Hemi Vs 396

Two comments. 1) I think the Hemi needed deeper gears and 2) I wonder if that's one of those externally balanced 396's?

You mean like the Jenkins 396 in Super Stock that was really 488?

396 and 427 are bad ass engines back in the day.and im a mopar guy

Slantzilla, you have my attention, I never read about a Jenkins 488.

I too would like to hear more about the 488

The 375 HP 396 ran pretty good, the L88 427 motors ran better.
Neither were as good as my 1963 415 HP M.W. motor in my Belvedere sedan with 4:56 gears stock Whup up on them rascal saying it(my car) had a noisy solid lifter 318 dual 4 barrel motor in it that was really fast

Why all the smoke in the shutdown area on all the runs ? Both cars ?

If I were a famous world class engine builder and racer, that's exactly what I would do: throw everything over the cliff.
A 488 would be protested the first time it starts up.

In FAST, they could be big-inch motors, but Pure Stock is supposedly enforced.
L89 is a 427, L78 is the 396/375HP deal. Both run pretty darn hard.
Seems to me the Cuda should've had 4.56s, though I was under the impression that the max factory ratio was mandated.
IIRC, to get 4.88s in a Chevelle, that was a dealer-installed ratio - I could be wrong, though.
I seem to recall that the 1st-gen Z28 could be factory-fitted with 4.88s.
I'm thinking the smoke @ shutdown is due to "loose" engines and the high vacuum is pulling oil on decelleration.

Pretty even match up looks like right lane was about 6-8 hundreds quicker

Most haven't read about Mr 5 and 50 either.....

A 396/375 was no match for a well tuned and set up hemi or 6 pack car.

That was in one of the magazines years ago. They had built a legal 68 Camaro SS396 and Jenkins swabbed the deck with them. They protested and he had a 480+ ci motor. The good old days......

I have read many stories of Ma Mopar and ringer cars too.

L89 is an aluminum headed 396, same as an L78 but heads are aluminum.

The 396 running hard is no surprise, the L78 396 is just a smaller version of the 425 HP L72 427 and the 450 HP LS6 454, all 3 engines have the same heads/cam/intake/carb. The heads flow 290 cfm+, and the stock cam is 242 @ .050. I wasn’t there but some stock L78s were duds from the factory, for exactly the reasons you’d think - big heads, fairly aggressive cam for stock, etc. They came with smog pumps too. Some ran hard. But the potential was there regardless.

L89 is the RPO code for the aluminum heads on a performance big block and not indicative of cubic inches. L89 option was available on both the L78 396 in Chevelle/Camaro/Nova, as well as the L71/L72 427 in Corvette.

Back when we were street racing, there weren't many BB Shivvies that were real competitive. And the ones that were, they couldn't keep together. Seems like they especially had problems with the valve train/rockers.

An A:B comparison is as useful as asking only 2 people who should be President.

I never knew that, sorry Topside I guess you were also right! But I’m sure the Chevelle in question is *claiming* to be an L89/L78 haha.

Same as the old days in Na$crap. The way it was supposed to happen, a tech inspector would tell you which spark plug to pull, at least for most teams it was that way. Some teams already had a plug pulled to check volume... and surprise, the engine was in spec/tolerance. That was the only cylinder that was in spec!


Most of the time the 396 chevies need deep gearing to run well.

Royal Oak Pontiac supplied a fully-modified "stock" GTO, 2+2 etc. for many magazine comparisons. Everything visible looked correct, everything inside that could help was massaged (head mill, narrow valve seats, blocked heat riser, new ignition curve, jetting, port matched).

You name it, trans, driveshaft and spider gears in those 12 bolts. Before long they had Dana’s and 833s

I know Bob who owns the Cuda. Its scienced out pretty good. There have been quicker Hemis in pure stock. Tim Clary owns the Chevelle. His reputation among Pure stock guys is pretty good. My bet is it legal.
Doug

i did a little math and think the hemi is probably going thru the traps at around 6200rpm. that would really wring out a stock street hemi from my back in the day experience. the chevelle was probably doing 7300rpm. the 375-396 in factory trim would do 6500rpm (basing this on a friends '68 375hp chevelle from back in the day). the 396 is making power thru rpm. keep in mind those BBC had big port big volume heads, more compression and cam than anything mopar had. i do think that power was close to the same for both. i estimate about 525hp which would be a big increase over true show room stock. as far as street racing went in the '60's those solid lifter BBC did run very good; especially in light novas and camaros.

Back in the days of those two combinations racing on the street tire (traction) were the limiting factor, not HP
I remember helping some guys with a 440 HP Charger 727 racing a 1968 Nova SS 4 speed with a hydraulic cam 427 square port head that ran pretty well. He beat the Charger with slicks on the car but not on street tires the first race
I'm thinking the Charger had a set of L60x15 on ten inch rims, I don't remember which brand now

So many things to miss - and most tech guys miss them all day long.

As for P & G, a well trained crew can get all the cylinders to pass tech.

Chrysler dyno tests showed a blueprinted street Hemi to make 480 HP, back in 1966/67.

Trick ring pack, cam, oil pan mods, intake tweaks, coated piston skirts, lighter internals, minimum of 50 horse increase.
I agree with you, making at least 525.

if you look at the mopar/direct connection engine books they say a street hemi was 390-410hp. i'm sure that number is engine in chassis and all accessories and factory exhaust; not engine dyno number. those type of numbers is what i always look at in a street car. naturally a modified street hemi can easily up the power. after all they were moderate compression and cam. back when i fooled with this stuff the thought was pistons and cam was all the street hemi needed. unfortunately they were crippled with heavy cars which a BBC Camaro wasn't. it's very difficult to power thru a 500+lb weight disadvantage.

FWIW the 396 L78 was rated from the factory @ 425 HP in the one year only 1965 Corvette.
I have owned a couple L78 powered cars and I never raced a 426 Hemi powered car, but had success against 440 powered cars on more than one occasion including an A12 that belonged to a friend.
Neither my car or the others were stock though. Stock bottom end .
The L78 from the factory had forged 11-1 pistons, solid lifter cam, 4 bolt block, steel crank, dimple rods, rectangle port heads, high rise alum. intake Holley 3310 .
Gears and headers made a huge difference in performance.
Don't flame me , I don't own any Chevys now !
The engine pictured is my 69 Chevelle. I did not race this car. The car I raced with was a 68 Camaro.


Mark

Good close racing, fun to watch. I know these 2 racers enough to trust that their cars are legal. They have been at it for decades, their cars are very well scienced out. They definitely know how to make them run. Both the Hemi and the BBC are great engines with phenomenal capability in the right hands.
But don't believe anything you see, hear, or read when it comes to these pure stock cars. Some of the players are masters of subterfuge, as well as exploiting the grey areas of the rule book. I know that guys have run roller cams, high compression, trick converters and transmissions, ported heads, etc. and got away with it. And that is how F.A.S.T. was born: Pure Stock drags where cheating is legal.
When trying to compare brands using the Pure Stock drags as a yardstick, keep in mind that the rules greatly favor GM. Many of Mopars advantages in true pure stock form are allowed for the GM cars too at the PSMCDR. Like Mopar had better exhaust with crossovers and dual point ignition systems. Take away the MSD and put that Chev back on its single point ignition and see how it does. And take away the modifications to the upper rear control arms. The GM 4 link rear suspension is hard to beat in stock tire racing when they are allowed "no-hop" bars. The mopars have to run stock leaf setups with no add ons.

HO Racing out of Hawthorn, California reported on a '69 GTO with a dead stock 350hp 400 engine that had only the suspension modified, it was running 12.75's. IIRC, MPH was in the high 90's. HO Racing sold a number of suspension tweaks.

Didn’t really know the guy well but I know what he did to his 71 4 speed Hemi Charger. 12.5 pistons better flat rapper cam and 5.13 gears and 11” slicks that fit the wheel well. 10.60s In the mid to lates 70s and most defiantly turned it higher than 6000. I think it had a Rat Roaster to. In a fellow racers 64 lightweight Dodge he turned 8500 with a 5.57 gear. I drove it ONE time and hit the rev limiter second and third, I was used to my slow reving Max Wedge lol. A little tune and Hemis were NOT dogs.

I recall an internet story from what seems like eons ago. The fellow who claimed to have owned the 1973 SD455 Trans Am that went 13's for Car& Driver chimed in. His story was that car was a ringer. When they tore the engine down, it had low drag oil rings, the heads had been cut to bring the chambers to blueprint spec CC, and the intake had been port matched. There was even machinist's blue on the intake flange and intake side of the head. His story was that this was discovered on the engine's one and only tear down. True? Who knows. IIRC, there was some credibility, as he wasn't using a screen name, or there was another commenter who vouched.

Yeah, there have been a number of stories and magazine articles over the years that touched on the various manufacturers prepping their test cars "above and beyond" what a legit showroom unit could run. Super Stock & Drag Illustrated even ran a follow up story about the Ronnie Sox A12 440 6-BBL Road Runner test that became the basis for Plymouth's ad campaign.

The great conditions at Cecil County the day of the test weren't enough to account for the 4-5 MPH advantage that particular car had over the other A12 drag tests of the time, which SS&DI believed were due to it being a pre-production car with higher compression and a slightly hotter cam that had been considered for production before the build specs were finalized. Oh, the carbs had been stolen off the car before the test and the replacements didn't come from the parts division, they came from the engineering department. Read into that what you will.

FWIW, the follow up article was written by Ro McGonigel, one of the two SS&DI staff who participated in the testing with Ronnie Sox. He's a way more believable source than some of these kinds of stories have.

EDIT: Not sure where the rest of the story can be found, but here's the part that talks about what I mentioned above (and in more detail). LINK

Was that the car that belonged to Wangers at Pontiac? He was a engineer or some wheel at Pontiac. IIRC.

Wangers was in marketing.

i remember hearing of a Mopar especially prepared 1970 Hemi Cuda 4 speed car with 4.10 gears in the Dana 60 that Mopar marketing had hidden in L.A. waiting for a phone call from Petersen publishing wanting to test a new hem powered E body for one of their magazines in the fall of 1969. That car was a ringer and Mopar didn't want the magazine to know that car was special
That was brought up at one of the drag racing seminars in either 1976 or 1978 at one of the seminars in CA back then by Larry Shepard or Tom Hoover

It's a good possibility it was this Hemi 'Cuda. This photo is after Car Craft Magazine did its initial testing then later turned it into a drag car (Project Hemi Cuda).



Funny car driver Pat Minick (Chi-Town Hustler) behind the wheel on this run.

Same car, new owner.

It all depends on who's working on it and how "Talented" they are and how much money you're willing to throw at it.
A bone stock street Hemi with 10.25-1 compression and stock valve job with manifolds on could make 480-490 hp. They did make 425 hp@5000, the 480-490 was achieved at 5900-6100 rpm.