LUVTruck.com

What V8 does everyone suggest that I should drop into my 72 luv? I want a good street/strip truck and was thinking about a built 327? What do you think?

SB Chevy motors seem to be most common. So a built up 327 should be right on the money.

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Previous setup: 4.1 Buick V-6/TH 350
Current setup: 400 Small Block Chevy V-8/TH 350
9" ford rear end/short bed/blue
What do Water, Electricity and Humans have in common... They all travel the path of least resistance.

Man, a 327 would be killer. Put a fat cam in it and run the hell out of it.

I'm probably going with a 383, since it's a little easier to get together than a 327, but if you can get a hold of a 327, that would be ultimate.

any small block chevrolet will do.
remember though......there is no substitute for cubic inches!

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03Cobra

hey drummer,

keep me posted on the 383. Im strokin the motor this fall. there is a lot of block work for clearances that has to be done. Are you doin it yourself? hope so, that would make YOU the guinea pig!



bummer about the drums, i play, 15 yrs. 10 pc- pearl fusion kit with rack.

g

i have a small journal 327 that im building for my luv. The beuty of the 327 is that it will rev a bit better than the 350 (better for us light wieght cars) and yet still uses about all the same parts. So yeah a 327 is a great motor.

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1980 LUV 4x4, going under re-construction...

another thing, if you feel you need more power than the 327 can make its not hard to swap it into a 350 (just change the crank and pistons)

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1980 LUV 4x4, going under re-construction...

77ss, I think I'm going to go the easy route and get a crate HT383. The stroke and bore is different than a regular bored 350 with the 400 crank.

Hot Rod Magazine did a killer buildup of one that I'm going to copy. They were making like 520 ft/lbs. of torque on pump gas with just a slightly lumpy cam. The whole motor plus the extras was like $5500.

I'm more interested in peak torque than horsepower, alot of people get off on a rant about horsepower and forget that torque is what launches you. Either way, the motor was getting like 460 horsepower.

Speak greek to the greek, french to the french. Yeah, i know that toque is the physical part of power production, and HP is mathematically derived from torque including other factors, I think every post here talks in HP. Ever try to explain horsepower to someone. Why does a big deisel motor turn out 550+ torque, but only 135 HP? the only relation i can make is that it will tow a house, but a rice burner could blow it away of the line. its a dang mystery!

g

I would recommend a 406. .030" over 400 block with a 6" rod. the rod to stroke ratio is sucky but you cant deny the power. If you have the $$$ then I would higly recommend a 5.85" crank and do a 421 smallblock. if you just robbed a bank then i would go aftermarket dart block and do a 434" Pay no attention to those ricer kids... Bigger is always better

One of the Semi's that I used to drive would blow just about anything out of the water. It had an auto-shift 10 speed transmission, and man, when you didn't have a trailer, it would pin you back to the seat.

Something about those 14.3 litre inline 6cyl diesel motors.

I don't know how the auto-shift worked mechanically. I know it was all electronic. It had a clutch. You put it in drive and release the clutch to take off, and then drive it like an automatic. It was just a mental challenge to remember to push the clutch when you were stopping.

and BTW... the way I have been led to understand it (which isn't alot) is torque is more for off the line power, whereas horsepower has more to do with top end.

Makes my head hurt just trying to understand it. As long as it's fast, who cares?

that would make for a good topic, everyone try to explain the relation ship between HP and torque. somone post it....

chevy HP did a 3 pager on it a while back, and basically the turning, moving force that an engine produced- the physical part- is torque.

HP is nothing more that a mathematical equasion based on torque including some stuff that someone else may know better than me, like RPM and a multiplier, and some other stuff. They had to come up with a current calculation to rate things based on the original work load of -"1 horse".

Here is the part I dont get. Horse power and torque both are equal at about 5200 +- RPM. so that means before and after this spot, one can be getting stronger and the other less, of vice versa. Or one can be gaining at a much higher rate or dropping at a higher rate.that leaves this question;

if you gain one FT LB of torque, how is it possible to be loosing horsepower at the same time- or vice versa.

Plenty of you are WAY more knowledgeable than me, im sure, can anyone explain that.

ouch, my brain hurts..........

g

in my oppinion which is worth nothing i would build for torque its what moves the weight. here is what ive been told horsepower is torque multipied by rpm. you build more torque with high velocity air flow thru your intake and heads. if your heads are ported to much and have a big intake you will lose some of the high speed velocity which packs your cylinders full . but you will have more flow at a higher rpm if your motor isn`t built to handle high rpm to get to that flow potential you will have lousy performance. as far as why horsepower falls off some when you add torque youve more than likely increased air velocity but restricted high end flow a little. most drag engine builders prefer to build horsepower by using high air flow numbers with lots of volume and spinning the beegezus out of the motor and use gearing to get it off the line.so its important to figure what your using it for and build accordingly. if running on the street i would definately go for torque its easier to live with then you don`t have to try running 4.88 gears on the freeway. i know this doesn`t explain alot or very well but i would need probably 2 pages to write down what little i know. later terry

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don`t have the luv no more but I still like em.72 el camino,
00 & 06 silverado one 4x4, turboed vw sandrail,99 banshee, 06 raptor 700, 02 polaris trailblazer.

Peak torque always happens before peak Horsepower. The good thing about the 383 is the low to mid range torque that you get, plus peak horsepower several RPM's below the redline.

Horsepower is often mistaken for torque. Torque is something you can really feel, but horsepower is all about the numbers.

A good example is how large headers increase horsepower, but make you lose some of your grunt off the line. Look at the headers out there designed to make more torque. They're always more restrictive. Less horsepower, more off the line power. Strange.

funny thing is, after all the articles written, all the talk about and debate, all the different combos that create different HP and torque, thats what makes this the best hobby in the world. the debate can be endless...

how can that be a bad thing..........

77SS i run a 383 i built my self and there is not too much to clearance .just two places, the pan rails[rod bolts to pan rails both sides]and the rod bolts to the cam shaft the biger the cam the closer the fit .i run a 287/295 .497/.501 cam and only had to clearance three rod bolts and i did not clearance the pan rails.i would only clearance to about .025 any more is a waste .one more thing the longer the rod the shorter the piston and the tighter you have to run the piston to keep it quite . i run a 5.700 rod with piston clearance at .0025 and the pistons make some noise .the machine shop rec. .001-.0015 i did not want it that tight ,i spin it to 6000 and tighter is not better .001 -.0015 is for stock that dont see but 4500 hope this helps

here is the figure to get horsepower rpmx torque/5252 i found this in the 2001 nhra rule book they have a few other formulas as well. my guess is if you know your torque you probably already know your h.p.

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don`t have the luv no more but I still like em.72 el camino,
00 & 06 silverado one 4x4, turboed vw sandrail,99 banshee, 06 raptor 700, 02 polaris trailblazer.

OK- here's my shot at this...

Torque is most simply defined as a twisting force- in engineering, they call it "moment", but the formula is the same: force times distance. You use the same calculation when you're trying to decide if that deck overhang on your house will REALLY hold that hot tub. Torque is what throws you back in the seat and makes you giggle.

Horsepower is related to torque, but is defined as total power output, which involves not only twisting force, but also work produced per unit time. The specific math is based on some arbitrary formula that has to do with a horse lifting a weight with a pulley a certain distance, and how much time all that takes to happen. I guess that's what people did with their spare time before television.... I'm trying to do this without the math, but it's getting confusing anyway....

The main difference between torque and HP is that torque is basically force delivered by the crankshaft, and HP is the ability to do a certain amount of work in a specific amount of time. An engine with more HP can do more work than an engine with less HP in the same amount of time.

So you (usually) notice torque the most off the bottom, and HP generally shows up more on the top end, although some circle track engines have pretty good torque up there, too- it all depends on cam (you can pretty much put the torque wherever you want it), head prep, stroke, rod length, and all the other stuff that makes a motor go VROOM.

Little engines that wind up quick usually put out gobs of torque, but are limited in HP. A great example of this is a VW BUG with a warmed over motor- I had a '66 bug with a 1641cc, good heads, and some cam(not a bunch), and if I got it hooked right it would actually pick up the left front wheel just a touch- It took a strong camaro to stay with it off the light- but half way through 3rd gear it was done; all the torque was on the bottom, and there just wasn't much HP, period.

I got kind of long winded again... sorry, fellas.

Yah... that's what makes the 383 so great when you build it up right. It has massive low end torque, and the powerband is pretty much flat all the way up to the redline.