Engine Sizes

DAIR · 19 Jan 2011 at 16:41

What are your thoughts on industry wide reduction in engine sizes?

The japs use to love the inline-6. These are now Gone (pushed over in the mid '90s iirc).

Small 2 litre hot hatches are replaced by smaller 1.6 or 1.4 engines with turbos strapped to them to make up for the engines otherwise poor output.

The once REV-Happy V10 BMW M5/M6 is to be replaced with a Turbo powered V8.

All this in an effort to save our Planet.

One other question -

Are you a Turbo or N/A man... or woman?

DAIR · 19 Jan 2011 at 16:51

the_r_sole said:
what i'm waiting for is a car with cruise control/gps that would stop me speeding.....

Going to go a little off topic here.

Can anyone tell me why cars dont come with a fixed speed limit (say 70mph for all cars in GB)?

DAIR · 19 Jan 2011 at 17:04

Alistairk said:
I am hurting the environment less than someone doing a 40 mile commute in a small turbo car.

lol I've made a similar point (with a mate) regarding Road tax. I dont drive that often and I have to pay over £200 per year... Yet my friend across the street in his Toyota IQ pays next to nothing.... and drive to the bloody corner shop.... Anyway... back on topic!

DAIR · 19 Jan 2011 at 20:12

Lucero said:
Because that would be stupidly dangerous

Please explain..

DAIR · 19 Jan 2011 at 20:13

dazz25 said:
Looks like the new RenaultSport Clio is going to be a 1.6 turbo (Nissan engine) if the rumours are true. Hope not, I love mine and don't think it'll be the same with a turbo strapped to it!

I think the RS clios will follow suit.

DAIR · 19 Jan 2011 at 20:20

semi-pro waster said:
Because it's a bad and unsafe idea. One way to think of it is for overtakes - if your car is fixed absolutely to 70mph max then if you choose to try and overtake someone going at slightly under the speed limit your time exposed to danger (at least I've been told that's the correct phrase as per advanced driving courses) is greatly increased so rather than limiting you to 70mph being safer it becomes more unsafe.

Yet its perfectly fine to restrict small vans?

DAIR · 19 Jan 2011 at 20:24

Janesy B said:
Small vans don't usually have the power to overtake anyway I suspect it's in place to reign in some of the lunatics in vans.

lol so then what of your average driver?

So you've said it would be dangerous to limit to 70 incase one needed to overtake. So why not raise the limit to around 80 or 90. No car needs to go above 140

DAIR · 19 Jan 2011 at 20:28

[TW]Fox;18268450 said:
The Motorways are not full of people doing 140mph+ though, so it's fixing a problem that doesnt exist.

No, but the opportunity to do so is there.

DAIR · 19 Jan 2011 at 20:33

Amp34 said:
On a similar subject what is the average engine size sold around 1990 and today? Was having this discussion a while ago with a friend and I suggested (completely without evidence) that the average engine on the road today was around 2L.

Id put the avg size in the '90s at around 2litres.

DAIR · 20 Jan 2011 at 09:21

Nickg said:
Isn't that what killed the 2zz and the high rev Honda engined so the reason for changing to low displacement high technical didn't pay off as they have been killed too.

In this country at least.

Not sure how it'll make a difference to the atmosphere though...

DAIR · 20 Jan 2011 at 09:22

Gaygle said:
Large engines with turbos make me happy. Ala x35i's - the best of both worlds!

.... Even in the new BMW 1M Coupe?

DAIR · 20 Jan 2011 at 09:23

Jonnycoupe said:
This is quite simple really.

There are no limits on CO2, this is evident by the fact you can still buy a Veyron, all the hyperbole is really off the mark. Taxation on CO2 is just an attempt to influence consumer choices.

Emissions are nasty stuff that the EURO emission targets set limits for.

The wiki graph is a decent simplification of the targets for some pollutants, of course EU5 came in at the end of 2010 not 2008.

Source for a read if you want to see in more detail:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards

Do these limitations only apply to mass produced cars?

DAIR · 20 Jan 2011 at 09:46

dazz25 said:
I think (might be completely wrong!) that it is a fleet average. So as long as all of the cars within the manufacturers fleet stay under this average it'll be ok.

So what about the super cars?

DAIR · 20 Jan 2011 at 12:08

Simon said:
This is why you see VW with Porsche and Fiat with Ferrari.

Supercars are low volume so the effect on the averages will be relatively small

Ah I see. Guess that makes sense then.

DAIR · 20 Jan 2011 at 18:48

Alibaba99 said:
And Aston Martin with the Cygnet.

He means VW and and Fiat dont make supercars because they own companies like Porsche and Ferrari

DAIR · 20 Jan 2011 at 21:30

Alibaba99 said:
Look at it the other way. The average for Ferrari and Porsche is extremely high, this is offset by the bucket loads of Bluemotions and Twin Airs that will be sold through their parent companies.

Yep, Fully understand your point.

Who is causing more harm than good?

Those few in the super cars..... Or the many tens of thousands in their toyota pirus' lol

DAIR · 20 Jan 2011 at 21:43

Wikipedia make him sound rather clever...... Its cute!

DAIR · 20 Jan 2011 at 21:47

At 30k (3 times the price of a normal IQ) I doubt they'll be for everyone!

They're the IMac pros of the car world!

DAIR · 21 Jan 2011 at 09:39

Ricochet J said:
http://events.imeche.org/EventView.aspx?EventID=1000

This is a lecture headed by the IMechE to do with engine downsizing. It's costs money to attend but the minutes of the lecture and supporting notes/slides/presentations are usually posted on the website shortly after the event.

Anyway as much as I hate to say it but engine downsizing is going to become more and more mainstream. It'll reduce manufacturing costs, reduce emissions and increase the efficiencies of an engine.

And reduce the overall fun factor.

Next car will be old school jap.

DAIR · 21 Jan 2011 at 13:03

Simon said:
Ah so regurgitated information rather than core understanding is what you rely on?

Often I see some of your technical replies, I then put that into google and the first search is obviously where you selected text and used ctrl C...

lol Wiki is his friend!

I simple copy and paste clearly wasnt enough. Wording had to be altered to conceal the true source