Right you are, Michael
Back in the Sixties, it was the 300 horsepower V8s that actually ran the sweetest and lasted the longest, whether big or small block. I had friends who tweeked Chevy 427s to get over 550 Horsepower, but they were always cammy and lumpy and not user friendly. If they weren't constantly being ripped up around 5000 RPM, they would load up, foul plugs, run rough...etc.
The balance of a 383 Dodge,Chevy 350, or Ford Cleveland 351 was always a sweet spot of tune that always seemed to be between 275 to 325 horsepower, and if you went too much over it there was a price to pay in smoothness of operation and longevity.
I had a 302 Ford that went 212,000 miles before I pulled it out to look at it. The main bearings were just fine,valves were ok, as were the guides, and the pistons were even still within spec.
I ringed it, slight cylinder hone,lapped the valves with new seals,sealed it up with new gaskets and it felt like I had gained twenty horses back, and lost the blow by. I drove it another 40,000 miles or so, then traded the Mustang for a couple of nice bikes.
The engine builders back then had an expression "there is no substitute for cubic inches"
In a way, they were right.... referring to torque, maybe.... but the sophistication of modern combustion chambers,injection systems, and 21st Century ignition systems certainly seems to be a good substitute for cubic inches, given the fact that our bikes are now whacking out 150 streetable horsepower per liter, and the old hot rodders rule back in the Sixties was one horsepower per cubic inch for a sweet streetable setup, in a car.
Now the bikes can put out THREE horsepower per cubic inch, and still idle well, last over 200,000 miles between rebuilds,not to mention rip through the quarter in the high nines off the showroom floor.
I never thought I would see that kind of steam out of so few cubic inches, outside of an Indy Car or something.
Back when I started riding bikes, the nastiest thing commonly available was a Harley Sportster, Triumph Bonneville,or a Norton Road Atlas, and none of those bikes put out much more than fifty horses,stock.
I am positively certain that if I had access to bikes like the kids have nowadays when I was 16, I would have been pushing up daisies by 1966. Even with 45 years of bike experience, I will admit that I do not have the riding skills to take a one liter bike to its performance limits..... at least not without being on a very fast closed circuit track with no one else on it, and someone like Valentino Rossi or some other champion talking to me on a radio as he rode behind me and coached me...
We have come a long way in technology, but the limits of Human Motoathleticism have remained fairly constant.
So be careful, and Happy Easter. Over and out. Jim