Originally Posted by
Firebirdjones
Actually they loose quite a bit more. The numbers GM puts on these production cars isn't really that close and shouldn't be used as a comparison for real world dyno's.
There is a pretty large difference if you dyno the engine alone vs a chassis dyno. Of course correction numbers and dyno's vary but generally the engine on a dyno has no accessories to run, usually gets a carb hat for outside air, in a controlled room, and for ease of hookup generally runs an electric water pump since the accessory drive in most cases in non existent.
I've seen nearly 100hp difference from engine to chassis dyno on a couple of my cars. By the time the engine is in the car, running all accessories, heat soaked, surrounded by a hot engine compartment, air cleaner assembly installed, full exhaust, turning the transmission, driveshaft, rearend, wheels and tires, it all robs alot of HP.
A perfect example of LS engines was GM High Performance several years ago running the LS1 crate engine on an engine dyno with no accessories similar to what I described above, and right out of the crate it made right at 400 hp at the flywheel. So when you put it in a car and you see all these examples making 300-330 HP on a chassis dyno, it starts to make more sense. GM sandbagged the advertised HP numbers just like they've done for the last 40 something years.