Wheel spin at 45 mph = ? HP

[mikerallye]

I have been messin with the challengers for about 4 years now and I am relatively inexperienced when it comes to HP numbers. There is always some guy coming up to me when I am out riding in my ebod with a story of how his 383 or 440 would burn the tires at 40 mph. I always ask did your car have the suregrip rear. Most say yes. I am in my early 40s and was 8 years old when my uncles had the 6 pack cars. I can't remember much other than the smell of rubber around their houses, and my grandma fussing about it. Would they really break traction at this speed? What kind of HP does it take to do this? What was it like driving one when you dropped the hammer. Can't wait to hear about it!!

[Oldschool]

Hey Mike,

Some would, and some wouldn't.  Too many variables to cover them all in any depth here.  Some of the more obvious are these. 

1--Any mods to the powerplant?
2--Any mods to the drivertrain, eg...stall converters, different rear gears, straight shift...etc?
3--Old hard bias ply tires?
4--What gear were they in when they hit the gas?
5--If straight shift, did they rev it up and dump the clutch?
6--How "quick" was the throttle response?
7--Was it in the rain...lol
8--What size tires were they running?
9--An old trick back in the day was to "snatch" the steering wheel to upset the chassis when nailing the throttle.  That would help get em loose.

You get the idea.....        

[Street_Challenged73]

I know with forced-induction on a healthy manually-shifted car it's definitely possible.  If they were N/A, then chances are the engines are heavily worked over and the throttle was slammed into the floor pan.

[Chryco Psycho]

I built a bone stock Looking 440+6 last year in a Chall , he dynoed at 315 RWHP on a mustang dyno , & he has 295 50 15s , he punched the car at around 50 MPH merging onto a highway , it jumped into 1st gear & opened all 6 bbls , immediatly hit shift pont & grabbed second gear which threw the car sideways with the tires spinning , to my knowledge he has never let the car shift on it`s own with the 6 pack wide open since .... BTW  a mustang was trying to slingshot past him , he jumped about 3 car lenghts on the stang & the stang didn`t want to play anymore !!
 it has more to do with torque & the way the tranny is set up to shift than actual HP

[todd383]

The temp. of the pavement has alot to do with it too!!!! for instance, my cobra mustang will easily break the tires loose at 70 mph even in 4th gear on a 30 degree day,but when it is hot out , it wont do it

[FJ5_440]

Although peoples memories seem to make their cars more and more powerful as time goes by, it is very possible to break the tires loose at speed with a hot, street/strip car on street tires.  The first time it happens unexpectedly is usually a pretty memorable event.
Like Chryco said, it has alot to do with the covergence of the torque curve and the downshift coming together to shock the drive train.

[Super Blue 72]

Hmmm...not sure about Mopars but I met a guy with a Shelby Cobra kit car that had 650hp and could break the tires loose at 100mph! 

[hemi71]

My 71 472 hemi cuda with a 4 speed broke the tires loose several times at 35-40MPH. First time it caught me by surprise, didn't get real loose or anything, just heard and felt those tires spinning. That engine had dynoed at 528HP on the stand. My 340-6 4 speed T/A wanna be has done it from a 15 MPH roll.

[Finoke]

I was a teenager, the first and most impressive time I had seen this. I was outside and saw a chevy with a big blower coming down the street. The speed limit was about 30mph. He hit it and spun the tires like you wouldn't believe. That was 30 years ago and I still remember it