Quote:
Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary
With number 13 I'd have to ask at what point would it be better to just get a different truck? I mean, it's one thing to tune the carb and advance the timing. It's another to pour thousands or tens of thousands into an old truck.
With number 16, a good balance will never completely remove all imbalances in a crossplane V8. But it may be good enough to not need a harmonic balancer.
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And if you managed to lower the total rotational mass of the engine by 10%, well that's 10% less power needed to start that push, every cycle. So ideally the computer would detect this and spray less fuel. There's all manner of varying opinions here, but all these 1 and 2% increases add up. In the end, if you were able to squeeze out a 25% gain in fuel efficiency from the engine, I'd call that a big win. Even if it were quite expensive, if you're going to drive that vehicle for a very long time (and many of us are) then it will still be worth it. You'll eventually reach the point where the fuel savings have paid for the cost of the changes, and everything after that would be money saved.
As for the aluminum or carbon driveshaft, it sounds like you may be thinking they're more expensive than they actually are. An aluminum driveshaft is an excellent upgrade to any old vehicle with a cult following, like the 73-87 "Squarebody" chevy trucks.
And to reply to several posts at once, yes of course aerodynamics, tire pressure, the driver's foot pressure, etc ad infinitum are also important. I kinda took that as a given.