Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Best Engine Ever

I had a great uncle who worked at the local Pontiac dealership, and he bought a new 1963 Catalina with a 389, 3 deuces, and a 4 speed, red and white. My great aunt drove it, and it was a hoot listening to her go through the gears. I got to drive it once, and would that thing run.

You are correct about the smaller journals having a power advantage. There is less bearing surface. It is why we will use "Honda" sized rod journals in our super stock engines also.

455 Buick Hemi Killer

Another vote for the Ford 300 Inline 6.

The Ford 4.2 liter Essex V6 is a good motor. The early ones had intake manifold gasket problems. But the later models has that taken care of.

If you just want to talk about good motors, Toyota's 2.5 liter 4 cylinder motors have a *lot* to do with Toyota's reputation for reliability. Their latest variant produces 203 HP and gets 32 MPG out on the road,..and they just won't quit running.

My son recently needed a car and I steered him towards a 2018 Camry with 107,000 miles on it and a good maintenance history. The price was knocked down a bit because of the milage. But it looks and runs great.

He took off across country in it and hasn't had a problem yet.

The straight 6 cyl that you find in jeeps started out as what was known as a continental redseal which was produced since the 50's.

I was going to post, lots of good engines mentioned, I always have a soft spot for a straight 6 and the 4.0HO motor in those 90's jeep cherokees seemed to be a rock, and was easy to work on too.

I've had one and I liked the power in that small jeep. I have the 4.7L Toyota now and no complaints.

I had an '82 Mercury that had a 3.3L inline 6 (200ci), it wasn't bad or good, it was just there but that jeep had some punch

Have run all, and no arguments. This - plus that 4 cyl Toyota - seems very good top of a list.

Then again, the comments about applications are cogent.

I have run some big/different vehicles with other purposes - and Contis in welders, etc. - so have some opinions there, but in the main have been thinking of car/light truck applications here.

Among all the great engines already mentioned, I have to throw the AMC 390 into the mix. Under rated and overlooked IMO.

Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp

One and a half Briggs and Stratton with a recoil start,22inch cut self propelled mower nothing but raw grass cutting power !!!!

If you went by aftermarket alone then by far and away it would be the small block Chevy in its many iterations. Purely of how an engine changed the drag racing world back before things were at 11,000 HP it would have to be the HEMI.

I'd agree with these

And the chevy 350, along with toyota's 3.4

Mopar 342, and the 383

I had a 390 AMX motor in a 1978 Jeep CJ5, blew it up twice. When I rebuilt it the second time I wanted forged piston as it was piston breakage that shut it down the first time.
The only way to get forged pistons was to have them custom made and stupid expensive, I was in my early 20's and pretty broke at the time.
So I put new cast pistons in it. The build still cost me about 50% more than a SBC would have cost.
And sure enough the first time at the sand dunes it broke a couple pistons.... parted out the jeep and will never have anything to do with an AMC V8 again!

Predator 212

The Buick GS 455 "Stage 1" cleaned house at the pure stock muscle car drags back in the 80's when the cars were actually "stock"... The Hemi guys were Livid... lol

and the 401...

How'd you know wtf I was talking about then?

What, no love for the Dodge 340 tri-power??? 😁

350 interations. When I worked at the V-8 engine plant we manufactured motors for;
Corvette
Z-28
IROC
Camaro
ZZ-3
Police Interceptor
Marine
Regular Passenger Vehicles
Light Duty Truck
Heavy Duty Truck
Bus
Industrial; Gen Set, Irrigation Pump
Plus a few more...