First, let's talk about net horsepower. With April 15th so close, an
analogy with your salary is appropriate.
Gross horsepower (335 for your car) is just like the gross pay listed on
your paycheck. It looks good, but you and I know that you never take
that amount home. First, the federal gov't takes some, then the State
gov't, then FICA, health insurance, and finally your local gov't. In
engine horsepower ratings, the gross horsepower is what the engine,
without all those irritating power absorbers that it has in real life,
can put out at the crank. Remove the air cleaner, disconnect all the
belts -- no water pump, no fan, no alternator, no PS pump. Now remove
the exhaust system, use an electric pump to circulate coolant, put the
engine on a dyno, and run it wide open until the exhaust manifolds glow
red hot. Great, but so what. You'll never feel power output anything
like that because it's not reality. Just like your gross pay is not
reality.
Reality (or closer to it anyway) is net horsepower. It's the power
available to your right foot when you are sitting in your car. The
alternator takes some power, the PS pump takes some power, the fan and
water pump take some power, the air cleaner chokes off the air supply a
little, the exhaust system has some backpressure. The fantasy of 335 hp
is whittled away at until you end up with something like 220 hp.
More importantly, whatever the numbers printed in the book are, Chrysler
designed the whole car to have ADEQUATE power. I know mine does. It
takes off surprisingly well for a car that weighs 2.5 tons and has a
2.94:1 rear axle ratio. It's not a dragster, it's not a circle track
car, and it's certainly not an autocross car. It's a big, luxurious,
pleasant-to-drive American luxury car. The best that Chrysler had to
offer.
And repeating my earlier statement, where in the owner's manual does it
say that your car's engine puts out 370 hp. Answer = nowhere. It does
say that the high performance, 9.7:1 CR, premium fuel, 440 puts out 370
hp but that engine was not available in an Imperial. The one and only
engine in a 71 Imperial had 8.8:1 CR, a Carter AVS carb, burned regular
grade fuel, and put out 335 (gross) hp.
You can believe almost all of what's in the OM. But remember that it
was written and formatted to be ready for the first cars of the model
year. Things change late in the development process and people make
mistakes. I suspect that it what happened with the CR spec. on page
59. It was supposed to be changed from 9.7 to 8.8 but somebody screwed
up.
Pete
From: "Kevin Pacheco" <kevin50187@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: IML: 71 440 power rating
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 21:42:29 -0600
Reply-To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ok, my mistake on 375 hp, BUT even though it says 370hp on the high
performace engin uses 91 octain AND the 'standard" engin was also rated
at
370 and runs on 91. Both say 370 hp. why would they put false info on
the
owners booklet? Should i not believe anything in that book now?!?!
Also
what is 220hp net mean?
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