226 HP Stats

vintagetrk

vintagetrk

Well Oiled
Apr 28, 2018
1,139
NW Wyoming
First Name
nathan
Willys Model
  1. Pickup
Willys Year:
  1. 1958
I was just looking through the interweb and noticed that there are 2 different HP ratings for the 226. One is 115 hp the other is 105 hp. Approx what year was this change made and how can you tell if your engine is the higher hp motor? Did the torque ratings change as well? I imagine the torque curve was changed to take advantage of power down low?


Addition: Found it _ The 226 used between 1954-1958 has a slightly higher horsepower rating than the later 226. Note that the Bore and Stroke specs do not add up to the proper displacement !!

Source: http://www.offroaders.com/tech/jeep/engine-factory-willys226i6.htm
 
I ran some numbers on Ford 226 and Dodge/Plymouth 230s vs. Willys L6-226, and it's interesting to see how the numbers work out. It's interesting to see how they all fall in the same group of HP and torque, but the years all this happens and a few other things probably determined good, better, best.

The dodge 230 really was the champion of the straight 6 flathead era based on my limited knowledge. The later versions made over 138 Hp @ 4,000 and a max torque of 208 ft-lbs @1600 RPMs. Yet you take the Willys L6-226 in 1954 and put it up against Dodges 230 in 1954, the Willys engine wins on HP and ties on torque if you ignore the additional 200 RPMs the Willys needed to make that number.

I guess we also need to consider what these engines were in, how heavy the vehicle was, gearing, and so on and such.. but the 10,000 ft view is interesting.

I need to toss in the GMC/Chevy straight 6's in there to see how it all falls out. I really don't consider that fair since it's a pushrod engine. So far the life of the 226 was right behind Dodge's legendary flatties.

You always hear about a 226 being terrible but a guy runs the numbers and it is not so. In its day it was very adequate. The problem was it stayed to long.
 
As I recall the last of the Plymouth flatheads had increased compression and liked to eat rod bearings.. But whatawino..
 
I'm sure they did. I was just looking at advertised numbers with no history or explanation or expectations. The rod bearing issues just eludes to the fact that there is always more to the story than numbers. Technically speaking the Ford 226 wasn't that great at all but they sold a lot of them. I hear there is a lot of aftermarket parts for them.. well relatively speaking. It's no SBC. Willys 226 was at the top of the pack but nothing as a performance market exists.. probably because they were jeeps right?
 
vintagetrk said:
In its day it was very adequate. The problem was it stayed to long.
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The same can be said for the Packard 8's. They were an excellent engine, SMOOTH, gobs of torque, and the seven main blocks were incredibly strong for a i-8. That didn't matter.
The V-8's of Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, DeSoto came along and HP became the focus. By the time Packard came out with a V-8, it was too late.
 
two-bit said:
The same can be said for the Packard 8's. They were an excellent engine, SMOOTH, gobs of torque, and the seven main blocks were incredibly strong for a i-8. That didn't matter.
The V-8's of Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, DeSoto came along and HP became the focus. By the time Packard came out with a V-8, it was too late.
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Yeah, if you didn't have a V8 in the works by the 50s its was game over. Hudson was the same. The pre-war Packards were amazing. It kind of stinks that cars can't be made like that in mass.
 
vintagetrk said:
I'm sure they did. I was just looking at advertised numbers with no history or explanation or expectations. The rod bearing issues just eludes to the fact that there is always more to the story than numbers. Technically speaking the Ford 226 wasn't that great at all but they sold a lot of them. I hear there is a lot of aftermarket parts for them.. well relatively speaking. It's no SBC. Willys 226 was at the top of the pack but nothing as a performance market exists.. probably because they were jeeps right?
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The 226 Super Hurricane we know and love started out as an industrial engine by Continental and was adapted by Kaiser for cars as the Supersonic. It’s use as a Jeep engine came much later.

Did the claimed higher horsepower numbers coincide with the years of the two-barrel carb?

Kaiser and Willys were undercapitalized and really couldn’t afford the robust R&D required to update their engines, chassis, and body styles regularly, so it’s remarkable that the 226 was as competitive as it was for so long.

The fact that they couldn’t afford to update their vehicles regularly turned out to be a blessing for us, of course, since it means there is a large base of compatible vehicles to swap parts and support a robust aftermarket parts industry all these years later.
 
I believe the 115 hp rating went from the start all the way to 58. So only the trailing few years had the 105 hp.

Great info on Continental and Keiser. Keiser had a supercharged version of the 226 right? I wonder what hp ratings were on that setup? More research is needed.
 
vintagetrk said:
I believe the 115 hp rating went from the start all the way to 58. So only the trailing few years had the 105 hp.

Great info on Continental and Keiser. Keiser had a supercharged version of the 226 right? I wonder what hp ratings were on that setup? More research is needed.
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It was used in the Kaiser Manhattan; there are probably stats on that.
 
vintagetrk said:
Yeah, if you didn't have a V8 in the works by the 50s its was game over. Hudson was the same. The pre-war Packards were amazing. It kind of stinks that cars can't be made like that in mass.
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I know a guy who has a '51 Hudson Hornet with the twin super H i-6. That 308 flathead six with twin carbs is a beast !. Three speed manual, w/ over drive. That car rides like it is on rails. Cruises at 65-70mph with almost no effort. It really is a pleasure to drive. Ya....they make NOTHING close to that anymore !
 
For just giggles here is a chart comparing the 1st and last 2 versions of the Dodge flat-six with the 2 versions of the 226. You can see Dodge de-tuned the last version, probably for the issues Larry mentioned.

If we think of HP and Torque in todays world none of these engines have much up on the other. If we go back in time a little where most engines didn't make over 130 hp, 5 to 10 hp on a competitor was worth the effort. It's crazy to see that torque was almost fixed. I might expand this to Hudson, Packard, Keiser, and whatever else I can find. Its -35 windchill this morning and I'm not working with steel in those temps. Might as well do something else fun.

1613054120909.png
 
Lookout Ranch said:
The 226 Super Hurricane we know and love started out as an industrial engine by Continental and was adapted by Kaiser for cars as the Supersonic. It’s use as a Jeep engine came much later.

Did the claimed higher horsepower numbers coincide with the years of the two-barrel carb?

Kaiser and Willys were undercapitalized and really couldn’t afford the robust R&D required to update their engines, chassis, and body styles regularly, so it’s remarkable that the 226 was as competitive as it was for so long.

The fact that they couldn’t afford to update their vehicles regularly turned out to be a blessing for us, of course, since it means there is a large base of compatible vehicles to swap parts and support a robust aftermarket parts industry all these years later.
Click to expand...
Actually before it was a Continental "Red Seal" industrial engine it was designed by and used in pre-war Graham-Paige cars. The displacement was 218 cubic inches and it had a shaft-driven centrifugal supercharger (designed with supercharging in mind, the engine had 33 head bolts, 12 more than the typical 21 on other flathead sixes). Graham contracted with Continental to build their engines, and Continental developed their F-series family of 4 and 6 cylinder engines from the Graham design. After the war the Graham-Paige name was retired in favor of the Frazer and Kaiser nameplates, and the automotive version at 226 cubic inches stayed mostly the same through production in Kaiser, Frazer, and Willys vehicles. The engine was also used for a few years in Checker cabs and Divco milk trucks. Kaiser sold their own supercharged version for the 1954 Manhattan producing 145 horsepower using a belt driven McCullough supercharger. There was also a marine version sold by Gray-Marine, the "109" which was used in a lot of 1950's Century and other boats.

The change in horsepower for the later engines was due to camshaft and carburetion changes. By then they were primarily being used in the Willys utility vehicles and increased low RPM torque was desired. The 1 Bbl carb was most likely done for economic reasons, that is it was cheaper and less complex.
 
Going through hours of really bad web pages and forums I came up with the best of the best 1950's style stock configuration straight 6 engines.

This is based on what I could find on the internet. There might be some excellent sources out there that could fix any bad data I've stumbled across. These are the best versions of the engines I looked at. I was going to toss in Packard but that company takes some learning. They were more known for the straight 8 or that's just what people wanted to write about. The 6's had very little data.

I will say.. go read all the stuff out there on Hudson. It's like a bunch of buddies who happened to be engineers got together over a case of beer and said.. " you know what would be cool?" * Hudson has a race version of the 308 that was not included* It was called the 7X.

I did toss in the Kaiser supercharged 226 for fun. That was interesting because Kaiser claimed to do a bunch of stuff to keep that engine durable under boost but they just put in different bearings. The rest was fluff.

This is just a fun simple chart for those that like pictures .. " me", instead of tables of numbers. It is not hard to do, but I had the time so why not.

The hardest part is swimming through all the 90's era websites to find information. It was fun, like stepping back into high school. Yelling "ma to get off the phone" so I could get on the internet. In conclusion, the saying.. no replacement for displacement holds true. Hudson also did a lot to get their engines to breathe better. I want one now.

1613078894488.png
 
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Tralehead said:
And a Weber? What does the carb swap do besides make it run so much better than the stock?
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I love my Weber and still tuning on it. I learn new stuff off of the British car sites and try to use it on the old 226. I am not sure we get much more out of the Weber in terms of horsepower. I am guessing 2 or 3 hp. The real gain is fuel economy and the Weber smooths out the engine. If the 226 runs smoother, it's a better experience and worth the spend in my opinion. I was going to ask you what your primary idle jetting was in your 32/36?
 
Seabee said:
I wonder how the "high altitude" 226 head effected the numbers? Any listing on them?
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I looked everywhere for that number and couldn't find a thing. I did see a little snippet that Kaiser increased compression and added a 2 barrel for a marginal increase in power of 118 hp. I am guessing the 7.3 is most of that.. just guessing.
 
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