ORIGINAL: DSkippy
Wow, that's interesting..... the 3.5 gets 71 hp per liter where the 5.7 gets 66 hp per liter and the 6.1 get 70 per liter.
Puzzling.....the non Hemi (in this very simplified equation) is more potent than the Hemi? Umhh.????
What am I missing?
The 3.5L is a 4 valve per cylinder SOHC engine; whereas, the Hemis are traditional pushrod/OHV 2 valve per cylinder engines. The thing the 3.5L would lack is the torque that you could get from the Hemi which is more important in a heavier car. Also the 3.5L's design is not going to be as consistent in the hp & tq throughout the band as a Hemi would; however, after saying this I will tell you from my own experience the 3.5L feels strong no matter where you hit it.
The reason why I suggested a 4.2L is that Chrysler already has a 4.0L V6 engine and the fact that just as the Chrysler 3.9L V6 the replacement for the slant six and used in the trucks until 2003 was a 318 (5.2L) with two less cylinders. My theory is they should leave the displacement alone if they were to make a V6 from the Hemi (which unfortunately is unlikely to happen). The issue is as well that if you only used a 4.0L V6 Hemi the hp gain would only be about 10hp & the torque would be a 30lbs gain, but people pay far more attention to hp than tq so having 275-280hp & 300ft-lbs of tq would stand out more as an improvement over the 3.5L.
What Chrysler should consider doing is working on offering GDI technology on their engines as they are going to have to do this sooner or later. Since they are planning on retiring the 3.5L in around 201X I doubt they want to spend the money on it. If they added GDI to a V6 Hemi, 300hp would not be out of the imagination and GDI would help with the emission rules and fuel economy, but since they will probably not do this, what they could do is offer a version of the current 4.0L that produces about 285hp & 295ft-lbs of tq in the SEMA Sebring and Avenger.