All this prattle about horsepower when it’s really the torque that counts. The stock Meteor makes 1550 lb-ft of Q @1600 rpm. Jay Leno has a 1934 Rolls-Royce P2 he’s dropped a 27-liter Rolls-Royce Merlin engine into (the Meteor was developed from the Merlin) that turns a max Q of 1750 lb-ft. The car will run 80 mph in top gear ... at idle.
I absolutely agree... We made a mistake when we trended from small bore long stroke engines to large bore short stroke engines. That chasing of RPMs was a mistake, we should have chased torque instead. It can always be geared up because of the lower RPM.