I should know this buy now but i'm drawing a blank. My books are put away Lord knows where so I need your help. "STOCK" didn't the Stage1 have MORE than 370hp and 500ftlbs??? Ronnie
70 Stage 1's were rated at 360 hp and 510 ft lbs. According to Denny Manner, they really put out 376 hp on Buick's dyno.
Yep, the father of our beloved 400-430-455's. Super guy to boot and very willing to share insider stuff.
If you think back to your days of calculus, it is the integral of the area under the hp//tq curves that counts--- not just peak hp which is too often the focus of comparison.
Still remember the electomagnetic field theorey classes partical charge problems where we solved 3 dimensional integrals in both spherical and cyclindrical coordinates. I can still see my old professor now at the blackboard as the the old song from the Five Dutones goes "He could really shak'em down".
I read a long time ago that NHRA laughed real hard at the 360 figure, and immediately refactored the 455 Stage 1 to 420 HP for class purposes. Dan
At Flint D. Manner showed us the actual Buick factory dyno graph. 376 is the correct figure. I have alway supposed the good Buick performance nothwithstanding the true numbers was because: Some of the other muscle cars figures were inflated ; or They were comparing relative peak figures without considering how they compared time for time over the entire 1/4 mile run which on average is what a comparison total area scribed by the hp/ tq curves does.
