Thread: Cubic Inches vs Liters

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Don, it isn't often that I get to correct a retired scientist, but I think that you'll find there are 61.024 cubic inches in a liter, not 61.387. You may be confusing the cc's in a cubic inch, 16.387.

The one exception being the 60's GTO emblems, right?

And with the fabulous "world car" concept we can all have 2 sets of tools out to work on out more modern beasts. Again, car companies- make it 100% metric or 100% SAE instead of half-assed!

My 96 Eldorado has a feature in the computer that allows switching to metric. It works on the analog speedo and the digital read-outs too.

Hey, I know and understand the metric system and use it when I'm in a foreign country. I just don't want to use it here. We ain't like tiny Europe with countries spilling over on each other. The USA is VAST and most none of us ain't ever gonna use it cruising between California and Illinois.

I got your metric system right here!

you can pack it with spaghetti strip caulk works very good for holding nuts in sockets and for packing a to lose swivel socket and the tape trick is very good to i do not know were i pick that up at but it has save my a$$ and the liter thing gto had 389 6.6 they went to400 6.6 ?? to dam much math for gm and to much for me

Originally posted by pat mccarthy
... and the liter thing gto had 389 6.6 they went to400 6.6 ?? to dam much math for gm and to much for me

389 came with 6.5L badges, but hey, 6.5 6.6... whatever it takes.

yes 6.5 is litre emblem was used on 389 and 400 from 64 to68 ?i do not get to much from is i have over 10 liters in my gto

Tech1, you are correct and I have edited my previous post to the correct number. I guess it was past my bedtime when I typed that! SBC offered the 5/8 estimation for converting kph to mph and that is also very good since I get roughly 62.14 mph at 100 kph while the 5/8 conversion gives 62.5 so that is another one I learned. Maybe the conversion we need most in these times of much higher gas prices is to convert (miles/gallon, U.S.) to Km/L. I recall when I first hosted some graduate students from Europe and THEY were mystified by mpg since they were used to Km/L! I get for that conversion:

(miles/U.S. gallon) x( 1.6093 Km/mile)x( 1 U.S. gallon/3.784 L) =

mpg x 0.425291 = Km/L.

So you could say that in the U.S. we get more than twice as much mpg than they get in Km/L in metric countries but actually the 0.425291 conversion is just for the equivalent value in the metric system. The real problem will be when we have to pay say $2 per Liter, that will be $7.57/gallon! Maybe this discussion sheds some light on why European sports cars have small engines and also why an American V8 has so much more power and torque than little 2 L engines designed for more expensive gas. Sorry Tech1, I guess that was my first error this year!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Just caught up with this thread and not to be axle wrapping.....

If a centipede a pint, and a velocipede a quart---
how much did the precipice??

My apologies to the followers of LaFayete (and Louis De Broglie too) for criticizing the French meter and then making a mistake myself. All I can say to Walt is to remind him of the last word of a dying centipede (dyne-centimeter) which was "erg!" because in the centimeter-gram-second (cgs) smaller version of the metric system a dyne is a unit of force and when multiplied by a cm you get a very small unit of energy, namely an erg which is 10^-7 Joule. You ask what is a Joule? Well a (small) calorie is the energy needed to heat one gram of water (1 cc) by 1 degree C. The Calorie we use for dietary values is actually 1000 of these small calories. In a famous experiment, Joule converted heat calories to mechanical energy units and found the conversion is 4.184 Joule/cal. Now since we need to remember which unit is larger there is a helpful saying: a calorie is valuable, it is worth many jewels (Joules), how many, why 4.184.

A calorie is worth many Joules, how many? 4.184 and each Joule is 10^7 ergs just like the dyne-cm said?

While we keep this thread of comedy going, maybe someone from overseas can tell us current prices of gas in something we can convert to $/liter. How about it from Europe or Down Under? How come we have not heard from the Hot VW folks where 88 mm barrels used to be the hot modification for the Type I flat-4 engines? As I recall VW barrels came in several oversizes and I mistakenly put some oversize pistons into smaller barrels using parts from several engines and they dropped in without a ring compressor, I just squeezed the rings in with my hand and the pistons moved freely UNTIL the engine warmed up! When the pistons heated, it would be very hard to start hot, BUT (!) since the engine was in a dune buggy with no doors I would just put my left leg over the side and push start it like a scooter and once the engine turned it would cough off and run again. However this procedure was very inconvenient in traffic or on an upgrade! However, I was much younger then and poorer so I did a lot of dumb things with that dune buggy and that is when I bought my first set of metric wrenches!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Thought I'd bring this quote over from another thread just to demonstrate a shift.

Originally posted by 72CHARGER
LIKE OTHERS IN THE PAST I HAVE AQUIRED A NEW TOY. I HAVE A 72 DODGE CHARGE WITH 318 (5.2L) .....

Not intended as a put down to this presumably young fella, just to point out that a newer generation feels the need to convert from cubic inch to liters as a point of clarification.

Golly gosh, these forums might get really interesting if your gummint ever decides to convert to metric just like the rest of the world

I am surprised this old thread is still active. The "error" I made caught by Tech1 was that 2.54 x 2.54 x 2.54 = 16.387604 cubic cm = 1 cubic inch since 1 inch = 2.54 cm exactly. Then 1 Liter = 1000 cubic cm. For years I have told students the way out of this problem is to just keep the SAE blueprints and add the metric dimensions on the same blueprints. Sure it comes out in unusual decimal equivalents but that is better than redrawing all the blueprints and remachining all the parts! If you work on a Pinto 2000 as I did you will find all the external bosses are threaded for SAE bolts while the internal measurements are all in metric units! Having previously worked on VW engines I already had a set of metric tools. I ran into this problem again recently on the GM 700 R4 transmission tailstock. 9/16" SAE bolts will initially fit the four bolts on the rear of the unit but will eventually strip out the metric threads. Fortunately for me when I installed a new shifter I caught this problem before I stripped out the whole/hole threads. If you use longer metric bolts there is enough thread depth in the transmission bosses to put the bolts through the whole/hole boss and even put a nut on it. Whew, when I saw the thread junk come out of the hole with the short 9/16" SAE bolts I thought the 700 R4 case was a goner but thankfully there is enough thread depth to just use longer metric bolts and catch the deep (metric) threads allowed by the boss "ears" on the back of the transmission case. I believe after 1980 the external bosses on the 700 R4 are METRIC!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/Teen Rodder

Somebody did some digging to find this old thread


I remember when I started out years ago, the only tools in my box were SAE and doing a lot of grumbling when I had to basically duplicate the wrench sets with metric. I still begrudge having to give up toot box drawer space for the metrics.

But time marches on, I started out my grandson with his first tool box a couple of years ago and when he gets wrenches or sockets for birthdays etc he ends up with both metric and SAE.........of course he knows when he’s working on a project with Grandpa the metrics stay in the tool box

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Every time I encounter a metric fastened I resent it. It's like "WHY"? Another way to sell more tools under the guise(?) of needing to conform to the rest of the world! Marketing! You can bet the tool companies loved it!

".....Every time I encounter a metric fastened I resent it. It's like "WHY"? ......"

I grew up in a world when the US was the was the globes preeminent economic/manufacturing power and SAE was our standard (and we were PROUD of it). Somewhere along the line under the name of "falling in line with the rest of the world" our elected officials decided we needed to change whether the majority of the voting public wanted to or not (think early political correctness).

Anyone else remember the multi-million dollar fiasco about changing all the speedlimits and signs to kilometers?

I could go on, but I think I'll just send the soap box back to the Craigslist thread.

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