The International Harvester 392 V8 is one of the most overbuilt, heavy-duty, run forever and not make a lot of horsepower kind of engines ever made. They drink fuel like few other engines of their displacement, they weigh like 800lbs, and they’re appreciated by gear heads who understand what incredibly durability is worth in a grain truck or a bus. The factory rating was like 235hp at 4,000 RPM and 356 lb-ft at 2800 RPM. Again, great numbers in a truck that you are lugging stuff with but not exactly the things hot rod dreams are made of. That’s why this video is so awesome.
Who in their right mind would jam one of these hulking ingots into the back of an old speedboat?! There are elements that make these decent boat engines like the fact that they kind of love steady state operation in that 3,500-3,800 rpm range (unless the valve springs are so tired it is floating the valves at that level) they are not going to be weaklings as far as the fluctuating loads on the crank and rods that the water presents but they are not, under any circumstances going to be “speedy”. So, yeah. We love the weirdness of it but we’d keep this one away from the boat drags!
Lastly, this video is further proof that everything, even a low horsepower, low-compression, no camshaft equipped mill like this one sounds killer with zoomies on it. We even dig the little licks of header flame that can be seen when the RPMs are “winged” (relatively speaking) early on in the video.
If nothing else this should make you smile for something different.
