dweed, Before you blow a gasket, figuratively and literally, understand that you’re getting the accumulated wisdom of folks who literally have hundreds of years experience/wisdom in everything automotive from 2 cycle skateboards to creations that would rip the rubber off the road and much of that experience has be acquire the hard way, by making mistakes.
As most of the posters have indicated, the project you’re contemplating is extremely complex, probably within the capability of a handful of experts able to do it successfully and the “cost” of making a mistake could be taking most of the fun out of it and a whole lot of money down the drain, which is even less fun.
Assuming that you’re not one of the “handful of experts who can do a successful build” like you outlined, you have 2 basic choices:
If the “successful build” is your priority, outsource the work that’s beyond your capability. (Speed shop, crate engine, more modest goals, etc.)
Acquire the expertise yourself, through serious instruction/training/apprenticeship experience.
Sorry but if your goal is a first class completed project, one that you can take pride in, there’s no shortcut but it is half the fun.
There is something else to figure in and that is the apparent urge for high dyno numbers. The dyno can be a heartbreaker also; both as to numbers and whether or not the engine scatters itself in pieces.
I seem to remember the OP wants 1200 HP or something like that. At the crank or at the rear wheels? If he wants 1200 at the rear wheels then he probably needs to put out 14-1500 at the crank as a 15% drivetrain loss at a minimum can be expected. I read a hot rod story once in which a Ford AOD transmission alone chewed up a bit over 20% of the available HP.
I built a mildly modded Ford 5.0 once based on what someone wanted and which was expected to put out close to 300 HP. On the dyno it was 225 at the wheels which was not bad but kind of a disappointment. To me the saving grace was the torque curve which hit max at about 1800 and stayed flat clean through 5500 RPMs.
I drove the car several times and it was a blast. Nailed to the floor it would just pull and pull and pull. It almost felt like a continued turbocharger pull.
That is one reason why I love my 1944 Harley flathead so much. Not much in the line of HP but it has mountains of torque and would probably pull tree stumps if enough traction was available. It’s geared up for highway use (a lot) and I’ve taken off from a traffic light in 3rd gear with not a sign of hesitation.
" and he just says to go to a website and buy a more powerful engine instead of actually doing the work for more horsepower."
Don’t take this wrong way or anything, but the reason that’s being suggested is because you don’t seem to be demonstrating the practical knowledge or acumen to actually do the work yourself. And it’s also it’s very possible get 1000+ out of a Hellcat engine. It’s actually one of the easier engines to get four-digit HP numbers out off. Swap out the stock supercharger for a Kenne Bell Mammoth, bigger fuel pump, tune for E85 and you’re there. 1100 HP is generally considered the absolute limit for the stock internals.
Well I for one can understand why you aren’t welcome on forums and hopefully you will soon recognize the problem yourself.
Speaking directly to your opening post, I’m a pro at repairing and maintaining automobiles and have some experience with performance modifications and in my opinion you have let often exagerated results impress you far beyond reason. In the real world when engines are ‘hobbiest’ built to produce beyond 1.5 hp per ci they will not idle well if at all and not street driveable. And hobbiest engines of that performance level have a usable life of hours. There’s a lot to be understood and considered to successfully build a high performance engine and a great deal more to successfully mate it up to a car and drive train in order to drive it. It is likely that if you move ahead with your dream car reality will creep in as it does with most people. But good luck.
And if you learn the importance of discretion a lot of doors will open for you.
Having built cars from the ground up purpose built for drag racing, I’ve been through this wringer more than once. A $100k budget is admirable and a luxury. But I assume you don’t want to just whizz that away either. Buying a crate motor purpose built for natural aspiration is going to require tossing out a whole bunch of new expensive parts in favor of more expensive new parts. You’d be better off starting with something designed with power adders in mind.
Having built quite a few big block motors, there is a lot of pride to be had when they bark to life. However, as mentioned, that is only one of the formidible challenges that await. There are plenty of opportunities to get that feeling. I joked about using wing nuts on one transmission it was in/out so many times. Not just fabricating either. I blew it up a few times as well. Making power is easy. Transferring it to the ground is what separates the real deal from the wannabes.
I had to chuckle. All this talk of the hellcat motor. With $100k, I’d buy the hellcat car and swap bodies…
They do a LOT of mods including some Chrysler products. They recently completed a 69 Charger with a Hellcat engine that sold for $200k at Mechum’s. This would be a good project for you to review because it took a lot of modifications to make it a safe and reliable restomod.
It will give you a plan for what you will need to do. Also, getting a Hellcat to perform in any vehicle it wasn’t designed for is not easy, even they had to send it out for help. But they do show a source for a 440 Hemi engine. Heads and block are completely aftermarket, Chrysler never mad one of these, but you could get the desired HP a lot cheaper than with a Hellcat engine using one of these.
They also got a pretty hefty amount of HP out of a 360 without too much money.
From a couple weeks ago, in Hot Rod’s how to section. No mention of costs but they claim everything could be bought from a catalog. 964bhp on race fuel @7200rpm before the Nitrous
The '69 Superbee i had was fitted with a Sure-Grip rear axle and on 2 separate occasions I knocked the U-joints and driveshaft out of it with the stock 383 engine and also a clutch at one point. Unless there are serious mods done from the engine back through the tires I don’t expect anything to survive a 1000 to 1500 horse engine.
The '68 Roadrunner did not have a Sure-Grip so U-joints and driveshaft were never an issue although I did knock the clutch out once on it also.
Just a sense of impending doom, but if a 12 to 1 engine is used with a minimum 17 pounds of boost I could certainly see a pile of scrap metal in the future. Maybe on a dyno pull.
See if your cable provider has an ‘on demand’ service. There was an episode of Car Fix where the guys installed a Hellcat in a 73 Challenger, give you an idea of what to expect.
Also roadkill garage, only found pt 1 so fat. More of a daily driver build though. Starting with a 383 that worked but not very. Powerful. Similar era roadrunner. Season 1 Episodes 12&13
And a lot of people read the posts. For any who dream of building their super car, dweed or others, maybe they’ll get their introduction to the realities of making a day dream into a reality. Those capable of doing so are too busy and recognize just how demanding and costly that dream can be.
Well I’m way beyond making any life changes @p.g.i.holmes_156524. But surely someone will be open to some helpful criticism from someone as wise as you. Best of luck.
You guys are both right. It’s fine to explain the realities of car modding for a general audience. But OP is either trolling, or shall we say, wildly aspirational. He says he’s barely able to afford an apartment with a roommate, but plans to spend $100,000 modifying a car with no background in this kind of work, and then gets profane with us when we tell him it’s not gonna work?
This is like my niece, who thinks she’s gonna own a ranch one day despite being averse to physical labor and only being qualified for low-tier retail jobs. Such, honestly, delusional thinking isn’t terribly unusual in teenagers/early adults, but that doesn’t mean we have to keep catering to it.
And it’s recommended that 110 octane fuel be used on the motor he wants to go with. And that fuel has lead in it.
Thirty six degrees of total advance timing, 12:1 compression, and 17 pounds of boost with a “regular sized radiator”… What in the entire world could possibly go wrong…
When I was young I shared an apartment with a high school friend, we bought many Mopars with the hope of making them nice driving cars, never considered spending $100,000 building a race car. If I had 1/5 of that money as a teen I would have first bought a house.
That engine, P/N 19331583 has 621 HP @ 5400 RPM, 645 LB/FT torque @ 4200 RPM. I would be completely satisfied with the stock performance.
This engine has a compression ratio of 9.6:1, how did it become 12:1?
When I first cut and pasted the engine the OP was referring to it sent me to the site where that engine was shown to be 12 to 1 and required race fuel. I note that it has an R designation so I’m assuming that means “race”. So that brings up the question of which engine was the OP talking about?
I fully agree that the engine is fine as is. To me, 17 pounds of boost is asking for trouble and the lower compression one is the only one of the two that is streetable.
I agree that the original poster was shall we say, “somewhat of a dreamer” but harmless and who among us hasn’t dreamed of turning that old bucket into a road monster?
So maybe some helpful advice for those who are more realistic:
It’s not just pure HP, it’s Power to Weight. i.e. It’s a lot easier to get the acceleration by “tuning” a little Fiesta than it is by boosting the HP on a DeVille.
More HP is useless unless you can get it on and keep it on the road. Memory of some of the Bias Ply tire era projects that generated just a lot of “sound and fury” at the start and less handling when you came to that curve at the end.
And especially if you’re young and cars are your passion, grab the opportunity for more education and training to make it your career. You may not get rich but “If you love what you’re doing you’ll never work a day in your life.”
