Top Gear: Roush Mustang vs. GT500

[heelntoe]

damn turbos messing with my knowledge, i forgot they were turbocharged(yeah right)

[Nethead]

Pushrod engines have their place in many applications IMO, just not most.? For example, most small engines run much better (make more power, are smoother, etc) with an OHC system in place? (this would probably be why Nethead says 90% of cars around the world have ohc setups as most cars around the world are small and need a small engine).? But for some applications, like sports cars and large pick up trucks, push rod designs still hold relevant positions in the market.?

And, if I am not mistaken, that article about the Saleen S7TT competition states that it is only pushing 5.5 PSI.? That is certainly not a huge amount of boost if I interpretted the article correctly and it certainly seems that the engine probaly could take more if they wanted it to.

LonghornTX:  Longhorn is gettin' what I'm sayin', but there's more to it.  Fifty years ago, no trucks had OHC engines, and probably much less than ten percent of cars worldwide had OHC engines.  Pushrods were in everything short of the exotics (this was so damned long ago even Jaguars were considered exotics).  Even tiny four-cylinder engines in tiny foreign cars had pushrod engines.  But cars began getting heavier as customers demanded more interior room, more performance, and more accessories.  In order to keep engines small while cars got heavier, better breathing and higher revs brought first OHCs to most engines followed by multivalve heads later on.  The more cylinders in the engine, the more sense OHCs made because the higher number of cylinders meant more and more pushrods in OHV engines.  Pushrods don't add shit to an OHV engine's performance--just dead weight, and it's reciprocating dead weight at that.  Their total contribution is the transfer of motion from the lobes of camshafts to rocker arms in the valve train, unless they've put a hole in the engine in a mishap.  The only '66 Chevelle with a dropped-in 427 that ever existed in my little hometown put one of those pushrods in orbit while streetracing one evening.  The owner, a service station operator, then parked it in front of his establishment on North Main Street with the simulated .44 calibre hole through the hood for nearly a year.  And then one day it was gone, and the Nethead here has no clue what fate befell it...
But I digress...the OHC revolution might have started in the US in 1966, but NASCAR ruled that all SOHC engines must carry a penalty pound of weight for every cubic inch of displacement--Ford's 427 SOHC in a '66 Fairlane GT was tested for NASCAR officials at Charlotte (now Lowe's Motor Speedway) and found to be frighteningly fast but the NASCAR tires of the day were so overtaxed with the extra 427 pounds of penalty weight that a 500 mile race would have required two additional changes of tires to go the distance, and this was the kiss of death.  The SOHC 427s finished their limited production as crate engines, achieving great fame back in the day as funny car powerplants.
Today, OHCs are as prevalent as they were rare fifty years ago.  The percentages are reversed, with OHVs in less than ten percent of the world's cars and OHCs in the other ninety-odd percent of the world's cars.  OHCs are in a big percentage of the world's trucks now, too.  And they're now in mainstream US vehicles like Mustangs, F-150s, Explorers, and Expeditions.  And like it was fifty years ago when OHVs met resistance in an America accustomed to nearly a half century of flatheads, there's resistance today in an America accustomed to nearly a half century of OHVs.  But the era of the flatheads passed through the hourglass of time despite that half century of proud heritage, and the era of the OHVs is feeling the relentless squeeze of the hourglass closing in, too...   

[NomisR]

I don't have sound at work.. but it this video part of the same episode?

http://www.jalopnik.com/cars/clips/classic-top-gear-stig-can-fly-higher-than-a-mosquito-in-a-lotus-hes-the-wind-beneath-our-wings-222744.php

[Ron From Regina]

I downloaded the DVD this morning, and watched it over my lunch hour. If you don't mind watching an hour and a half of him basing american cars, its actually somewhat entertaining.