ford nix it?

 

Emissions. Room (the new F150's won't hold a 300). Fords mysterous rash for pushrod engines.


-=Whittey=-

 

I spent a lot of time in 2.3 powered trucks, first in a 79 Courier, then in a 94 Ranger. You would have to do so much to the 2.3 to make it keep up with the 4.9 in the first place you might as well swap in a big block. Even if you did mod the 4 cylinder in the Ranger to have more power than a 4.9 it will only win if the gearing is changed to take advantage of the added power. A seriously modded 2.3 will have no low end torque at all, so it won't even win the race unloaded with stock gearing. If you change the gearing to work with the 9000 rpm engine you built it will pull just fine until it blows up.

Regardless of what can be done, you are still talking about 2.3L vs. 4.9L. The rest of us are talking about engines that are similarly sized like the 4.9 and 5.0. If you take two similar vehicles and race them empty and loaded, almost all the time the same truck will win both races.

 

What whittey said plus a few more things. The 300 was the only engine in its family, the new engines are in families that have several members that are used is several different vehicles. The 300 wouldn't fit in a minivan, but a V6 will, so the v6's survived in its place. There are several different sizes of V6 out there, but they share some parts. Same thing happened to the 302, 351, and 460. Of those 3 v8s the number of parts that will interchange can be counted on one hand, even though the architecture of the 302 and 351 is similar. The 460 didn't share a single part with any other engine near the end of it's life. Now look at the modular v8's and the v10. Nearly everything interchanges in the v8's. Pistons, rods, heads, cams, oilpans, etc. are all interchangable, or are close enough that they can be machined from the same casting. It didn't help matters that the old designs were all based on 30 year old technology. The public was ready for something new, so Ford developed a family of engines based on modern technology, built them cheaper than the old engines, and sold them for more because the public would pay for it. I guess the bottom line is money. Most people rarely think of this, but there are very few engines coming out in American cars and truck that even slightly resemble the old standbys. Chevy has stuck with the 350 (although it's really a 346) and rereleased the 327, which greatly helps their marketing even though the engines have zero resemblence to the previous engines.

 

So do you think a 302 will out-tow a 300? Unless I modified my 300, I wouldn't want to race someone with a 302. I would do it if I was tied to a trailer, though.