Are all the mid/late 70s "muscle cars" underpowered

nope

theyre all shit

>>14145358
this, but they are dirt cheap and dirt simple to get up to a good amount of power.

BUICK GRAND NATIONAL

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1972 is when emission standards started. Compression started getting lowered, high performance engines like the hemi were dropped. 1975 catalytic converters happened and exhaust was more restricted. Also throughout the years there was more emphasis on options and luxury, increasing the weight of them and blockier designs.

So modern day you can pretty much fix all of that except for the unaerodynamic body.

They're underpowered cars that can be returned to normal power with minimal expenses and a bit of elbow grease.

>Get cheap ass mid/late 70s muscle
>Throw engine out, put performance engine in
>???
>Have a nice looking muscle car with power for a fraction of the price of a late 60s muscle

Why do I want to fuck Mila Kunis so bad since I saw her in the late 90s in the 70s show? Damn, shes not even my type.

>>14145430
Because she is fine AF.

>>14145440
AF?

>>14145782
Ass fuck

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>>14145430
You mean Jackie isn't your type. In reality Mila Kunis is a totally cool chick but you can forget about her now. Kelso knocked her up.

>>14145430
Just travel around eastern europe, they all look like that. Might even find one with an ass.

I actually find 70s muscle cars much more appealing than the late 60s counterparts - although their enigne power is a joke compared. But since boomers made it virtually impossible to get a 68 charger or something like that without selling a kidney, I find that the later muscles are a probate way to get the good old feeling.

>>14145353
With the exception of a handful of high-dollar exotics, there are no factory muscle cars with what we would consider good performance from 1972 to 1982.

Generally speaking, though, most of these cars can be woken up to 1960's levels of performance with a compression raising cylinder head swap, and an off-the shelf performance camshaft swap. Once those swaps are made, though, you'll have to run premium gas.

When catalytic converters and thus unleaded gas appeared on the horizon, the big 3 automakers all put in place internal policies that every single car they built would be designed to run on 87 octane. The transition from 11:1 compression ratios for premium leaded gas in 1970 to 8:1 compression ratios for regular unleaded in 1972 seriously killed horsepower for 10 years - that had a bigger impact on performance than air pumps, catalytic converters, and EGR systems combined. It wasn't until ignition and fuel delivery systems started to get more precise in the 80's that compression and horsepower started creeping back up to pre-smog levels.

>>14145372
The turbo Grand national didn't make serious power until it was revamped for EFI in the 80's.

Is there a cheap way to get power out of a 70's car that doesnt require it running on premium? Im not talking 400+ hp, but something thats not gonna struggle to get up to 75.

What about high flow exhaust and simple bolt on mods?

>>14146600
Depends on the car

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Yeah I suppose. There were no muscle cars in the seventies anyways. Firebirds/Camaros aren't muscle cars, neither is the Corvette. Those were pretty much the only things you could call "muscle cars" after 1972. A muscle car was just a big shitbox with a bigger engine in it, because most big shitboxes in the 60's had v8s. Like the GTO was just a LeMans/Tempest with a bigger/hotter engine in it. The Chevelle was just a Malibu with a bigger/hotter engine in it, and by the 70's the Malibu "Laguna" and GTO had already had new luxury/family/economy models introduced and there was no more cramming big engines into them. All the other big shitboxes had also been downsized into compact/subcompact models or had been axe completely.

Honestly, I'd only consider something a muscle car if it had a big block in it. Most "muscle cars" in the 60's had 300-350ish horsepower, then you had big 454 Chevelles and 455 Oldsmobiles with 400+ horsepower. Yeah there were super high output cars like L88 corvettes and stuff, but the vast majority of "muscle cars" on the road weren't 500+hp demons. Then there's the old myth "dem cars was under rated from the factory" and all that, and then there's the fact that these engines were rated at the crank not at the wheels so make of that what you want.

So if you take the late 70's shitbox Camaro/Firebird/TA/Corvette with like 200-ish horsepower at the wheels, yeah they were slower, but not by a whole lot, and they all had 300~ pounds of torks which is what makes cars fun anyways.

.

>>14145415
>emission standards started. Compression started getting lowered
Huh? You increase compression for more volumetric efficiency. No wonder American car companies had to bailed out, they had no idea what they where doing

>>14146600
Rear end swap too

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>>14146600
port the intake manifold, swap a cam in there. change the headers/exhaust. That's all there really is to it. you can change the heads too but it's not that big of a deal. It's really that easy.

>>14145415
>So modern day you can pretty much fix all of that except for the unaerodynamic body.

That`s what bodykits are for.

>>14146675
>these engines were rated at the crank not at the wheels so make of that what you want.

like literally every manufacturer

they were rated with no accessories or anything which is why the power was high

your 350hp muscle car probably made more like around 300

>>14146678
the compression was lowered because they couldnt run on leaded gas since they had to use cats

>>14145430

Because she is a mexican looking kike?

From a mechanical POV yes, they're shit, but their bodyframes were and are wonderful, today's cars have too boring shapes.

>>14146719
>your 350hp muscle car probably made more like around 300
true, and when you take into account the loss through the transmission and rear end it's even less than that.

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>>14146675
The 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS does 0-60 mph in 7.9 with a quarter mile of 15.2

My 200hp (literally, more like 195hp) autotragic 1982 Corvette does 0-60 in 8.0 and a 16.0 quarter mile.


food for thought, muscle cars in the 60's weren't what BOOMERS and movies make them out to be. Yeah there are things like the 11.0 Camaro ZL1 and Yenkos but those were rare low production models that don't represent shit.

>>14146678
volumetric efficiency is how much of the cylinder(dorito bowl?)gets filled.
Compression ratio is volume (empty or filled) gets compressed.
Two different things.
Enjoy your monarchy, dipshit.

>>14146821
To be fair though part of that is tires.

>>14147171
Not really. the 70 Chevelle SS 454, a real "muscle" car did 13.6 with a 5.3 0-60.

It was possible for some cars to be very fast, but I recall (don't quote me) that these statistics were made without accessories and fancier tires- not just the horsepower numbers, amongst other things. back then cars had a list of options and you would pick them, so a tested 1970 SS 454 chevelle wouldn't have anything.

There was a lot of bullshitting and it's hard to find out what's true or not. Some people say the cars were over rated, some under rated. Lots of bullshit.

My initial point was that the average muscle car wasn't very much faster than a late 70's or 80's muscle car.

I pulled the SS Camaro and the Chevelle numbers from the same source, and an 8 second 0-60 compared to a 5.3 is too much of a difference for a car that's 500lbs heavier with only maybe 100 more horsepower. It can only be assumed that the numbers are skewed and the Chevelle had slicks or something.

>>14147253
>Chevelle had slicks or something.

wouldnt surprise me

most tested cars back then were ringers

it wasnt unheard of for the posted numbers to be with cars equipped with headers a hot tune and slicks

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About a month ago I was showing my uncle my 12 second A4 and he couldn't believe it was so fast. He told me about how he had a 1970 Buick GS Stage 1 he bought brand new back in the day. This car was the fastest American production car to date and ran a whopping 13.6. And that was just before all the power-robbing emissions garbage.

Muscle cars are awesome as hell but they're not nearly as fast as their legend would have you believe.

>>14147278
>>14147449
>All that twist and go-go fury made Motor Trend proclaim that the 455 GS Stage 1 is "the quickest American production car we've ever tested." Though as their quarter mile time of 13.38 is half a second faster than any other mag could muster and their zero to 60 time of 5.5 seconds is essentially unbelievable, MT was probably testing a ringer. Which was a very popular GM ploy at the time — see here. (http://www.web-cars.com/gto/c-d_pf-gto.php)

Now I'm even more convinced.