Horsepower Shortblock
Horsepower Shortblock
US $1,699.00
What gives a car its horse power?
I have a 1978 chevy camaro. I need to get a short block for it. Do the pistons give it all of the horseower? Can i get a lot of horsepower by just buying the shortblock?
Horsepower comes from the engines ability to burn more fuel and convert it into kinetic energy in a period of time.
Parts of the engine that allow it to burn more fuel, burn more of the fuel already entering it, or convert more of the energy from the fuel into kinetic energy, are all parts that will "create" horsepower
If you want to make an engine that makes lots of horsepower, you need one that can burn more fuel, furn it faster, be very efficient when burnign it, operate with minimal resistance/friction
To build a highperformance engine, you need optimise the functionality of every compopnent so that all of the above happens at peak efficiency.
Some methods to improve performance are
-Allowing air to enter easier with less resistance
-Forcing air into the engine under pressure
-Allowing exhaust gas to exit easier
-Burn a higher percentage of fuel entering the engine
-Reducing friction of moving parts
-optimising valave timeing for maximum power
-optimising air/fuel ratios for more power and less fuel economy
-Increasing the compression ratio
-cooling air before it enters the engine for maximum molecular density per volumetric unit of incoming air.
-Burning fuel with more chemcial energy in it
-building an engine that can operate at higher rpms
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About your pistons, they simply transfer the force of the expanding gas to the crankshaft, to maximise power potential, they should be as lightwieght as possible, shaped to compress air/fuel uniformly, in addition, the block, and the pistons have little to do with how much horsepower you create, but certain blocks will not be able to handle the load associated with high horsepower levels once you get into the ballpark of 450+ hp