Help with argument... real HP and estimated HP

[Boss 351]

My cousin has a 3500lb car with a 351W engine... Now he was telling me he had close to 400HP and 450lb-ft but does get 14.37 on the 1/4 mile (I don't remember the info and he can't find the timeslip). I do remember he had a crappy launch.

Anyway I'm thinking he has more like 320HP and 410lb-ft of torque. Here is his setup.

1969 351W stock block in his Cougar
D-00E heads with removed themacular bumps (stock 1.840/1.540 valves)
4.030 bore, KB hypereutectic (sp?) pistons
Edelbrock Performer RPM intake
Holley 650cfm mechanical secondaries (double pumper)
Compcams roller tip 1.6 rocker arms
Compcams valve springs, retainer kit... blah
Compcams 35-414-3 (0.500/0.500 lift, 224/224 durr @ 050)
Accel coil
Accel billet dizzy
Taylor wires


The engine isn't even tuned, he just took the carb out of the box and slapped it on the intake. This weekend I took off one of the heads, and the pistons where black, encrusted, and very ugly. They looked worse than my stock 302 pistons with over 100,000 miles... His engine only has about 1200 miles after the rebuild. To my knowledge his 351's rotating assembly never was balanced (the damper and flywheel always stayed in his basement).

He actually paid 6700.00 USD for this "build" can you belive this?

 

[5spd GT]

Well with that time (assuming the mph is equivalent to the time)...he needs that car to be tuned...or he needs to learn how to drive...he spent to much money for all that...IMO...

 

[hllon4whls]

Need the whole time info to guestimate hp. It may be as simple as a tuneup that will net him the power. I went from 12.5x @ 110 to 11.6x @ 116 with some race tuning.

Still too much $$$ for HP

 

[autoXr1]

Well, estimations are just that. Using track data to calculate Hp/ft-lb is inherently flawed to the infinite amount of variables that go into the end result. It is not accurate data.

The only way to accurately measure horsepower & torque of an engine is on an engine dyno and the only way to accurately measure horsepower & torque of the combo at the wheels is on a load-bearing/eddy current dyno (Mustang). Inertial-type dynos (Dynojet) will get you close, not accurate measurements. There was an interesting MM&FF article about this a few years ago where they took vehicles and did a few hits on each of the two dynos. One, there seemed to be a bit more variability in the measurements achieved by the inertial-type dyno, whereas the Mustang dyno's numbers were very repeatable...and two, the numbers were always lower when the hits were done on the Mustang dyno. Part of the reason why is that in the real world engine load increases in a non-linear fashion due to wind & rolling resistance, drag coeficient, gearing, etc. The Mustang dyno's computer has software built into the system to mimic this type of load environment and because of this, more accurate load data can be used for drivability tuning and/or maximizing power.

Did I just go on a tangent? Sorry.

Bottom line. There is no sense in arguing. Get it on a dyno and measure it. End of discussion.

 

[Boss 351]

I got the MPH, it's 97MPH

I'm going on a dyno with my setup, the type where I need to send my engine to them.. they do the tune and everything... $350 Cdn.