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In my previous post about the CFM and carburetor issue, I talked about valve timing, duration, and lift. I thought I would say one more thing, so Imperial owners everywhere who may not be that hep about cars, can learn a little bit more about their own car.
Why not just set ALL engines so that they have the MAXIMUM everything when it comes to designing the camshaft? Well, it’s because there are trade-offs. Do you want it to run like a Mustang on steroids, or like an elegant, smooth, stand-a-time-on-edge-on-the-air-cleaner Imperial? Everything about the internal (many would say “infernal”) combustion engine is a compromise.
Thus, you’ll find that your Imperial’s engine is tweaked more towards low- and mid-range torque and smoothness in the factory camshaft design than it is toward a 150mph top end.
Also, if you think about it, you can see that a car with a great long stroke will have more torque and inherently will run at lower RPMs than a little bitty short-stroke engine will. Think fulcrum and lever – the longer the lever, the easier it is to lift the weight – in this case, the lever is the length of the stroke, trying to turn the crankshaft. A very short stroke engine will be able to turn very high RPM’s but won’t have much low-end torque.
So it’s all a compromise, and the Imperial engineers seem to have done a great job over the years!
I hope at least someone learned something from this, or maybe a light bulb went on somewhere and someone said “OOOOhhhh, now I see!” J
--Brooks in Dallas I’m through now. J |
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