I was thinking about this today. Ideally, shouldn't all engines with the same displacement produce the same power and milage? Obviously this isn't the case but my point is that, for example, a 5.0L engine can only burn so much gas per rev of the engine. You can only have a certain stoichimetric amount of gas and air in the chamber. Too much and your wasting gas because you can burn all of it and too little your not using all the air. So 2 different 5.0L engines rotating at the same speed should comsume the same amount of gas/rev. So 2 5.0L engines producing different amounts of horsepower should still comsume the same amount of gas/rev of the engine. This gets me thinking that my 5.7 L98 is wasting gas compared to a new LS6 which puts out 345HP and gets the same if not better milage than my L98. So I guess the layout of the engine is more important than displacement. Any thoughts?

 

well u have that and then u have the shape of the combustion chamber, plus the mass of the rotating components and friction, now a days there is less friction etc. but other then that i see ur point.

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88' GTA 350 MODS---> air foil, K&N, Shift Kit, 180* therm, TB bypass

 

Cylinder filling. Newer engines are big on swirl and lean mixes but produce the same or more power at the same time. The fuel and timing controls have also improved, which can only help. Cam timing and port design can also have a great effect on two engines of the same size, something you left out in your thoughts.

 

The new Corvette's will do 12.4 in the quarter mile and still get 28 mpg on the highway!

Now that is amazing ...

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1986 Camaro Sports Coupe
T-tops, variable wiper, power hatch, rear defrost, third brake light
LG4 305 V8, Hooker Shorty headers, 3" pipe into Walker Quiet Flow dual exhaust
Edelbrock Performer intake, "Damonized" Q-Jet 4bbl, K&N filter, Crane ignition kit
TH700R4 transmission and Derale cooler
Air conditioning, power windows, power door locks, power brakes, power steering, tilt wheel
Kenwood cassette, Pioneer 6x4 component front speakers
Rockford Fosgate 6x9 Punch rear speakers
Z-28 front and rear sway bars
Aluminum slots and Goodyear 225x60R15 Eagle HP tires
243 horsepower and 326 fp torque at the flywheel
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Yea verily, and he smote the smog demons from his small block Chevy, even from the air pump to the converter ...
Todd 1:1