67mustang302

Pushrods and OHC all have advantages and disadvantages. The big thing with OHC is that you can better position the valves and shape the chamber to get optimum airflow through it, best detonation resistance, better quench, best combustion control etc, and by eliminating lifters and pushrods you reduce valvetrain mass and increase rpm capability(all other things being equal anyway). Good 4v heads will flow very well, that being said, so will OHV 2v heads, but the OHC will always have more flow potential all things being equal. The advantage of the OHV setup is it's tried and true, can still flow very well, but is much cheaper, which frees up funds for developing other parts of the engine such as best cam selection, best piston, best rod etc etc.

As far as Top Fuel using pushrods, I dunno if that's a cost/reliability issue or if it's mandated by the rules, just like in stock cars. But, OHC is basically the dominating setup in Grand Prix, road racing etc, though mainly for the sustained high rpm that OHC offers. Regardless, pushrods are still going to be around for quite a while I'd imagine. And GM's LS familyhas proven that a 2v pushrod engine has plenty of fight left in it for the 21st century

Jackies Stang

The new GT's are horrible from a rolling start! But from a standstill! I think it would be a whole different ballgame!

06musgt

it depends,i have a 06 auto and from 2000 rpms and under,they are aweful.above 3000,it feels alot more torquey and i can really take off.from a dig,its very quick.

ThisBlood147

Well, tell ya what........you finance my forged rotating assembly, and I'll be happy to punch up the boost.
It was surprising. I got to talk briefly with the brother of the car's owner while they were fixing a loose exhaust hanger after one of their runs. Seems like the car had some entry level weight reduction (no trunk hardware, racing seats, race rims, skinnies up front), but it appeared to have a full interior. The guy rattled off the mod list pretty much as I listed it........so it's possible there's something in that list that escaped his mention. I would be surprised if he wasn't running an aluminum 1 pc driveshaft also.

Andconsidering there seem to be more and more bolt-on, geared, tire, manual tranny S197s going mid 12s, I could maybe see a high stalled auto with a sticky tire and perfect launch punching thru the 11's.

cammed99gt

Not really because stand still is my strong point and it would ofbeen worst from a dig.I would of beat him worst from a dig and i put around 3 or 4car lenghtson him just going thoughtwo gears.

MrMiracle

Well, I'm looking at a picture of a set of 2v heads. What I'm seeing is one long row of 8 valves:

I-E-I-E-I-E-I-E

So those heads don't really take advantage of the OHC geometry. They function no differently from a pushrod engine. To take advantage of OHC geometry, they really need to switch to a different style:

I -I- I-I
E-E-E-E

One row of intake, one row of exhaust. That means that the intake and exhuast ports don't have to share space on top of the cylinder.