DeTomaso Mailing List: November 2000, Message #64

Mike, I hate it when you are right. I knew I needed to take DeTomaso's claims with a shaker of salt, but you are right about the Truckload. 

Today I finally got around to doing some tests with the G-tech. This is a useful excercise for EVERYONE, because you can learn a lot about your motor. Using the G-tech means you need to drive more or less systematically, methodically. Straight runs up to redline in each gear and shift. By repeating this many times you learn a lot about the characteristics of your motor.  I learned that this one TOTALLY runs out of steam at 5500 rpm, I'm not even sure if I CAN rev above this, but doing so would be useless anyway. 

My first few runs I decided I'd measure horsepower. I read the instructions, and it said to enter the vehicle weight in pounds. This seemed odd to me since the rest was all metric, but I re-read the instructions and it clearly said to enter pounds. I entered something like 3600 pounds and did my first run. Awesome! I had 470 rear-wheel horsepower! What a kick-ass engine I had! Well, it didn't quite seem right. So I changed the weight to 1620 for kg, figuring that there must be a mistake in the directions, everything else was metric, the weight probably outta be too. Back to reality. 

I did several 0-100km runs, and they were educational. No snickering, please. My times were all in the high 6's, with a couple in the low 7's. Thomas Tornblom had his times all in the low 5's (I saved your e-mail until I could do my own runs, Thomas...) with a similar engine. My 1-2 shift was anything but lightening fast, but even so I am entirely underwhelmed by these times. 

I changed the settings to get maximum hp, and couldn't remember exactly how much my car weighed in KG. I set it at 1620, since that was a number that looked reasonable on the only official paper I couldn find in the car - the original Austrian registration. After further scrunity I think that 1420 was the car weight empty and 1620 the weight fully loaded? Again, Thomas set his G-tech to 1500 kg. With this weight setting, I got a mere, well, no snickering here, 202 rear wheel hp. This from an engine that DeTomaso advertised as being 350hp. That's an AWFUL lot of drivetrain loss..... 

I suppose I need to know the true weight in order to accurately know how many hp the motor develops, but it sure doesn't develop what DeTomaso said, I would guess it left the factory with 300 at the crank? Unfortunately I think Mike is right, they dropped in a plain-Jane 351C truck motor, and despite changing the carb, it is still a truck motor. I literally don't think it will turn over 5500 rpm...

My seat-of-the-pants G-tech told me that my '72 with the recent rebuild would blow the GT5-S into the weeds. The numbers sort of back it up. These tests tell me that the motor isn't developing what it ought to, also. But after thinking about this yesterday, I think when I sell the '72 I'll probably go the stroker route for this car to get the kind of performance it ought to have...

Charlie McCall
1972 DeTomaso Pantera #3847 (for sale)
1985 DeTomaso Pantera GT5-S #9375
"Raising Pantera Awareness across Europe"
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/gt5s_1985

>>> <MikeLDrew@aol.com> 11/02/00 12:39AM >>>

In a message dated 11/1/00 1:31:26, Charlie.Mccall@haworth.com writes:

<< ***Maybe, maybe not. This car was built with the "sport" option, the 
original paperwork lists 350hp. At did come from the factory with a Holley, 
so at least that part is correct. As has been discussed on this list before, 
though, many of DeTomaso's claims have to be taken with a shaker of salt...  
>>

>>>More like a TRUCKLOAD of salt!  I'd expect a bone-stock, low-compression 
truck motor with nothing changed internally.  Low-compression, 
low-performance (relative to your early car.)  It's got a Holley, and that's 
it.

There's always a CHANCE that somebody who know what he was doing poked around 
in there, but I wouldn't bet on it!

Mike