Engine size question

[asphaltjunkie]

What is it about the 350 +/- cubic inch range that the engine developers are so keen over? 350, 351, 360, 346, 5.6 Nissan, 5.7 Toyota, 5.7 Hemi, etc. What makes this cubic inch range so special?

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[jyro]

Lots more expert than me but I'll start it off by saying the
rules.

[asphaltjunkie]

Lots more expert than me but I'll start it off by saying head capacity, rod length, stroke and weight.

I'll use this to expand the question.
14 cubic inches seperate most of the most popular sized small block V8s. (I'm leaving out the 5.3, 5.4, 6.0, and 6.2 on purpose) With that said, what is so special about the head capacity, rod length, stroke, and weight of this particular engine size?

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[white trash wagon]

350 cubes is about the later maximum size of the original small block V-8's, and the early initial size of original big block V-8's .

My guess would be engines much larger that around 5.7 liters get too heavy and consume to much fuel for mainstream cars. That might why big blocks had a life of only about 15 years in production cars.

Plus, Mexicans will answer "tree fiddy" when asked engine size of their car- even it's a Nissan Sentra

[Lone Star Performance]

Engine bays today are smaller and filled with more sensors, wiring, etc than they used to be back in the "muscle car era". So the blocks need to be dimensional smaller, which limits bore size, rod length, crank stroke, etc.

Once the blocks get bored too much, strokes get too radical, and rod and piston sizes smaller to achieve the larger cubes on smaller blocks, longevity goes down, or costs go way up for lighter weight materials. Ie: titanium rods on LS7.

[broke again]

Engine bays today are smaller and filled with more sensors, wiring, etc than they used to be back in the "muscle car era". So the blocks need to be dimensional smaller, which limits bore size, rod length, crank stroke, etc.

Once the blocks get bored too much, strokes get too radical, and rod and piston sizes smaller to achieve the larger cubes on smaller blocks, longevity goes down, or costs go way up for lighter weight materials. Ie: titanium rods on LS7.

yeah, check out how much smaller a 4 valve motor is compared to a 351 windsor.....

[Lone Star Performance]

That's a overhead 4 cam motor vs a pushrod. Not a great comparison.

What are the dimensions of the actual engine block between the 2?

[dee]

A 4.6 dohc is as big as a 460 Ford

[black50]

i remember reading something about this years ago I believe in an old car craft mag

I remember reading that a bore size around 4'' give or take a few hundredths promotes the best flame front and travel for the single spark plug configuration that is found in most engines, anything much bigger and the burn starts to become incomplete..

and then they figure the best stroke ratio based on this 4'' bore...and I think a lot of factors go into this one...cost, longevity, piston speed, fuel consumption, yada yada....and they usually wind up somewhere between 3.25-3.50'' stroke