Posted by RDavis on Sunday, December 02, 2001 at 9:00PM :
In Reply to: Re: Putting the 251 in a WDX posted by Drew Rogers on Sunday, December 02, 2001 at 4:35PM :
Drew, contrary to chicken little crying "the sky is falling ,the sky is falling" when the subject of L-heads turning the 3600rpm rating for max. hp, it is not that excessive. I once claimed a true experience of having my 64'WM300 pegged on 80mph on the speedo in the truck. Which meant it was turning around 4500rpms for the brief time I had the speedo pegged out. Of course it wasn't good for the engine and the only time the emgineers ever expected folks to have the 251 at 3600 rpms was for the short time needed to get the torque and hp needed to get the job done. But still, you could easily get these engines to turn those rpms whether it is good for them or not.
You could rebuild your 230 and with minor alteration with simple performance equipment added like dual carbs,headers, points conversion to simple drop-in electronics,etc.,you could have the same, if not more hp than a stock 251. Of course the same things done to a 251 would yeild higher hp and torque increases.
You are expected to run in the economy range of rpms which is between 60-80% of the rated max.hp rpms when crusing.My 64'WM300 w/251,5:83 gears,9:00x16 tires gets 10mpg around town and at 50-55mph.At 46mph it get 16mpg w/o lockout hubs and would get a little better if I used lockout hubs.
A farm and local working truck will do fine with a L-head engine but I would convert or modify to something else if I plan to run the truck like it was modern with brakes being my first upgrade.
My opinion is, rebuild the 230 and add a few easy performance pieces, you'll keep the original eng. and have more power to.