- Joined
- Sep 18, 2002
I don't understand why the 5-pots seem less fragile than the 6-pots - open to ideas.
Uh, because they aren't. What kind of internet fantasy lore is that?
Anyways, redblock 16v heads have bigger valves and flow a little more out of the box. The white has more valves. You can do all the math, but in my opinion, it's roughly a wash if they both have a basic port and otherwise stock hardware with an early whiteblock head.
The whiteblock valvetrain is good for higher rpm out of the box though, especially the late head with solid lifters and 6mm valve stems. The late whiteblock head is flat out more modern. Lighter weight, solid lifters, smaller vale stems. These things do amount to a leaner, more efficient package in my personal opinion. Enough to mean much on a 500hp build? Eh maybe maybe not, but every bit helps.
A good setup is usually where a lot of little things were done right that seem insignificant on their own combine (regardless of the platform). Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
That said, my personal opinion is that 100whp per cylinder is plying with fire on stock liners, so unless you sleeve it, a 16v redblock has more power potential.
In terms of pure valve area though the whiteblock has more potential but you need a worked head and sleeved block. Way out of the league of most folks' project/budget levels around these parts.
Finally though-
The 6 rapes them both and is less work than the 5. I don't get why people don't do it.
How many people here have cracked 500whp? Only a few - the absolute hottest 16v setups, and a couple very modded 8v's, and I'm not sure if any of them made those numbers on pump.
My 6 was banging out 540whp on pump at 22psi on a relatively small turbo with nothing done to the bottom end except h beams. Stock 1st OS 850T5 pistons. Yeah, super fragile, dude. There is something to be said for more displacement, more valves, and spreading all of that force and heat over an extra pair of cylinders.
In the end though, as I alluded to earlier- no matter what motor gets used, it's ultimately the setup that is generally well sorted and well tuned that makes impressive numbers. People buy real nice hardware and/or underachieve and/or blow their **** up, and people have cobbled setups that rape because they happened to find a combination of parts that work well together.