US engine sizes are just insane!

Lum said:
Also worth considering that most US fuel is pretty crap compared to over here. Their "Premium" petrol works out at about the same octane rating as our standard unleaded (yes I've taken into account the fact that the US record octane using PON, not RON) and in some parts of the US the best you can get is 87 octane (I've heard of some areas where you can only get 83!)
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Not quite, the US gas Rating is an average of RON/MON and is most commonly referred to as the AKI or anti knock index

Thus if the best they can get is 87 gas, then the best petrol they can get is 91 RON. So yes you do have a point that in some places they only have low quality petrol. But these places are few and far between. Most places will have 90 or 91 gas, which is roughly 95 RON.
 
MrLOL said:
Not quite, the US gas Rating is an average of RON/MON and is most commonly referred to as the AKI or anti knock index
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PON (Pump Octane Number) and AKI are the same thing

Thus if the best they can get is 87 gas, then the best petrol they can get is 91 RON. So yes you do have a point that in some places they only have low quality petrol. But these places are few and far between. Most places will have 90 or 91 gas, which is roughly 95 RON.
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So like I said, their Premium gas is the same as our standard unleaded.

Plus a significant number of Americans believe that Premium is a gigantic con and will put in Regular regardless of what the owners manual says to use or will refuse to buy a car that only runs on Premium (ie. most BMWs) so the American manufacturers are stuck designing engines for the crappy fuel.
 
Having a big engine in the USA is totally logical, its not so logical in the UK.

Makes me laugh though, i could extract the same amount of power from an elastic band as some US made V8's make, but at the end of the day its all about doing big miles without stressing the engine whilst doing 55mph - 65mph on the interstate, might even get a 70 limit if you get REALLY lucky.....
 
There's pressure to increase the minimum MPG that US vehicles can do by 2016. Stil short of the UK but better than the really bad performance they're getting at the moment.
 
BigToe said:
It can't be 5,000kg surely?

/looks up kerb weight

One site reckons it is around 5,000lb which is about 2.3 tonne, giving a power/weight of about 128hp/tonne which is pretty damn respectable for a van considering what we get over here. In fact if the letstorque performance calculator is anything to go by it should be good for an 8.5s 0-60! Amazing to think the Americans have vans that out-accelerate the majority of hatchbacks in this country!
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My mistake, looked up the stats at 2am lastnight. Suppose with a load though it will be a lot slower, although my dad doesnt carry much in the way of weight. Well some dead people can be quiet heavy!

He's a corriner for the state of maryland!
 
Freefaller, plenty of 'small' size US musclecars around :)

Even 'bigger' stuff like Corvettes tend to have the same kind of footprint as, say, a C-Class Mercedes.

Full-body stuff is big though.....undoubtably.
 
Efficiency of american engines is just rubbish.
Big engines, low power but still drinking, fairly crude automatic boxes, big heavy cars being pulled along as well as the big heavy americans.
 
Freefaller said:
Who cares if it's not quick, just listen to the sound!!!
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There are Plenty of V8s down here.

But they more often then not sound like crap. Sound old rattly and like they are having a hell of a time getting up to revs then they start to sound like an Asthmatic after they do rev high:p

There are good ones which are great but you do get very very horrible ones.:(
 
The really big, low powered engines in american cars are just stupid. If anything, there low fuel prices probably hinder development.

If they built curvy roads and racked the fuel price up, they might start to make decent cars, though probably still horrific looking and huge.
 
jellybeard999 said:
The really big, low powered engines in american cars are just stupid.
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Low powered? It has 300bhp and 320lb-ft and likely makes a good chunk of the torque from a bit above idle; when you have a heavy vehicle to drag around this is exactly the kind of engine that works well.

A small, highly strung engine producing the same power at 8000RPM with a fraction of the torque would be next to useless in the same application.
 
Dogbreath said:
That's 20.4 mpg in imperial gallons, not really that bad for a big van with a 5.4L petrol engine.
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Yep we got ok fuel consumption out of our huge 12 seater ford thing, but the second you floor it the mpg drops to low single figures, didn't sound too bad though!

Edit: just checked it had a 5.4 V8.
 
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The GMC Savana is also available as a 6.6l derv which puts out 250 bhp, but 460 lb ft torque.

Fuel economy isnt that much better than the petrol though, just 20 mpg on highways, so 3 more than petrol. Engines are pretty simple there though, majority still made using iron.
 
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There are absolutely loads of cars with large engines here too, its just diluted more over here with loads of tiny engined cars, something which is happening slowly in the US too these days.

Infact if i think of cars belonging to family/friends, my dad's work car is a 6.0, his previous was a 4.3, my main car is a 4.3, my gf's is a 3.4...

TBH anything large with a badge will probably have a "large" engine, think of all the S-class/7-Series/Continentals/Range Rovers/XJ's etc etc you see every single day, a lot of them will have large 8/12cyl engines in them.
 
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Not really, its a different ball game in the US.

Most large engine cars that you see day to day here, are atmost 3.5l very few cars are larger than that, and in those cases they tend to be expensive luxury cars or 4x4's.

A far larger portion of cars in the US large engines in excess of 5l. Even something as simple as compairing the US van to ours they have almost twice the engine displacement than we do, but ours are significantly more efficient.
 
the octaine in US petrol is SO low, its how they also keep petrol prices down, but need bigger engines to compensate.

Stelly
 
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