Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version nyu B notes v1.5 12/10/84; site acf4.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!cmcl2!acf4!hkr4627 From: hkr4627@acf4.UUCP (Hedley K. J. Rainnie) Newsgroups: net.auto Subject: Re: big block vs 4-bangers Message-ID: <330015@acf4.UUCP> Date: Sun, 3-Mar-85 18:24:00 EST Article-I.D.: acf4.330015 Posted: Sun Mar 3 18:24:00 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 6-Mar-85 04:02:19 EST References: <281@oblio.UUCP> Organization: New York University Lines: 36 I think that people tend to forget that a car's accelleration should be considered in two dimensions, i.e., made up of two orthogonal vectors, one in the direction of travel, one perpendicular. Thus, straightline forward acceleration, lateral acceleration and braking are all equally important to a "good handling car" (Interestingly, I've never heard of a school of automotive enthusiasts who covet braking performance over all others.) I agree with Jeff that a '63+ Corvette with a big block does well as a good handling car with these parameters. Also, when we extoll the virtues of American cars, the inevitable response is, "well, what about the Lamborghini so and so, or the Porsche 917..." That's a pretty childish response. After all, Jeff OWNS an L-88 Corvette, I OWN a 427 Vette (only an L-72 unfortunately). Can these detractors claim to own their Porsches, Ferraris, etc? Chances are that they own a VW Dasher and drool like high-schoolers over issues of Car & Driver. I think an interesting thing about guys who own american hi-po cars is that they like to work on their cars. Hi performance driving is fun, but what's even more fun is driving after doing work on your car and seeing how well it turned out. Since my Vette is my only car, I haven't been able to take out of service to do anything radical, but I did install triple carburetion, Hooker sidemount headers, FE7 stabilizers, F-41 springs front and rear, and Konis. I used to have to change the sidemounts with a hooker/thrush underbody system and back again every year to pass NJ auto inspections. I must have had a bad starter in and out of the car about ten times. By the way, doing work on your only car can be very amusing. It can be a lot of fun breaking loose balljoints at 3:00 in the morning knowing you'll have to work all night because you need the car in the day. I have a 3HP compressor, and on a few occaisions my neighbor has threatened to call the police if I didn't shut the damn thing off. Oh well, such is the price of automotive devotion. (signed) "R"