Honest Engines

[Rope-Pusher]

600 HP: Everybody’s Doing It
http://wardsauto.com/dealer-feature

Consider the number of new vehicles on the floor advertising at least 600 hp – some already in production, some soon to be:

· Bentley Flying Spur (616 hp)

· Chevrolet Corvette Z06 (at least 625 hp)

· Ford Shelby GT500 (662 hp)

· Porsche 918 Spyder (887 hp parallel full hybrid)

· SRT Viper (640 hp)

And don’t forget the other new vehicles on display that come oh so close to 600 hp: Porsche 911 Turbo S (560 hp), Jaguar F-Type R Coupe (542 hp) and Chevy Camaro Z/28 (505 hp).

Even more surprising is that all this power comes without Bugatti, Lamborghini or Ferrari even displaying this year at NAIAS. Rolls-Royce isn’t at the show either, so no one gets to ogle the 624-hp Wraith 2-door.

All this juice must be enormously gratifying and exciting for muscle-car devotees.

Heck, the logjam of 600-hp cars makes new models such as the Lexus RC F coupe (450 hp), Cadillac CTS Vsport (420 hp) and BMW M3/M4 (425 hp) seem like downright sensible shoes.

Enjoy this trend while gasoline is relatively inexpensive because these binges of over-indulgence tend to run their course in due time.

Bottom line is, the auto industry has traded its vegan-friendly salad plate for a medium-rare triple-bacon cheeseburger.

And, boy, does it taste good.

[tankinbeans]

Medium rare triple bacon burger. omnomnom

[Rope-Pusher]

Steel Crazy, after all these years?

http://wardsauto.com/suppliers/kspg-ste ... ton-market

[Rope-Pusher]

http://www.autonews.com/article/2014020 ... 9274467E4R

Top rated versions of 2014 pickups

Pickup Mileage Powertrain
Ram 1500 EcoDiesel 20/28/23 3.0-liter diesel V-6, 8-speed auto
Toyota Tacoma* 21/25/23 2.7-liter gasoline I-4, 5-speed manual
Chevrolet Silverado 18/24/20 4.3-liter gasoline V-6, 6-speed auto
Nissan Frontier* 19/23/21 2.5-liter gasoline I-4, 5-speed manual
Ford F-150 17/23/19 3.7-liter gasoline V-6, 6-speed auto
Honda Ridgeline* 15/21/17 3.5-liter gasoline V-6, 5-speed auto
Toyota Tundra 16/20/17 4.0-liter gasoline V-6, 5-speed auto
Nissan Titan 13/18/15 5.6-liter gasoline V-8, 5-speed auto

*Mid-sized
Source: Fueleconomy.gov

[Rope-Pusher]

VTEC...pfffffft. VTEC TURBO ....now your talkin'!

Honda announced its first turbocharged engines since the first-generation Acura RDX. The new family of engines will include a 1.0-liter I3 and two four-cylinder models in 1.5- and 2.0-liter displacements. The 2.0-liter is expected to produce approximately 276 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque and may show up in a new Civic Type R.

The new engines employ direct gasoline injection and advanced cooling techniques, including pistons with cooling galleries to run relatively high compression ratios for turbocharged engines (10.6:1 for the 1.5-liter and 9.8:1 for the 2.0-liter version).



Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/2013111 ... z2skh6oiHI
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[Shadow]

600 HP. Nice benchmark. But I do have to say that I fail to see how a 505 HP Camaro is anywhere near "oh so close" to 600 HP.

I do remember when 300 HP was a big deal. Well, maybe not a big deal, but the "serious" performance cars of those days had to have at least 300 HP. Now we see cars like the Chevy Impala with a 300 HP V6.

[Shadow]

Honda announced its first turbocharged engines since the first-generation Acura RDX. The new family of engines will include a 1.0-liter I3 and two four-cylinder models in 1.5- and 2.0-liter displacements. The 2.0-liter is expected to produce approximately 276 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque and may show up in a new Civic Type R.

This is good to hear. I was wondering when Honda was going to get with the program and start using turbo engines (in something other than their Acura-branded RDX, which is now normally aspirated, btw) and direct injection. VTEC was a buzzword back in the day, but now just about everybody is using some sort of variable valve timing and many of them use it with DI and forced induction as well. Glad to see that Honda is finally waking up...

[Rope-Pusher]

Honda’s 1000cc 109HP Mean Mower has broken a Guinness World Records (TM) title for the Fastest lawnmower!

"The mower can cut grass at around 24km/h (15mph), more than double the flat-out speed of the original HF2620 from which it is derived."

http://www.hondanews.eu/en/corporatenewsdetail/?id=3926

[Rope-Pusher]

TOYOTA’S NEWEST ENGINES
OK, now let’s swing over to Japan. Toyota is going to start using Atkinson-cycle engines in cars that are not hybrids. The Atkinson-cycle is more efficient but produces less power. It’s used in many hybrids because their electric motors can make up for the lost power. Toyota says its latest version of the Atkinson delivers 10% better fuel efficiency without any loss in power, partly thanks to a new intake port shape that generates a better mixture of the fuel and air, and to cooled EGR. Toyota will introduce two of these engines, a 1.3 liter version with an impressive 38% thermal efficiency, and a 1-liter engine developed with Daihatsu that has a 37% thermal efficiency. No word yet on which cars they may go in, and for all you hard-core gear heads than need more details, click on the link in today’s show notes to get Toyota’s full explanation.

http://newsroom.toyota.co.jp/en/detail/1693527

Reader's Digest Version: High mechanical compression ratio, but limit cylinder filling on the intake stroke, so peak combustion pressures are manageable while you extract more efficiency from the high expansion ratio (expansion ratio is where it's at, but unless you are restricting the intake, the compression ratio limits are imposed upon the expansion ratio as well).

Nascar was doing this years ago with Restrictor plate engines - but now there is a rule against having 18:1 expansion ratios.

[theholycow]

Looks like gasoline is closing the efficiency gap on diesel...

[Rope-Pusher]

Looks like gasoline is closing the efficiency gap on diesel...

Diesels nevah did get VTEC.

[tankinbeans]

Looks like gasoline is closing the efficiency gap on diesel...

Nuts and bolts question, why have diesels traditional been more efficient than gasoline engines? Is it because of the different combustion process or just because diesel is less refined and has a higher energy content?

[Rope-Pusher]

Looks like gasoline is closing the efficiency gap on diesel...

Nuts and bolts question, why have diesels traditional been more efficient than gasoline engines? Is it because of the different combustion process or just because diesel is less refined and has a higher energy content?

R U Saying Diesels are boorish?

boor·ish
ˈbo͝oriSH/Submit
adjective
1.
rough and bad-mannered; coarse.
"boorish behavior"
synonyms: coarse, uncouth, rude, ill-bred, ill-mannered, uncivilized, unrefined, rough, thuggish, loutish, oafish, lubberly, lumpen

OK - So Diesel fuel has more energy per gallon than gasoline and the design of the diesel engine and it's combustion process allows it to extract a higher % of the available energy of the fuel as work.

[theholycow]

BTUs in one gallon of...
Gasoline: 111,000-114,000
Dino-diesel: 129,000
Biodiesel: 118,000
Ethanol: 76,000
Methanol: 56,800
LNG: 75,000
Propane: 84,300

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_ ... equivalent )

The diesel cycle/design is more efficient in a variety of ways, too. Two big ones come to mind:
- Higher compression ratio makes a big difference
- No throttle to close and create pumping loss; it's at WOT all the time

While reading wikipedia to see if I missed any major ones, I came across this:

The early air injection diesels always had a superior combustion without the sharp increase in pressure during combustion. Research is now being performed and patents are being taken out to again use some form of air injection to reduce the nitrogen oxides and pollution, reverting to Diesel's original implementation with its superior combustion and possibly quieter operation.

Interesting. I wonder if it would make sense to combine the injection system with EGR instead of using fresh air to pressurize/aerosolize the fuel.

[Rope-Pusher]

Interesting. I wonder if it would make sense to combine chocolate with peanut butter instead of using Nutella to pressurize/aerosolize the fuel.

Fickset