Things like the chassis dyno and the drag strip do not always give us the answers and numbers that we want but they also don’t really lie to us either. That can be painful at times but it is really valuable because it gives us information we can use to make our stuff better, faster, or just plain correct instead of jacked up. Take this dyno video for example. According to the poster the 1970 Eldorado in question is basically stock aside from some headers and exhaust and the engine has like 200,000 miles on it.
This being a 1970 model, the monster should have a 10:1 compression 500ci engine that was rated at 400hp and 550 lb-ft of torque when new. This car does not even make 150hp to the tire and the torque is way down as well. The poster added in the comments that the car was run again with the exhaust cutouts open and it picked up 15hp and 30 lb-ft of torque like that. Still far below what we would expect but the engine has 200,000 flipping miles on it and we’re guessing that the camshaft is just about totally round by now and the rest of the engine could use a freshening to boot. Some valve springs, a cam, refreshing the heads and you’d have a massive increase in power just by getting things correct side that 500ci cavern.
We’re not knocking the car, in fact we think this thing is awesome in every way. We’re just pointing out the obvious that just because the dyno doesn’t give you the numbers you want, doesn’t mean it is cheating you out of the numbers you deserve.
Fact.
