Posted by Brian in Oregon on Wednesday, June 27, 2001 at 5:49PM :
In Reply to: Re: 318 LA outperforms 318A poly... posted by MoparNorm on Wednesday, June 27, 2001 at 5:39PM :
Yes, the smog controls cut the HP and torque of ALL engines thus equipped, but you overlook the main reason why it is so abrupt in 1973.
First, in reality, the smog controls cut maybe 5-15 HP depending on the engine. It did NOT drop them from, say, 250 to 150.
What happened is that the auto industry changed how they measured HP, and went to power at the rear wheels (usually) or at the transmission output (rarely) instead of at the flywheel. Flywheel HP is the Gross HP, while the HP at the rear wheels is SAE Net HP. Thus, a 150 HP SAE Net HP figure is about the same as a 250 Gross HP figure. The Gross HP figure, being at the flywheel, does not take into account all the parasitic losses of the transmission, u-joints, differential, wheel bearings or tire friction. Oten, the Gross HP figure didn't even include power steering, alternator or sometimes even the fan, as some companies tried their best to jack up the figures to beat out the competition. I believe SAE came up with their plan to thwart the Feds from stepping in and policing up the claims. This was about the same time the Feds were cracking down on stereo makers who would, for example, claim a 15 watt amplifier was a 250 watter.
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