Posted by Todd Wilson on Thursday, April 29, 2004 at 10:09PM :
In Reply to: Re: I'll bet they come close! posted by Marty on Thursday, April 29, 2004 at 8:38PM :
It takes torque to pull and HP to go fast. Thats why the older Cummins were good pullers but they were not exceptionally fast on the highway or up grades. You seen this with your old 93 12 valve verse a newer Power Stroker before your mods!
The new Mopar Crate engines they are putting out (360) may put out over 400 lbs feet of torque but you are looking into engines more in tune for racing then actual torque monsters. Last I checked not any of the new gas engines are putting out 400lbs feet of torque except the v10.
Any small block engine can be made to put out high HP and fairly nice torque but its at higher RPMS/ The stroke of the engine is where the torque comes into play which is why the old big blocks had lots of torque and why the diesels have more torque then the gas engines of today. Sure you could pump up a small block 318 or 360 to crank out mega amounts of HP and Torque but they wont be reliable for very long or efficient enough to really use for anything. You most likely would be racing these engines and not wanting to run them up in their high RPM power band for 150000miles.
Back to the original question for Jonas yes with the stock 318 or a mild cam with a dual plane intake and some gears he will be able to pull his backhoe without much trouble around town but if he is planning on going 2000miles in it its not gonna be very much fun compared to his 1 ton Cummins diesel! Small blocks dont have torque and they like gears. Thats why the old W500's with 318's gone around good! They had gears!
Todd
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