american cars big engines, rubbish hp !

[OpenToSuggestions]

hey

a friend of mine now lives in usa and has a 3.8litre mustang, yet its only 190hp (havnt checked so might not be 100% correct).

What i dont get is how the heck you can get such a rubbish power output from such a big engine. i want a civic type R when in a couple of years and they have 197hp from 2 litre engine.

do the american cars have loads of torque?? cos it seems like they are really underpowered engines.

i know on top gear when they went usa jeremy's america sports thing had a 5 point something litre engine and had under 200hp, what the heck?

thanks

 

[poosemon]

1 reason is that because of the size of the u.s they tend to travel more miles, so the cars are heavily un-tuned because it then makes the engines last for a lot longer, and makes them smooth to drive.

 

[Slinky1989]

You just wait till Gibbo gets a hold of you

It really depends what car you look at and also the type of engine in it.

It's not a simple game of "0h l0l @mer1c@n C@r 1s weak!!!1!!11!"

 

[SB118]

Yank motors need to last pretty much forever though. 100,000 miles is considered running in.

 

[OpenToSuggestions]

You just wait till Gibbo gets a hold of you

It really depends what car you look at and also the type of engine in it.

It's not a simple game of "0h l0l @mer1c@n C@r 1s weak!!!1!!11!"

his mustangs awesome dont get me wrong
only thing i can think of is he american cars are built to last 20years.
my mates family car is a 5.7v6 (maybe v8 cant remember) petrol pickup thing its huge, and yet only has 380hp which again is rubbish for that engine size. When he 1st moved out there and drove it he had fun and got 9mpg and cos it cost so much he now drives it slow and gets 12mpg, wtf? lol thats rubbish

 

[Dup]

That is shocking mpg. The CTR gets roughtly 20mpg if you hammer it 24/7. 27-30 if you're semi-sensible, any higher and you're not being nasty enough to it!

The Civic However has 190 odd Nm Torque, where these Yank cars have 300+ and more! They're a class of their own. The sheer size and weight is enough to make a 5.0L work hard, so the torque is needed as it's like drivind a CTR with another CTR as dead weight being towed.

American muscle is a cult and a way of life. You can have as much fun with a 4 ton car on leaf springs as you can with a 2 ton 4 pot with wings.

 

[PardonTheWait]

A low state of tune makes them reliable, with a good spread of power, and insane service intervals.

Like ten million miles between oil changes.

It's horses for courses. You can get 'normal' four cylinder cars, and performance cars, and all sorts over there, especially these days as the market (and fuel prices) are changing. But if you're 'in the sticks' a car/truck with a great big engine that'll last forever and not let you down is what you want, just ask Mickey_D about his trucks

my mates family car is a 5.7v6 (maybe v8 cant remember) petrol pickup thing its huge, and yet only has 380hp which again is rubbish for that engine size.

It's a pickup, it's probably built for torque rather than speed. That thing could probably pull a house down.

Also, how is 380bhp 'rubbish'? I know it's heavy, but I bet it still shifts some, and I bet it's got power from right down the bottom.

 

[Gibbo]

Hi there

Well I cannot speak in regard to all Yank motors but the 4.6l Modular 3v V8 ALU in the Mustang is a very good engine.

In its stock de-tuned state it makes 300BHP and 320Lb-Ft on sub standard fuel. In standard tune it does about 18MPG urban and about 28MPG motorway, some people see 30MPG who use cruise control.
Plus in 2005, 2006 and 2007 I believe its been rewarded as one of the best engines on the market due to how cheap and basic it is but so reliable and returns good MPG and most importantly it can be tuned so highly and very easily.

I got mine upto 390BHP with simple bolt-ons, if I had changed the cams then I suspect it would have seen 400BHP and close to 400lb-ft.

However I decided to go FI and as such its now making in the region of 500 horses and 500lb-ft or in nm that 600+.

In my book an engine that can be tuned to circa 600BHP on stock internals is good going. Mine is in a relative low state of tune as mine is a tad on the rich side, fuel kills BHP and the timings is retarded by 2 degrees. Wheras the guys in the US are running upto 2 pulley sizes smaller and have far more aggressive tunes and these guys absolutely thrash the cars due to all the time they spend at the drag strip.

Got to remember to increase the engines output does not cost a fortune, you can add circa 200BHP and 200Lb-Ft for the region of £3500-£4500.

Another great engine is the 5.4l Cast iron block in the Shelby GT500, it makes 500BHP in stock form but there are now many guys in the USA running 800-1000BHP and again on stock internals. Only downfall of this engine is its very heavy due to the facts its cast iron which gives it a much stronger bottom end. However for the Americans who love the drag strip the 5.4l is the best option as it can be tuned to such extreme power with relative ease and does not cost a fortune to do so.

 

[triggerthat]

They are more reliable I suppose. Its like a 3.0l NA vs a 2.0T. The 3.0 will last longer whereas the 2.0 is heavily tuned for similar performance. The advantage of the smaller engine is that it is lighter.

 

[vila]

Well the alternavive view on this is that this is why so many vaguely educated americans buy German and Japanese cars.

 

[CaneyJ]

If american cars were built to last (also hinting that the US is a live-for-the-current fashion plus a throwaway culture), why do so many have dashboard plastics thinner than tinfoil? I would reckon most don't venture outside their own county barely bigger than the UK.

 

[Nitro_Junkie]

up until the mid 70s power was biiig

426ci - 425hp (on the books, realistically near 475hp)
and similar figures for other motors

but in the mid 70s along came eco-warriors and yank V8s got valve lift dropped way down, smogger kits, and generally all kinds of power killing devices

however the torque is a yank V8 is still unbeatable, and you also forget, yea a CTR makes 197hp but you can't squeeze a lot more out of it and it'll cost you big dollar, you can tune any decent yank V8 over 500hp for very little outlay comparatively

 

[Phal]

Petrol is a lot cheaper over there so theyre not really too concerned with MPG :\ or at least not as much as here in England

 

[[TW]Fox]

Hi there

Well I cannot speak in regard to all Yank motors but the 4.6l Modular 3v V8 ALU in the Mustang is a very good engine.

In its stock de-tuned state it makes 300BHP and 320Lb-Ft on sub standard fuel. In standard tune it does about 18MPG urban and about 28MPG motorway, some people see 30MPG who use cruise control..

I disagree. It's pretty much as a primative as most Yank V8's and needs money spending on it to be any good.

4.6 litres, 300bhp and 28mpg extraurban/18mpg urban? That's pretty apalling. Compared to, say, BMW's current 3 litre engine in a similar sized car, 3 Coupe - this has 272bhp, does 22mpg around town, and is quoted as 43.5mpg extra urban due to the direct injection technology it has. THIS is a properly designed engine.

So what happens when you give a European manufacturer yank sized capacity? Well, unsuprisingly, you get engines far superior to the primative stuff the Yanks are still chucking in cars. The 4.8 in the current 5 Series develops 370bhp, 500nm of torque, delivers similar economy around town to the far less powerful Mustang and can still pull mid 30's on a cruise.

American engines are lazy and of low technology and unless you throw money at tuning them, are almost always embarrased by the technical superiority of their European Counterparts.

 

[triggerthat]

I see a lot of american cars still use carbs, especially when you see these programmes on TV on modifying. Any particular reason for this? Easily tunable?

 

[JRS]

snip

Yes....except you don't always see a technological edge on European stuff compared with US stuff.

Take the modern Chrysler Hemi. Alright, it's a cam-in-block pushrod motor, but at least it's quite clever. The multi-displacement system to kill cylinder operation when loafing along works very well, something which Honda are now trying a version of on their J series V6.

Or the Cadillac V8 motors. Using a similar system to vary which cylinders are actually operating at any one time, you can run one of their cars with absolutely no coolant for 100 miles. Literally, no coolant.

I see a lot of american cars still use carbs, especially when you see these programmes on TV on modifying. Any particular reason for this? Easily tunable?

Hardly a lot of American cars any more to be honest. Even the Americans catch up eventually! As for reasons for using a carb setup - despends entirely on the engine as to why they'd use them. A friend of mine has a big (528ci) Hemi in his '69 Daytona that runs a pair of big 4bbl Holleys. He could convert to fuel injection, but since he knows carb setups pretty well he sticks with it. Not as if he needs to improve the fuel economy, given the type of car we're talking about...

 

[Gibbo]

I disagree. It's pretty much as a primative as most Yank V8's and needs money spending on it to be any good.

4.6 litres, 300bhp and 28mpg extraurban/18mpg urban? That's pretty apalling. Compared to, say, BMW's current 3 litre engine in a similar sized car, 3 Coupe - this has 272bhp, does 22mpg around town, and is quoted as 43.5mpg extra urban due to the direct injection technology it has. THIS is a properly designed engine.

So what happens when you give a European manufacturer yank sized capacity? Well, unsuprisingly, you get engines far superior to the primative stuff the Yanks are still chucking in cars. The 4.8 in the current 5 Series develops 370bhp, 500nm of torque, delivers similar economy around town to the far less powerful Mustang and can still pull mid 30's on a cruise.

American engines are lazy and of low technology and unless you throw money at tuning them, are almost always embarrased by the technical superiority of their European Counterparts.

Hi there

Question is though how much does the BMW engine cost in comparison? No denying the BMW engines are more advanced and have a lot more technology behind them to make them more efficient. Still is it possible to take these engines to 600BHP on the stock internals and upto 700nm and still expect it to be a reliable daily driver?

How tunable is the 4.8 in the BMW at 370BHP? Is it possible to get more from it via bolt-ons and tuning? Possible to add FI without the need to replace the internals?

I'd say the 14-16MPG I get which comes from using only gears to 1-4 and a lot of loud pedal is pretty impressive. The fact it can manage close to 25MPG on a run from an engine with similar power and more torque than both BMW's V8 and V10 in their M cars is impressive. I don't know what the M5 does economy wise on paper but in actual use its no better than my Mustang yet its engine probably cost 5x more than both my engine and supercharger did together.

 

[Dogbreath]

my mates family car is a 5.7v6 (maybe v8 cant remember) petrol pickup thing its huge, and yet only has 380hp which again is rubbish for that engine size.

Thats about 66bhp/litre. For an average familly car that's pretty much the same as european cars, e.g. 2.0L Mondeo or Vectra at around 130bhp.

If you think you need high specific power output to go quickly, have a look at the TVR Chimaera 400, 3947cc V8 giving 240bhp = 59.5bhp/litre and that is a car that will manage 0-60 in well under 5 seconds.

 

[Tomsk]

0-60 5.2s, 1/4 mile 13.5s

Are these performance figures any good?

0-60mph 5.2 seconds
1/4 mile 13.5 seconds

I know the 0-60 is good, but don't know about the 1/4 mile.

The figures are for my next car, which I intend to buy in about 3 years time for ~£20-£25k

I'll tell you what the car is later

edit : Automatic gearbox btw

EDIT: This was supposed to be a new thread. Could someone report it to a mod for moving please.

 

[JRS]

Are these performance figures any good?

0-60mph 5.2 seconds
1/4 mile 13.5 seconds

That 1/4 time is about a half second slower than a Ferrari 355, so pretty reasonable.

***edit***

Oh, and to compare with an even more hi-tech and modern European car, a BMW 335i does the standing quarter in 13.6 seconds.