1932 Ford V8 vs 4 cyl horsepower

[Carsten]

Hello,

I am looking for documentation that specifies the horsepower for a 1932 V8 and 4 banger. It is for the authorities so Wikipedia is not good enough. It could be a manual, handbook, sales brochure or similar

Thansk

[Ol' Ron]

Unfortunately, Many horsepower ratings are a figment of imagination of the advertising dept. In JWL's book he spent almost 100 pages testing the 239 engine, and in it's original form, it berly makes 80 HP and no matter what he did to it could not make 100hp. And this engine was not running a fan or Generator. So I think your search is frutal .

[JSeery]

Carsten, if I understand your post correctly, you don't really care what the actual horsepower is, you just need the advertised horsepower for registration purposes, correct? Do you really need the 4 cyl vs the v8 or just the 4 cyl value, I would assume the latter?
There are published factory torque/horsepower curves, but not sure I have seen one on the 4, I will look. Here is the V8 curve.

[DavidG]

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The advertised figures were 50 for the four and 65 for the V8 for the '32s. There are charts at the Benson Ford Research Center like the above for both the '32 engines and like the chart above (which reflects the higher '33 V8 number of 75 horsepower) they indicate that the peaks were slightly in excess of the advertised numbers.

The most interesting figures on the '32 charts are those for torque, however, where at lower engine speeds, the fours produced more torque than the V8s. That's consistent with the experience of some of us old enough to have lived it that for the first fifty yards in a drag race, a stock '32 four will outrun a stock '32 V8.

The Salesman's Handbook and some period sales brochures cite the advertised figures, but unfortunately I'm away from my copies of those '32 publications; hopefully someone with them will chime in.