Bruce, I think you're quite right, the Chevy was noted from day one for
its remarkable efficiency and probably was pretty close if not at, one
hp per cube with the Fuel Injected production 283 all out. That was
quite a story about the 12.6 compression 331 Hemi, again you are quite
right, the '51 331 had a 7.5 ratio because that was all the pump gas of
the day could handle with those iron heads. I daresay the 12.6 would
have demanded straight methanol to run without detonation, and would
have been a lumpy brute even then, that no little old lady would touch
with a ten foot pole. The early Dodge and DeSoto hemis also had ratios
in the 7s. Pump gas octane was jumping up in the mid-fifties and
probably Premium was an honest 95 to 100 research method by the time
the '57-'58 Chrysler 300 C and D was built with 10 to 1, which is darn
good gas even today.
I know first hand that Chrysler wanted the '51 Hemi to be as smooth,
quiet and refined in service as the Cadillac of the day, and it was. In
the late '50s I worked in a gas station in Minneapolis which had a lot
of regular customers who had us maintain their cars. Among them was an
old lady with a frumpy black '51 New Yorker sedan with the oddball semi
(?) automatic trans and of course, the Year One Hemi. The car had been
well maintained by our station, had about 85K miles on it, ran like new,
and was just as silent, refined and sweet an engine as you could ever
want, purred like a kitten. I already was Hot Rod Magazine's most
faithful reader at the time, and distinctly remember noting in the
tuneup specs for her car that the total centrifugal advance on the
ignition timing wasn't very much, maybe something like 25 degrees, which
was probably specified to prevent knock with the open-chamber hemi and
encourage smoothness. So you see the company's policy was nothing wild
at the outset, but as we all know, within a few short years it got
wilder 'cause the horsepower race was on. By '54 they had four-barrels
on them and their top models were very fast. And in '55 they produced
the red-hot Chrysler 300(HP), one hell of a car, and much admired by me
at the time, drooling over those two four-barrels. Cheers Bill
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