what has the most HP AND TQ? reguardless of MSRP, that FWD? besides the 2k2 Cadillac ELDORADO? 300 HP and 295 torque?

 

You have one of 'em.

 

I bet the older Eldorados (like 71-78) had some big HP.

The '76 El Dorado Convertible = 500hp @ 2700 RPM, and could pull a 13 second 1/4 mile. It also weighed about 5K. and they were FWD.


Its a lot different now, huh?

 

I just did a little research, I came up with the 74-78 Eldorado, 500 cubic inches, 400 hp, FWD. Looks like Don was right. Is the Holden Commodore SS FWD? If so, its probably the most powerful FWD car currently.

 

Was it a mass production car{500+ units}?

 

Yes. 500 cubic inches of rolling thunder. Every single Eldo built in that time had that engine.

 

Which... the eldo or the Commodore? I think Boss Hog had an Eldorado of the vintage we are talking about... maybe not though.

 

wow..an American muscle car from hte 70s that was FWD?? I thought all Caddys b4 the late 80s were RWD?? Why did they make some FWD?? That car must have had some madd torque steer?

 

Yeah, the Eldorado debuted in '67 I believe with a 3-speed automatic. The engine was 400 or so cubic inches, but I can't remember if it was longitudinaly or transversely mounted. I think torque steer probably was a major problem since equal-length driveshafts are a modern invention.

Go and dig up some pics of the first Eldorados. Not only were they revolutionary (FWD), but they were styled really nice too.

My great uncle had a '78 Eldo (the last of the truly huge Eldos) and actually I just remembered that it only had a 425 ci mill rated at only 185 HP. (Cadillac switched to the 425ci motor for all its cars in 77 when they downsized their fullsize cars.) The last really really powerful Eldo was from 71 to 73 (?) -whenever they started to add pollution controls and switched from BHP to NET SAE HP ratings.... but I'm not worried about that since those huge uncorked engines (earlier cars might have had 472ci but what the heck) still probably went well over 350 HP.

 

Olds Toronado and Buick Riviera both were FWD as well. But they probably only had 455's, not 500's. A friend had a coupe deville with 500 cubes and it's not as impressive as it sounds, was a nightmare actually. It leaked coolant and I remember Prestone was over $10/gallon on this roadtrip we took (didn't a factory blow-up that year or something?).....

 

My dad has a 1969 Cadillac Coupe Deville. It has only 11,000 miles on it. Its got a 472 cubic inch engine rated at 375 hp. It's RWD though, so it doesn't really fit into this conversation, just thought I'd share that. The car is in immaculate condition, we keep it stored and he drives it once a year or so. Actually about two months ago he got it out for the first time in two years. He charged the battery and the thing started right up. It sounds mean as hell, and actually moves pretty well when you stomp on it, but the gas guage moves pretty well when you do that too...

 

Nothing in the 70's had 400hp. Lucky if that motor had 200hp.

I'm guessing some of the old 455 Toronados were the highest hp front drivers.

 

caddy has all this power in their cars... yet they havent done one damn thing with it... urghhh...

 

i use to have a 1973 cad Eldorado it had a 501 with 315hp and around 500TQ. it was 6000lb, fwd ,4 wheel disc brakes and could rost the tires for a good 20 feet, i miss that car

 

I beg to differ... do the research and you will find otherwise. I thought the same thing myself, but I proved myself wrong.

 

CFster, muscle cars. thats all i have to say not very meny had under 200hp

 

First of all, there was no such as a muscle car in the '70s. Anyone who has owned a "real" muscle car from the '60s knows that. Hey, I had a 69 Chevelle ragtop with a 327 out of a 64 Corvette in it. It was mildy built to make 435hp. It was a decent mid 12 second car anyway. My buddy has a 70 Chevelle with an LS7 in it (for those of you who remember, you couldn't buy a Chevelle with more than an LS6 in it from the dealer. You had to buy the LS7 crate motor and put it in.) His car makes well over 500hp, and he turns 11.1s all day long. With a little tweaking that car should be deep in the 10s. And that's without the 250hp NOS shot he hasn't installed yet. Another friend of mine has an original '69 Yenko 427 Camaro which he BOUGHT in 1969. Right off the showroom floor that car was in the 11's. Just bolt on a set of slicks and go. No, you don't have to tell me what a muscle car is. Anyway, time for the history lesson.
In the early 70's the Federal Government cracked down on the automotive industry with emissions regulations (which cut horsepower in half), and safety (which resulted in battering ram sized bumpers). Detroit compounded the problem by thinking bigger was better. Well, bigger was heavier, slower, less efficient and in most cases uglier but it sure wasn't better. So they were caught with their pants down when OPEC turned off the oil (gas crunch for those of you not old enough to remember). As a result you see cars like Honda (which would still be only making motorcycles if it weren't for the 70's), Toyota and Nissan. The US automakers tried to come back with their own solutions. The Vega, Citation, Chevette, Mustang II - enough said about that.
In any case, if you look up the horsepower ratings for any manufacturer you will find that in 1971 to 1972 everything got chopped in half. A 1970 LS6 454 Chevelle which was rated at 450hp was now 250hp in 1972 with the same engine (detuned). And it just kept going down from there. The cubic inches were the same, but they were seriously detuned. I'm pretty sure nothing after 71 or so had more than 350hp. Maybe a few special edition cars such as the Yenko Chevys but I think even those were detuned. But by the mid to late 70's you would be hard pressed to find ANYTHING with over 200hp. Certainly not a Cadillac. Sure it had the cubes, but not 400hp. No way, no how.

 

CFster, you need to get some things straight. In 1972 all automakers switched from the inaccurate GROSS HP ratings, to NET HP ratings - resulting in a drastic drop in advertised HP. It was not wholly because of a government crackdown, although this did result in some HP loss. Dodge dropped their famous Hemi because of marketing reasons (it just didn't look that powerful with net HP), and that's probably true of other manufacturers. Also (not 100% sure) I believe the musclecar market was dying anyway. As for the OPEC thing, that happened in 1972, so the auto industry wouldn't have time to react to that until '74 or '73 at the earliest for rushed decisions.

Also, I am looking at a Chilton's repair manual that covers to 1975. Its power ratings have been accurate whenever I've compared its numbers to other published numbers. They list a 1970 Cadillac Eldorado with exactly 400 HP @ 4400 RPM (550lb-ft torque @ 3000RPM).

There are plenty of 200+ HP motors made in the mid 70's right up until their dying days in '76 to '78 (Ford & Chrysler). With a few exceptions, almost all the large big blocks (440+) had over 200 HP. Chrysler sold a 275 HP 440 engine up till '74 (HP slowly fell from there, ending with 235 in '78 I believe). Ford also made a 275 HP 460 engine ("police interceptor").

Most musclecar buffs don't consider the "musclecar era" to be over until '72 or so, after which HP went down, cars got restlyed heavier and bigger, and emissions controls proliferated.

 

Thankyou for finding that, I knew I'd read it somewhere but I couldn't find any hard numbers on the net. I knew I wasn't talking out my a$$ though.

 

Gross HP to Net HP? Same difference. If you look in those Chilton manuals you will see that compression went down dramatically in '71 to '72. Not to mention other things, such as lazy cams and small valves were introduced. Horsepower, no matter how you rate it, went down the tubes. The official beginning of the smog era. And where the car makers were now using a different system to rate horsepower the truth is that back in the sixties horsepower was in most cases underrated. The '67 L88 427's while being rated at 450hp were in some cases well over 500hp. Like I said, the end of the muscle car era was in '71 to '72. Sure, I'll believe a Caddy had 400hp in '70. Not a chance after '72 though.

 

500hp at 2700rpm!? is that a typo? Whats the stall speed for that car then? 100rpm?

 

True enough. And for the underrated HP ratings IIRC, they did this for (owner) insurance reasons too didn't they? (so I heard once ) Also, does anyone know if they even rated the HP for that crazy SOHC 427 engine Ford made? THAT must've been truly insane.

Nah, read my last post above. That's as powerful as Eldos ever got. Stall for these cars were probably always in the mid-low teens.

 

In 1971, some manuf. put out both the gross and net ratings:
Chevy LT1 350: 330gross, 270 net
Chevy LS6 454: 425 gross, 325 net
Mopar 440: 370g, 310n
Mopar 440 6pk: 385g, 330n
Mopar 426 Hemi: 425g, 350n (actually made about 380 net)
Olds 455 W30: 350g, 300n
Big difference. The old gross rating is useless IMO, it had no relation to what the engine made in the car.

For a Yenko to do 11's, it wouldn't be right off the showroom. Maybe with slicks and uncorked exhaust, and a good driver. Bone stock, I'd expect mid 13s at around 105.

I've heard estimates of 650-700hp for Ford's SOHC 427. But they never finished a production version. Given Ford's lousy job of detuning the Boss 429 and 302, I'll bet it would have made about 350-380 NET hp. It's tough making a race engine work on the street. Chevy's L88 made about 550hp in race tune, but as installed in Corvettes, it had to breath thru standard manifolds, as Chevy knew the owners would just swap in headers. Once it had to breath thru a full exhaust, it only made around 350hp net.

 

How about 'non-domestic'?