Technical Inches why so important?

So why is engine size important? I know bigger is better.
Everywhere we go someone asks engine size. Guys talk size all the time on here.
Does it matter if I have a stock 200 hp 454 or a 350 hp 327?
Most engines are grouped together. sbc sbf etc.
So does it really matter what size. Horsepower is more of how you built it.
Any engine could be made for power or gas mileage.
So from now on I'm telling people it's a 110 hp 262 .

 

Displacement is the foundation all power is built on.

 

Guys seem to focus on inches, their girlfriends may be more interested in the performance...

 

Cubes are important. And there are some magic CI numbers that are better than others. Something about history...

But it's also a conversation starter. So many people stand there staring at the fender on my Chevy II, and ask " What engine does it have?"

 

The faster the car, the smaller the stick shift.

 

While a 283 and a 454 may both be built to produce 400 horsepower, the 454 will do it with more ease, and generally be more streetable in the process. Small cube, high compression, high revving V8s sound good when talking about them, but they sometimes lose something in translation when put into practical application in a street driven vehicle. Things that worked when you could pull into a Sunoco station and buy 102 octane gas for fifty cents a gallon don't work today.

 

It's not the size, mate... it's how you use it.

 

This is a weird question, if you’re bothered with people asking you questions like that you should probably stay home.

 

Replace the word displacement with money.

 

not necessarily....price building a 283 or 327 vs a 350 today. Or any old small engine, really. Big bucks.

 

Bragging rights. 454ci in a rod that can't stop, steer or has any roll stability is unusable potential. But you can still boast about it

 

They still work just fine , if you can afford to participate .

 

You'd be considered not much of a car guy if you didn't know the displacement of your engine . Why it bothers you to pass along the info is puzzling ?

 

A lot of it is also about packaging. "Bigger is Better", but only to a point. It would be difficult to fit a 1650c.i Merlin into a normal car. Ton o' torque though. Right?
It would even be difficult to fit a Sonny Bryant 1000c.i motor into most cars. But 2000 NA HP on pump gas!
At the opposite end, a 1.5 litre F1 motor makes a bunch of power, but not much in the torque department.
So, the questions are....How big....or small, is practical?
What does it take to move your ride down the road at the speed required?
And is that speed a "need" thing? Or a "want" thing?
And lastly, (be honest with yourself) what aspect of practicality are you willing to sacrifice to get to where you want/need to go? Such as durability/reliability, fuel mileage, the ability to break the sound barrier, etc.

 

"Size Matters"

 

My 472 Cad in my 49 Buick is the cheapest HP and torque money can buy.

 

Cubic inches are very important because they dictate how you need to build the engine for your car. If you want to have decent power without having to go radical on the engine build, then more cubic inches will let you build it mild and still have plenty. A mild build will likely last much longer than a small displacement engine built up to give you the same HP a large engine has in stock form.
If it's just about bragging rights, then build whatever exotic engine you want, or tell people it's bored and stroked to whatever you think they'll believe. Often times somewhere in between giant cubic inches, and tiny little V8's is going to work best for the average hotrod and give you decent power, and still get decent mileage, and be a nice driver.
I built the engine in my '39 Chev for the combination of good performance, longevity, and drivability. So I took a stock late model 4 bolt main 350 roller motor short block, and installed a Howards roller cam and lifters. Bolted on a pair of Dart SHP 180 heads, and an aluminum hi rise intake. The combination is very simple, and makes just over 400 hp, with about the same 400+ ft. lbs. torque. Gets 17-18 mpg on the highway with 3.73 gears and an OD trans, and is as drivable as any hotrod I've ever owned, and better than some stock newer vehicles.

 

Before superchargers, turbo chargers, fuel injection and many of the other performance hardware to build horsepower the easiest way was to increase cubic inches. Thus the statement “nothing substitutes cubic inches”. Used to be thought that if you were making one horsepower for every cubic inch was really doing something. Now 2 or 3 horsepower per cubic inch is pretty common even in reliable street engines. Even the car manufacturers steadily increased cubic inches to gain horsepower but also out market each other “Bigger is Better”. Gas was was cheap no one really worried mileage until the first gas crunch in the 70’s. That’s when engine efficiency started to matter because gas prices were going up. For car guys/hot rodders engines have a cool factor. Big cubic inch, high horsepower engines at a car show draw a crowd, no matter how much horsepower a four cylinder engine is making not so much.

 

I thought the question was rhetorical.

Phil

 

I guess it starts a conversation. If I see a engine I just look at details.
I don't care what size it is. You should know by looking that it makes power or not.
I would rather ask about the whole package. Transmission , gears , weight. How much power and where is the power at. Mid range , 8000 rpm or is it built for mileage.
What cam , compression, etc.
I think I will start asking what size brakes?

 

People get hung up on stuff such as 375 hp 396 chevelles. Me not so much.

 

Consider the alternative.
You're at a car show...

"Cool hot rod. What engine you got in there, buddy?"

"Never mind.. it doesn't matter."

 

Meh... most people who have to ask won't know the difference if you're lying or not.

So, just make something up.

"Well... that is a super rare, one-off, 1930's experimental supercharged, turbo, reversed manifold, 746 cubic inch, 9 cylinder, triple overhead valves with counter-rotating cam/crank shafts, bakelite main bearings, case-hardened valve seals, a liquid cooled ignition system, a high pressure PCV system, a cyclical road tube, two-way vacuum system, and a three piece flywheel. This little baby will do zero to sixty in 1.3 seconds, running 313 miles per hour in the 1/8 mile. All while still getting 47.6 MPG. And, it runs on a 30/60 mix of distilled water and nitroglycerine."

They'll just nod their heads up and down. People are dumb.

 

It actually doesn't make a difference to me, though the extra torque from the big cubes does help lug around some of my yachts.

 

Well, I have a confusing answer for folks that ask what engine I'm running in my '49 Cad, I simply say a 401 B.O.P. .....for those of you scratching your heads, Buick, Olds, Pontiac....

 

"What's all this talk about pubic inches?" "Oh.... CUBIC inches.... " "Never mind."
(credit Emilly Lattila)

 

Personally I'm not too much in to cubic inches per se (says the inline 6 guy - of course) not even in peak HP at insane rpms, if anything I care about low end torque. Driving up my 1941 jalopy a mountain pass in third gear with a ton of low end umph - that makes me happy.

 

Because they don't make songs about liters.

 

Horsepower: A little is good, more is better, and too much is just right.

 

♫♪♪ "She's real fine my 6.7. My Siiiiiiiiiix Pooooooint Seven!"♫♪♪.

Yeah, it doesn't work.