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NO BULL; how fast was a B-body 383 HP car compared to a GTO or a Chevelle SS 396 car?

Fran Blacker said:
Jesus what is there to disagree about a question like this? Or was it a fat finger?
Click to expand...


Yeah,
Too funny

RED X

My reason for asking is:
-My 383 Build up for my 70 Bee was taken from an article in MOPAR MUSCLE 17 years ago.
Then I installed the 426 Hemi, stored the 383 HP engine.

-My "Bud" (Cuda Bob) says that my 383 is "Bad-***" and that the 383 "Always revved quicker" due to the IDEAL ROD/STROKE ratio.

-He helped me build the 383 as he is a HUGE MOPAR fanatic, HIS 71 Cuda' was the CAR in the Nicholas Cage /Angelina Jolie "Gone in 60 seconds" movie.

-He always said the MOPAR 383 engine is one of the BEST in it's class due to the design, Big Bore, Short stroke,
It gets into the Power Range "real quick"

-Again, I'm pulling the "May 1969" 426 Hemi and re-installing the original 383 HP engine this Spring.

-Thanks for ALL your help, guys....

-Great informative thread on a very "under-rated" engine, "in-my-opinion"

 
I had a 71 RR 383 auto 3.23 bucket seat AG and spoiler car so it was a pig, my friend a 70 Nova 396(402) auto 4.10. His motor built nice with roller cam and such and he spanked me every time. I put an Edelbrock intake, Holley 750 I think, already had headers, changed the rear to a 3.91 and not once did he beat me again. It was always a tie. We knew how to run cause we grew up at Norwalk drag strip. That's the truth ! Some Chevys were runners but they never had the low end torque of a Mopar. Never.
 
Yes,
Sounds "typical"
Many 383 Mopars were "GREAT RUNNERS"
My "Bud's" 383 was very fast in San Bernardino/Riverside back in the early 70s
 
biomedtechguy said:
Really great stuff! When I read those and see the old ads, I can almost smell motor oil, old magazine paper, and tire smoke. I was pretty bored with high school and hated homework. I used to go to the main branch of the New Orleans Public Library and read old 60s and 70s Hot Rod Magazines. This reminds me of that. THANKS!
Click to expand...
An old quote- “ It was the best of times & the worst of times” ; best if you owned one, worst if you didn’t. Overall there weren’t all that many muscle cars built compared to the total of all cars; but there sure seemed to be a lot of them!
 
All "GOOD INFO"
Great to hear from "Real World" experiences...

BTW: Just who in the HELL is throwing out the RED Xs ??
And more importantly, "WHY"?
 
We had a guy in high school that had a 69 396 Chevelle. He would bring it in to auto shop class and brag about all the things he had done to it to make it faster. My friend and coworker had just bought a 69 RR right off the showroom floor. 383 auto bucket seats console 3:23. In auto shop class this Chevy guy kept bugging my friend to race. My friend kept putting him off as he wanted to put some miles on his RR. As usual the Chevy guy kept goading him with trash talk. Finally the time came and he and my friend raced. Needless to say the Chevy guy got waxed by my friends just over 500 mile RR. We watched him get out of his car and demand to see what was under the hood of my friends RR. My friend opened the hood so the guy could see a pristine untouched engine. There were tears in the Chevy guys eyes as he couldn't believe he got beat by a brand new stock RR after all the money he put in his car.
 
Go back in your alerts to the day you started thread. should be able to find the culprit .:elmer::lol:
 
Getting back to "what they were really like" back in the day, and harkening back to all of the reading I did, IIRC Mopar in the early 60s had the most "race oriented" TOP factory options available. Highest CR, solid lift cams, valve sizes, etc. There was a 2 page chart showing all engine options from Mopar, Chebby, Pontiac, Ford, Olds, etc. and that is where I scrubbed that data and came to that conclusion.
Now mid to late 60s is a different story. Top performance options from Chebby came with aluminum heads, solid lifters, etc. IMO Mopar had great HP/TQ ratings, and the rocker shaft design is so far ahead of the other guys, yet 4 bolt mains were only on the Hemi AFAIK, which is a head scratcher. The BBC head design "seems" pretty conducive to performance and Ford had some pretty big intake valves in a number of their motors. Pontiac intake valves OTOH are generally tiny by comparison, but yet the engines performed well, and is probably my favorite non-Mopar brand of old school muscle cars. The 427 BBC is an amazing piece of work, and riding in a 67 427 6bbl 'Vette is an experience I will never forget. My friend had a 4.11 69 Nova with a 4 speed and a 427, and WOW that is a serious combination of power to weight ratio.
I would counter any of the other manufacturers' offerings with M-Code Hemi powered A-body cars, IMO the all time ULTIMATE engineering design for 1320 performance! IMO the Hemi is the last word on the best engineered production motor of ALL time, as evidenced by the design still being used in Top Fuel/Funny Car although none of those parts are Mopar, they are a copy of the design concept.
Yes, lots of amazing engines and cars from back in the day. I would be negligent not to mention the 413 and 426 Max Wedges. Incredible intake and exhaust designs-dual quads on 3 foot long intake runners, cast iron long tube headers w/dumps stock from the factory, those giant intake ports...
I am very happy with my 440 6bbl. It too is one of the very top performers from the era and a pure joy to put my foot into. I know that in my 70 Roadrunner with the Dana 60 I have a great platform for traction and 1320 performance for the 440+6 to shine. IMO B-bodies "naturally" perform better than other body styles when dealing with STOCK setups. I believe that it has the widest tire capacity without modding/tubbing and great weight transfer. If it was lighter that would help, but the Roadrunner is lighter than other B-bodies unmodified. I would like to have a 426 Hemi in another car, but my V-Code Roadrunner is more than I thought I would ever have, and is so great I don't "pine" for anything else.
 
in my earlier reply I stated my stock road runner ran 14.20's @ 98mph. with an edelbrock dp4b (440 avs and holley 780 ran identical e.t.'s), crower 201hj cam ([email protected]"/.480 lift, 110lsa), hooker 1 3/4" headers, 4.10 rear the car was a consistent (traction limited)13.20's; did get a couple 12.90's flukes. at 20yrs old I was too dumb to figure out consistent 12.90's. a couple of years later I did start fooling with port work similar to the templates and that did add some power. bigger cams didn't work well but a dp6b did add power but I never got a decent chance to get times on the deuces. at the end of all this the stock short block was completely shot.
 
I believe with all of this DATA, we can safely say the MOPAR 383 HP set up correctly, day 2 or day 3 mods van out perform the Longer Stroke Buicks, Oldsmobile's and Pontiacs
why?
RPM more quickly
I have rebuilt numerous Pontiac 400s and 455s
Also the 440s and 383s
I CAN say this:
"The MOPAR Blocks are HUGE compared to the B.O.Ps 400 CI engines"
 
there were some 63/64 galaxies around with the 427 side oilers in them. no 383 was catching one of them, no how. they ran with the big boy's. that's the motor they banned at daytona before the hemi's took over. the hemi's couldn't catch them
 
shag766 said:
there were some 63/64 galaxies around with the 427 side oilers in them. no 383 was catching one of them, no how. they ran with the big boy's. that's the motor they banned at daytona before the hemi's took over. the hemi's couldn't catch them
Click to expand...
It wasn't the regular wedge 427 side oiler that was banned, it was the SOHC 427 hemi head version that Chrysler was protesting against. Besides, the side oiler came out in '65, the top oiler was used in those Galaxies.
 
shag766 said:
there were some 63/64 galaxies around with the 427 side oilers in them. no 383 was catching one of them, no how. they ran with the big boy's. that's the motor they banned at daytona before the hemi's took over. the hemi's couldn't catch them
Click to expand...
Photon440 said:
It wasn't the regular wedge 427 side oiler that was banned, it was the SOHC 427 hemi head version that Chrysler was protesting against. Besides, the side oiler came out in '65, the top oiler was used in those Galaxies.
Click to expand...
Here is a good article on what could have been a motor that became the LIVING legend the Chrysler 426 Hemi IS.
http://www.hotrod.com/articles/90-day-wonder-sohc-427-cammer/
 
It seems as though money (or the lack thereof) must have frustrated a lot of brilliant engineers. Ford "got stingy" on parts of the development of the SOHC 427 and that kept that motor from being all that it could be-case in point-the chain drive. If it would have had a gear drive and a reinforced block, it may have become what the Chrysler Hemi did.
Like I said before, the Chrysler Hemi is the last word on engineering and the ULTIMATE motor of the muscle car era, period! As you go to "Day 2, Day 3" mods, the 426 Hemi left the other would be contenders further and further behind.
 
shag766 said:
there were some 63/64 galaxies around with the 427 side oilers in them. no 383 was catching one of them, no how. they ran with the big boy's. that's the motor they banned at daytona before the hemi's took over. the hemi's couldn't catch them
Click to expand...


shag766...
it is as our esteemed colleague Photon440 stated:
It was not the 427 side Oiler that Bill France banned.
It was the Ford SOHC

thC0S8H6BT.jpg


thPKJLTXAB.jpg
 
super-bee_ski said:
G-R-E-A-T..........C-A-R
Great video:
Click to expand...

Fast Lane in St. Charles, MO is where I got my Roadrunner. I initially praised them for their efforts to "preserve and present" these cars for others...
They are FLIPPERS!
I don't care about "correct" nuts and bolts, but if there are 6 bolts that do the same job, there shouldn't be 3 kinds of them in place. My driver's side window was off the track and in the door the day I went there to pick it up, and a number of other issues I won't get in to. I have/am resolving the problems, but geesh-they could put some effort into the cars they sell for the prices they want!
Still, I'm glad my car has a "good home" with me.
 
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