Thanks.
I never seen a 351 with a Stromberg ww2 on it, but only the Carter 2BBL like on my 351 T Bar XB ute.

Back in the day of the Ford 302 V8 XT on to XB I though why were they so gutless Holden 308's with dual exhaust would blow them away, then I was shocked to find that they only had a 2BBL Stromberg on them, but some 302 V8's had the Carted 2BBL I am sure, must of been the time when the Holden's got them as well. it was due to the ADR fuel evap tank setup I think, Stromberg must of got caught off the ball at the time.

When I pulled the Stromberg ww2 of my mates dads 1977 302 auto F100 I was surprised to see that the intake manifold was restricted with a cone shaped restriction going from the size of the throttle body's down to a 10c size true story, they restricted the F100 302 v8, but the Falcon 302 intake manifold was not restricted down with a cone shaped rubbish setup like that.

I seen many people put adapters on Ford 6cyl log heads and then have a 350Holly on top why ? when if the hole on the top of the log can only flow X amount, the intake hole looks to only be able to flow something like 250CFM to me.

I once seen a dyno test on street machine with a 4bbl 600CFM carby on a 302 Cleveland stock XB 2v intake setup with a 4bbl adapter, it was found to be not that good performing, I think the 2BBL 350CFM Holy was better on that manifold in the test.

I am not sure that the HT or HG GTS350 would of had it over the XW P2 or P3, As the disc brakes were only solid on the HT-G for a start, I am sure that they did their home work well on the Torana GTR XU-1 for winning Bathurst. I hate the LC-J Toranas myself as the care is just to small for me, they look fine. but to drive on the Highway forget it, they are rubbish. Give me a HG GTS308 T Bar with air-con any day. I don't think that the XW GT-HO P2 really appeals to me as a car in the day I would fork out for, the XT GT T Bar would be my pick by far of any Falcon to drive.

So you have a real good Australian car from 5/1968 in the XT GT 4SP or Auto that is a drivers car, then you have to wait until 8/1970 for the HG GTS308 T Bar the first real Holden that I would say I would loved to own back in the day for sure. the 4sp is fine as well and with all the off the shelf and options mind. a HT-G GTS350 would be fine as well. But when one looks into it all you find that under the top shelf their truly is fine cars to drive that no one can poo poo a HG GTS308, the HT GTS308 auto is only a crap 2sp so it fails in that regard.

The XW GT T Bar fail as to being a dopy FMX boring as to drive such and the 4sp is a pain to use unless you are driving it flat out to enjoy such and that goes for them all to The XB not to mention crap rear sprung setup is just shit, the Holden rear leaf is much better setup.

I am just putting out the reality's here if you drive a car and had to live with it doing many miles a year and drove them to their capacity that they were designed to aspire to of such people who are in such a league to truly appreciate.
Yes I appreciate the GT-HO's and the GTS350's but you would not of seen me crying about not having them to drive back in the day. to much is made of such cars that most people miss out on just how good a car could be had that was just under the top shelf.

A HG GTS308 had the 3sp auto, why would one buy a crappy 2sp auto HG GTS350, just look at how much more you had to fork out back in the day.
I am sure the GTS350 2sp auto would go well and all, but I would not of bought such over a GTS308 T Bar any day. just pointing out the reality's.
What's going to come up on a HG GTS308 4sp or T bar with dual exhaust, nothing but a GTS350 4sp or a XW-Y-A Falcon GT or a GT-HO comes within it's league, 6cyl Chargers don't cut it for highway high speed long distance cruse, only the E55 may but it had no dual exhaust option and only a auto.

So their you have it, what was a quality drivers car back in them days to choose from that you could jump in and drive miles on end and fast that one would be proud of to have and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.

The first true cars Holden made were the HK GTS327 Monaro then HT GTS350 4sp or T Bar and HT GTS3084sp only and then the HG GTS308 4sp or T Bar and HQ GTS350 4sp auto ? slush box and the GTS308 with dual exhaust with 4sp or T Bar and the HJ GTS308 4sp only. Torana LH and pre ADR27A LX 308
4sp or T Bar.
The Torana LC-J GTR XU-1 were a dog box.

The first true cars Ford made were the XR GT, XT GT 4sp and T Bar, XW GT 4sp but the FMX All XW GT-HO's and XY GT 4sp but for the FMX The XY GT-HO and the XA GT 4SP they are all worthy and the XB GT is not bad, it's in the HQ-J league.
No worthy 6cyl at all or 4cyl.

Valiant's only one the Charger E44, but it's in the same league as the HQ and XB.
The 6 cyl hemi can do well but regardless they just don't cut it.

The top dog is the XY GT-HO by far for power, but I am not talking about racing or Bathurst, but to own a real nice car that no one can say it's shit or does not quite cut the mustard to enjoy driving hard long distance cruse.
out of all of them I would say the best of them all would be the HJ GTS308 4sp with dual exhaust and 3.08 LSD diff with air-con.
The best handling high speed by far is the HQ-J with a few mods.

Their was no problems with the Tri matic box they were fine. the only problem was with the pad material that when one had a steep driveway to reverse out of was causing the material to fray.
My HG 253 auto was fine to 150,000 miles when the engine got blow by and I got rid of it. the only problem with the auto was the bastard wanted to rev to 5500RPM so I had to take my foot of and let it change up before this. their was a wire that you could adjust to make it change at a lower RPM I would think but I never touched it, I should of experimented with it, but with my HX when I fitted a tri matic to it I just tossed the electronic kick back away as it was not needed at all, as it changed up at 4500RPM and that was all that was needed and if you wanted more I just used the T Bar for that, it was spot on and it did 300.000KM but with a big oil cooler only and did not go into the radiator at all because it was a manual type one that I got when it was a 4sp.
I have never heard of problems with tri matic but for people with steep driveways and driving around with a crap radiator cooking the guts out of them and never servicing them.

I remember many a 307 were gutless as 2 speed auto and 2.78 diff nothing to see there, old Jack had all 3 Broughams from new and said that the HK went the best, I remember a brothers mate had a HK Brougham as well back in 1978 and recalls it was such a slug to drive.

Driving a GTS350 with a 2sp auto and 3.08 diff out on the highways, well no what's it going to do when overtaking from 60mph or 70mph they run out of puff from 4500RPM truly and top gear response with all that torque is good from 60mph but I am sure that a HG GTS308 T Bar dual exhaust would kill it in over taking for sure from 50mph 60mph 70mph to 90mph that's pretty important that you would be doing all the time. the 50mph to 90 mph times are critical to enjoy with over taking.
I remember driving a 6sp auto Falcon 4.0L and thinking that they got the ratios so wrong that it made overtaking from 100km/h 110km/h on a real pain and the 5sp manual was geared so much better for doing that. they needed to cut 3rd gear back in half of that ratio on the auto and it would of been fine, keep all the ratios the same but add one between and wow what a grate performing car it would of been.
Get the ratios right and all is fine, but 2sp auto's yuck ! they can be ok in the drag strip but not out on the roads if you are one who really love to drive great cars.
What may be good for Bathurst may not be best for the highway, what we had with the roads back in the days in QLD well

Edited by user Tuesday, 2 June 2020 1:17:12 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Try it with real gross figures for the 308, not advertised hp. 227hp.

Not sure what Kerb weights you are using for the GTS350 auto. I can give you some facts though. Wheels tested a GTS350 auto rego ATX-248 in July 1970. It was a heavy car with air, steer, reclining buckets, vinyl roof, pushbutton radio and accessory spotlights. 3608lb. Top speed was limited by the Powerglide to 117mph (5000rpm). Standing quarter letting the auto shift was 16.0s @ 90mph. Shift was between 60-65mph. 0-100mph was 22 seconds. By holding the car in low to 5500rpm they managed slightly faster times. So the simulation time for a standard car at 22s 0-100mph is a bit off.

Note that Wheels actually like the car to drive and commented that it was only just slower than the manual car (manual Press test cars fiddled with and 222lb lighter).

Here are your actual Curb weights for the standard cars:

GTS350 auto: 3461lb
GTS V8 optioned with L31: 3227lb (add about 20lb for dual exhaust).

A HG manual 350 real test figures as per below (3.08 rear axle car):

0-30mph 2.4s
0-40mph 3.4s
0-50mph 4.8s
0-60mph 7.0s
0-70mph 8.4s
0-80mph 11.0s
0-90mph 13.4s
0-100mph 15.95s
1/4 mile 14.78s @95mph
Top speed very close to 140mph if not over it.

One of these weighs 3388lb.

Neither the auto 308 or 350 GTS's would be raced, that would be silly. GMH looked at building a GTS 308 HG for Bathurst but the engine would not stay alive at higher rpm (over 6000) so it was never continued with. The high performance 308 was put to sleep for another 3 years to resurface in the XU2 (L34).

Yes I know they did, there was an XW GT as well. But no-one seriously would have raced a Powerglide or a Trimatic in 1969-71.

Interestingly, Ron Dickson would have finished 6th in a HQ 308 GTS sedan at Bathurst 1973 had it not dropped a valve 30 laps from the end.

Des West used 6500rpm all day in 1968, no one could catch him. His was a 3.36 rear axle car. The HT's didn't need to rev as hard, but they used more than 4500rpm. Brock got his arse kicked by Firth for going too hard though in 1969, he was yanked from the car with Des West completing the race and Brock didn't race a Monaro again for HDT for a long while.

Garbage, the HT-HG GTS350 would be just as effective in 1970 and 1971 but GMH decided there was no point as supply of 300hp L48 engines was to be finished in July 1970 and there was no point. Fact is the HDT HT GTS350's continued to dominate races well into 1970. They won both of the distance races they competed in after Bathurst 1969. The Torana was cheaper not faster and was significantly slower than the HDT GTS350's. 1970 was a slower race in all aspects than 1969 and 1971-2 the tyre technology gave all the big advances. Sure the Cleveland GT-HO's were a weapon but so would the LT1 powered Old Man Emu if it had ever been built - it was too costly and too fast for the street, and GMH didn't participate in racing remember? The XU1 idea was sold to management as a Rally car, not a race car. Yet it beat the "mighty" PhaseIII in the final Series Production Bathurst race.

That is stock though. The 1969 HDT engines were not exactly stock, nor were the cars. But neither were the factory competition. I was talking about the Des West 327 in 1968, he used 6500rpm all day with a 3.36 rear end and 185x14 tyres there was no other way the car would get over 130mph on Conrod which is what they were doing, without going well over 6000rpm. These cars are rated at 21.2mph per 1000rpm. Mel Nichols got 128.5mph out of his test of a private 3.36 rear axle car at just over 6000rpm with more to give.

The cars in 1969 were faster again in top speed on the same tyres, same gearing so they had to be very close to 6500rpm on Conrod in top gear.

Edited by user Monday, 8 June 2020 2:48:43 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

The HT GTS350 were to run standard camshaft, maybe they retarded the camshaft timing to make it rev out more.
The first LC Torana GTR XU-1 Camshaft was then retarded in the later LC to help rev more and make more top end HP.

I can't see a std HK GTS327 low 8.5:1 compression making worthy power to 6500RPM at all, compression would have to be around 10:1 and a bigger camshaft grind.

Look at the XY GT-HO 6250RPM rev limited to save the engine f ing up, and that's running a huge camshaft, but the GTS350 camshaft is small as, no one would consider such a performance cam grind at all. they must of been running a bigger grind camshaft on the track for sure with any such HT GTS350, that's like saying that your stock HQ 202 will rev out to 6500RPM it's imposable even with valve springs to hack it, their is no way it will get past 6200RPM without being fully balanced, I have seen them all with even big 30-70 cams and 40-80 they just get to that point and the engine gets that harsh that it's trying to destroy it's self, even fully balanced they get a harmonic stage at 6200RPM that they have to fight through.

Maybe the GTS350 on the track were running a solid lifter on the stock HYD cam that's the only way to make it's duration bigger, maybe the lifter looked like a HYD but it was turned into a solid ? such can make a 20-60 HYD cam become a 25-65 and then you can turn it into a 20-70 by messing with the timing sprocket, such may rev out more then but the rule is for intake timing where it closes you need to go up more static compression to keep your running compression up or your volume efficiency is lost and your real time compression becomes crap losing one much power. so as the golden rule goes, say you have 20-60 cam with say 9.4:1 static and you put in a 20-70 you will have to go up in your static comp to maybe 10.3:1 to keep the same running compression because if you only ran 9.4:1 you could maybe run it on Standard fuel with a 20-70 grind.
Adding higher octane petrol then the engine really needs is worthless as well. and running to much compression as to the fuel octane rating also makes it loose much performance because you have to retard the timing or you will blow it up. I have seen that many a time with some fool running to much compression for fuel at the bowser.

I agree with all that.

I did not use the standard brake pads in my HG 253 but I never got brake fade with it and it stoped well enough I though back in the day, it would stop from 110mph to stop without brake fade in a full on having to stop as fast as you could. I thought they were good brakes but when I got bendix metal king now they were bloody good and then when ultimate came out f me dead they were good at wiping off high speed and that was on stock rotors.

The brakes that I have on my car now, if the passenger did not have a seat belt on and I hit the brakes hard at say 120KM/H his head would do through the windscreen, I broke the foot rest when braking the car was 3 months old.

I was into buying 20L drums of the Avgas with my bikes once have to jet them for it tho for best results. I got sick of the smell of it, on my road bike it was like you could never get away from the smell of that stuff on the highway it was always their, loved R30 2stroke one once too but I like the smell now only for the first 5min and then I am over it, breathing in to much poison over the years I would say, the body say No ! Percy don't smell the toxic wast.

There was only two camshaft grinds factory fitted in LC GTR XU1.
The 3100X camshaft and then the XH cam in the CK prefixed engines. Both camshafts had their timing retarded from SOP to EOP

Edited by user Monday, 8 June 2020 9:04:07 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Just taking off a site that does such. it's only simulated on Gross HP. So I do not take it seriously, some are on Net figures but simulated is just that. but it gives a clue to such things.

Edited by user Tuesday, 9 June 2020 1:53:31 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified