More costly to mfg good parts, emissions tech wasn't there, computer controlles timing was expensive and everything was iron so it required  lower compression to run on 87 octane.

When the GM  LS came out we kind of looked at it and realized it was pretty much the same as a typical higher rpm small block Ford a 90's engine builder would put together. We where pretty sure we could slightly modify an aftermarket Ford cylinder head to make it drop right on the LS that's how close the design is. They're just able to put together reliable 90's race engines at affordable prices, good stuff.

But unfortunately the cars themselves became more convoluted and heavy so the performance increase wasn't as drastic as it should have been.

Horseshit! We KNOW cars in the 70’s & 80’s sucked for power.

In the 70’s, a 7 second 0-60 time was damn near super car territory. That’s why everyone was so nostalgic about the 60-70’s pre-epa cars.

I had a Charger rental car with a big ass V-8 last week that would have destroyed any 70’s Ferrari or Countach.

While I appreciate anyone restoand driving 60’s and 70’s cars, I’m under no illusion about their place in the automotive world. I’m not nostalgic at all.

A friend had an '87ish Grand National. She told me that it was the fastest domestic car that year. The Other Resident had an '89 IROC Camaro that was fairly snappy with the Tuned Port 5.0 and 5-speed. 20+ MPG too! I had an '89 Mustang 5.0 that was OK. But neither of those cars was really fast by today's standards.

So in your mind the boomers are drooling over a classic '67 Nova because of the speed rather than the nostalgia?

Amazing.

I had a 91gt.
It was a dog off the line.. did some basic mods...fun to drive though.
My 65 mustang was a different beast.....
Girls loved the gt
The 65 was a dick magnet lol

Early quad 4s had a slew of potential issues.  They mostly solved them by the third gen.  I did a few head gaskets back in the day LOL.

The technology of engines and integrating technology with engines had advanced quite a bit by the 1990s enough to overcome the EPA of the 1970s.

Piston engine development reached a remarkable pinnacle at the end of WWII. Consider the Pratt & Whitney Wasp Major: a ear-splitting, fire-breathing, 28-cylinder, supercharged corn-cob radial. It was a maintenance nightmare, unreliable, and dangerous to even be near with all those heat-stressed screaming parts moving at insane speeds. But with high-octane aviation fuel, it could squeeze an astounding 4,300 hp out of 71.5 L of displacement. That's 60 hp per liter.

Then along came computers, and engines even got electric brains.

My Tacoma gets 278 hp out of a normally-aspirated 3.5 V6 with regular fuel - 79 hp per liter. I change the oil every ten thousand miles.

Lady Rodent's turbocharged Volvo gets 250 hp out of a two-liter V-4, quietly and reliably.

Back in the 60s and 70s people largely bought cars they could use.

My Jeep has 300 something horsepower. In 8-years I might have used the top half of those horses once or twice.

I'd trade 100 horses for another couple MPG.

If you showed up at the track with a stock 67 Nova people would look at your cross eyed. Nobody gave a shit about stock muscle cars outside of car show old guys.

Even today base model 400 HP cars aren't getting you out of the 12's without mods. You can pick some random shit out of a Jegs catalog and get than Nova in the 11's.

Your Camry with all it's paper hp is still slow, rainbow power bands stink.

F1 engine research trickling down?

Shit man, I had a 1990 chevy 454SS truck..


Yup 454 cubic Inch big block American power. It sported a fire breathing earth turning whopping 230HP....

Our 2016 jeep with the 3.6 is rated at 305hp if I recall correctly.

A new Accord Sport will smoke my 04 911 at the stoplight.

Tech/entertainment addicted population.

When my FIL was driving, he was mesmerized by “the technology” of his Hyundai hybrid.

He was like a dog waiting for a treat.

Hondas weren’t ever anything special, unless you had a vtec. My mid 90s vtec used to piss off a lot of 90s Camaros and similar cars.

I wish there were more options for modern lightweight RWD sports cars that weren’t micro sized.

Depended on where you were and what you were doing. Let's keep this Ford - this is what they were doing across the the early 90s

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth was a homologation special. Not particularly rare, but not cheap either -about $42k USD debut. You can see why Ford in the States kept building 5.0 Mustangs

About 5k YBT were built,  another 2.3k YBD for @7200 total.  Blue top big turbo Cosworth YBT first year ('92) made @113/liter. Lot more torque, lot earlier than the Honda 2.0. About 100 ft pounds more at 3500 than near max in the S2000, almost a decade earlier. The big turbo made big lag and it wasn't nearly as drivable as the later, smaller turbo Cossie YBP, or even the S2000, which was a constant bitch about those. I never found either terribly dissatisfying on public roads, but you had to keep them on boil. People who daily'd them had hair-shirts tho.

The Cosworths weren't trouble free, esp if you pumped them. You had to take specific care, even stock. But there was a  bit of head room - you could pull 250-275hp street with caveats. Setup at the time of the photo was about that. 300-350hp race trim was common. Now 500 isn't uncommon and 800 is seen, but that's all new technology (and vanity without regard for cost or damage at work) AWD was both welcome and necessary. Keep in mind a decade before a Fox Body  Mustang SVO made 175/210 out of the Lima 2.3. I had a buddy who was a Lima magician - there was more available. But  this was never really exploited by Ford as the Fairmont, SVO, Tbird TC and different but same SuperCoupe weren't all that successful sales wise. Peeps wanted Big Iron - and turbos weren't seen in a complimentary the 90s (or 80s before) That's not all unfair

With  the Ford V8 indicated, and Big 3 V8 engines in general were slow to adopt gross technologies like multivalve, variable timing, turbocharging, technologies allowing higher compression. Some have touched on engineering improvements in flow testing, efficiency modeling, etc. Emissions engineering was nascent and never really vigorously as other aspects. All this, mostly  due to cost (dev, production, consumer - acquisition and maintenance), but partly to reliability, and to an extent market acceptability. They weren't needed to sell the units necessary.

Not that things couldn't be done - Ford did a number of specials (and GM did better all round with their big lumps) that presaged the performance of next gen vanilla GTs and Cobras. The '95 SVT Cobra R made 300 pushrod hp for $33k -ish. Plenty of torque but it was still a 14 second car. 5 years later and $20k more you could score a '00 SVT Cobra R - 385 hp and 13.2. But Ford was always the rump mfg in the 90s performance contests, but often the cheapest.

What changed was the Coyote - when many of the gross technologies I mentioned were employed

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I was shocked when I got some track time in a pre-production GT. So were a lot of peeps on track that day. Pretty much changed everything - that was the light switch you're talking about in '10 OP.

1980 Chevy Citation with the Iron Duke 2.5L 4 banger. I once tried to pass a car which only resulted in my friend laughing so hard he spit in my car. That motor would ping no matter what gas was in it. Gutless but got me around.

Iron Duke engine ; 85–110 hp (63–82 kW) · 34.4 hp (25.7 kW)-44.5 hp (33.2 kW) per liter · 123–135 lb·ft (167–183 N·m).
Cylinder bore: 4 in (101.6 mm)
Cylinder head material: Cast iron

Entirely true, and if Mazda would have taken a clue from GM, they'd be more than a nearly subsidiary also-ran on the brink of dissolution.

Or if they'd been able to solve reliability, durability and efficiency problems, they'd be king shit.

But if my Aunt had Balls, she'd be my Uncle.

E30 M3 got to 238 hp from 2.5L a decade before Honda - almost 100 HP/L was some serious N.A. shit then. Just not mass produced.

The difference in all this - HP is necessary but not sufficient.

A post 2000 Honda Accord would beat a Ferrari Testarossa 0-60.

True the cars then weren’t fast by today’s standards, but that’s just technology moving forward.   I understand it’s natural to compare cars then to what we have now, but we are talking 30 or 40 years ago and that’s a long time for technology to have evolved.   The new cars are faster today as well they should be all these years later.  

I had an 87 Grand National.   It took next to nothing to get one of those cars running in the high 12s or faster.  That was crazy fast in the late 80s.  All it took was a chip, adjustable waste gate, fuel pump, drag radials, some 110 leaded race fuel, and total disregard for the EPA.

It's not really fair to compare EPA fuel economy estimates of old cars to new cars; the EPA significantly revised how they do fuel economy testing in 2008. If you look at fuelly data for v8 fox body Mustangs you'll see that in the real world they average around 17 MPG, while the 2022 WRX averages 23.5.



I believe you're thinking of the change from gross horsepower to net horsepower. Gross horsepower was measured at the flywheel with the engine not installed in the car, no accessories on the engine (no a/c, no fan, no alternator, etc), and not using the actual intake and exhaust that will be found ina production car. Net horsepower is measured at the flywheel as the engine is actually installed in the car, with all accessories and with the actual intake and exhaust used. Pre 1971 cars were rated in gross hp, post 1971 cars are rated in net hp.

My wife has a 2021 Accord Touring with the 2.0 turbo.  That car is damn fast for what it is.

Hell my Buick Regal with the 2.0 turbo LTG moves similarly quick for a front driver and gets to 60 in under 6 seconds.   Today’s cars have incredible performance compared to only a decade or so ago.  Go back 2 or 3 decades and it’s light years different.

The AMG CLA 45S does 416hp on a turbo 4cyl 2.0L

The Volvo S60 T8 Polestar also does 415hp with the same size.

lol

Was there aT8 Polestar that was 415 hp all ICE?

Carburetors and EGR.

This is it.

Look at the amount of airflow that the 1970-1973 351 cleveland heads could flow.  They could support tons of power.  They were de-tuned from the factory to try and hit EPA numbers.

And there wasn't really a HP race between the automakers.  They were happy to just have marketing that said their horsepower was 2 more than the competition.  Chevy advertises 190HP?  Ford was content to advertise 192HP.  We see what those engines can do with a few aftermarket parts.

So its not that the automakers didn't know how to make a 300HP engine.  Take a 164HP engine from that era (351 H code cleveland for example), use different cam, intake manifold, and pistons, and its a 400HP engine.  They just didn't have a motivation to do that from the factory.  Consumers were happy to buy them even if the official number said 162HP.

Yep, emissions and fuel economy numbers.  Ghey

No, their problems were worse. Read up on the German's disastrous foray into thermactor emissions systems because they couldn't accept that the largely GM-developed catalytic converter tech was superior. As for Honda, the CVCC heads were a noble attempt that didn't produce anything near the trouble they were to make.

Negative. Difference was more combustion chamber than anything else, but 2 or more points higher - nope, not true on average. EU-spec cars where 93+ octane leaded premium was still available for decades may have had that much higher CR in some isolated instances, but not for anything shipped to the US. As one example of hundreds, the 1983 911 SC had a CR of 9.3:1 in US spec, the same year Z28 305 HO's CR was 9.5:1.

In general, all of you are also discounting torque. That 1983 911 made just shy of 1 HP per cid, but less than 1 ft-lb of torque per CID, and did so at a not very useful 4200 RPM. The Z28 HO made ~60 ft-lbf more 1000 rpm lower, something you can feel in everyday driving without flogging the car.

Yes, this, and the ECM in your car now has more computing power than the workstations those engines were designed on had in 1990, so that ECM does things in real time with fuel and spark that took a hour to model back then.

lol my 82 5L Trans Am had 145 hp.


145

This right here.

Emissions in the 80s is when things got weak power wise. Then tech improved and high power with low emissions became possible.

I have basically the same truck but a one ton '90. It has the 230 HP 454 V8.

Look at the other numbers besides peak HP.  The high peak HP numbers you see in the higher HP motors is not the amount of power you'll be getting 99.9987% of the time.  

For a long time, the national speed limit was 55MPH.
Those V8s making 190HP, look at the power and you see they are making 300tflb of torque from 1k-5k RPM.  There's plenty of power where you'd need it day to day.

Using better computers to control emissions not mechanical restrictions, higher compression, roller camshafts. Variable valve timing too

What moved the needle at corporate was the lightning and cobra.  They saw big hp and torque, at least for the time, sold well. Both used technology that was not widely used by American automotive manufacturers of the time

Everyone wants to lean in on Emissions and I buy into  an extent. But when Detroit wanted they could build high hp per liter stuff like the LL23T, LB4 and LC2. It just wasn't as cheap or in some ways reliable.

Regardless emissions is much more restrictive than the 70s and specific output and efficiency  is much higher, in perf applications, but all around.

I have a completely stock 1980 CA (HO) 305 Vette sitting in my Quonset hut. Looks cool but not fast at all. In 1980 nothing was fast compare to more modern cars, as much as the 1980 Vettes get dumped on, it really wasn't much slower than the 1980 Ferrari 308 GTSi.

My 1991 Chevy 3/4 ton 350 V8 sucked gas and HP was a joke.
10-15 mpg.

2016 f150 4x4, V6 no turbo is around 300 hp, average 24 mpg highway @70 mph with AC full tilt.
Tech is night and day different.


Same for a factory car that can get 500 hp (or more) on pump gas with AC.

What's interesting now is you can get this little set-up called "carb cheater" ...has an o2 sensor , set up a little rich it introduced vacuum to tune on the fly.

I passed up on 2 different 95 Cobra Rs back around 10 years ago.   I have always wanted one but at the time did not have the money for them.   They are highly collectible buggers now going for 60k+ for good ones.   I passed on one with like 25k miles in 2014 for 25k as I was saving for a Boss 302 but settled on my 2015 GT when I learned theybwere coming out.

What Ford delivered was a fairly modest car meant for SCCA racing.   It's rear gear of 3.27 was likely more of a speed per gear decision for road course as opposed to a drag racing acceleration decision.   On a road course the 3.27 with the torque from a 351 can likely push the car to 140-155 while keeping the driveline critical speed lower.  A 50 inch driveline spinning at 5000+rpm is getting into the range where drive line angles and harmonics cpuld be an issue.

Throw a 3.73 in there and watch it drop half a second for drag racing which it was never intended for.   If they had made a Cobra Jet offering it likely would have been 4:10s with no smig equipment and 13 second car.

Cobra Rs were still 50 state smog legal EPA fucked.

That 351 had mild heads and mild cams but even back then you could bump to near 400 with ease on heads and a cam.

Currently have 3 mustangs in the garage down from 4, all 4 were bought between 2013 and 2017 spanning SN95, SN197, S550 plus the 66.

The 95 Cobra is still passing Ca smog with 114k miles with nothing more than a cam swap to wake it up.   The little 302 with gears hit 14.1 @98.5 as configured and on shit suspension.   If the engine finally gets a rebuild there are CARB EO# parts that will let me hit 300+ hp.

My replacement engine I intended for the 95 wound up sitting for 4 years because I didnt want to deal with smog.     The DART block 331 now sits in my 66 and is 380whp at 6k rpm and is about all the 225/45-17 summer tires can endure.

All that talk about 80s/90s turbo 4s, well yeah ofcourse their power for displacement went up.  They were actually developing for those engines and learning things on how to make them breathe.     Factory efforts for the old generation of V8s was not there.

Sadly back then the constrictions of existing factory parts would not let power adders work as well as they could.  

Go do the same to a V8 that can breathe and what happens?   Richard Holdner will show you exactly what happens, a 9.5:1 compression ratio 500hp SBF 408 will go to 1k+ HP on 13 pounds of boost is what happens.


There are things about a SBF and SBC that cannot be denied, the aftermarket will easily let you build  350-400hp right in your garage depending on displacement for a 300-347 cuin motor.   500+ all day if playing with 351-427 motors.    

Things learned were what gave rise to the LS when Chevy wisely decided they could keep the engine simpler.


My 2015 Coyote is already pretty much tapped out.  Heads and intake improvements might get me closer to to 500hp but it is about all you are gonna get.   Cams are much more expensive because you need 4 of the stupid things.   You cannot bore/stroke the thing for shit.

As for the Coyote heads, something goes through your oil you wind up with fucked up bearing surfaces on your aluminum heads.   Atleast the SBF has bearings for both cam journals and crank that can be knocked out and you can service that block for a long time.

Then there is the Coyote timing chain tensioners and other possible concerns.

Then there is the damn size comparison.    The SBF is able to fit into things much more easily than the big fat fuckin Coyote, a SBF 427 stroker is a smaller engine than the Coyote.   Dollars spent on the 427 will likely yield more HP than same dollars spent on a Coyote.

There really is not a hell of a lot of advantage to the Coyote at the end of the day when looking at complexity and durability.

My 66 is running EFI and the tune has me rolling around 17mpg on the freeway.   If I am patient and drive like a grandpa I can get 12ish city on the current tune but my being an asshole gets me 9-10.   My Coyote gets around 13 city, freeway is admittedly better but then it can monitor things my EFI in the 66 cannot but I dont see better than maybe 22-23 hwy.

If I sprung for a more feature rich Holley model I could have added a drive shaft speed sensor and built a table for when drive line RPM is higher than Engine RPM it would recognize I was in overdrive.    That would let me skip to a low load cruising AFR/Ignition table and likely bump up over 20mpg.

If I ever bump to a better EFI setup I may go multiport with a cam position sensor and better crank trigger.   I could then build out a timing table that will allow for even better control.

It wasn't just technology or government regulations.

The 80s-90s "Big 3" were inundated with MBA bean counters.  That early 90s 5.0 had a shitty HP output because it was the same engine from an 80s Mustang.

By the late 90s there was more competition and focus on putting out better products.   GM came out with the LT1 Camaro which was a beast and Ford didn't catch up until the 4.6 3V motor came out.

Modern engine management is wild.  Infinitely variable valve timing, effective cylinder deactivation, absurdly good metallurgy make todays ICE engine a work of art.   I had a 95 mustang with 3.8 later a 5.0L version of that car.  The  v8 car made 215 HP with 302 CID.   Currently have a car with a 2.9 liter engine (177CiD) that makes 510 HP 450 ftlb / stock.  

Not only are the torque and power over double with half the displacement but at the new national speed limit of 85mph 30+ mpg is absolutely achievable because gearboxes have 8 slots.  The modern engines are sitting slightly over idle at what makes my old 90's cars sit half way to redline in 5th.  

We don't realize how good we have it until they come along and fuck it all up, which they are doing now.

Engineering, metallurgy, and computers.

Now do dial up vs 5g.


Technological improvements have been happening for a while now.

Lol

I had a 1973 K10 Chevy with a 5.7L. It had a whopping 145hp

a 1975 302 mustang made 122hp