Originally Posted by SG4247

Handle power? Hardly.

Ive seen a 5 hp Briggs and Stratton make 40hp natural. Handle power? No, they dont last long when you ask that much of them.

For me, its not about how much power you can make. We can all make power now, by just buying a pile of parts and screwing the stuff together.

For me its about how long you can make power at a certain level. So, a measurement of 1 year or 8000 street miles is meaningless to me. Now, if you said 60 full 5 sec dyno pulls, or 400 1/4 mile runs before a problem arises, then we have a better understanding of how durable the engine is at a certain power level, since its under full load for a known duration of time.

I built a 468 cuin 100% methonal injected small block chevy that made nearly 900 hp natural, and never made it beyond 10 dyno pulls without a serious mechanical issue. That motor cost nearly $20k and was eventually scrapped. It just wasn't durable.

I recall years ago replacing the head gasket 10 or times on the same bank with the motor in the car. Yes, we poured nitrous into that motor and it made a crap load of power, but for only 15-20 seconds before it lifted the head. How much fun is that?

Today I have no interest in breaking my back pulling engines, re-ringing motors and sleeving damaged blocks and the like. I want it to run and run well without working on it constantly. For me, I would spend $800 on pistons and $1000 on rods in a heartbeat if it means I dont have to drop the motor every other weekend to fix it.

The stock VQ37 is good, it would be helpful to know how good it really is at 12-15 psi.