624 replies to this topic

[McGuire]

Eh, you wonder if the 1994 Ilmor 265E / Mercedes 500i was more powerful than the Buicks built according the same rules?

The Mercedes had at least 950 hp in practice which was even conservative because the team did not want to get maximum power in order to enhance reliability for the brand new engine. On the testbenc it was calculated to be capable of 1024 hp.
The 1994 Menards/Buicks were about 850 to 900 hp that year though it is told that there were some handgranade Menards that were capable of producing more but not surviving it.
Have no illusions about the US build pushrod hardware, it was outclassed by the puropose build and designed Ilmor.
Which was no shame since the Ilmor was designed as an all-out racing engine with pushrods and the Buick V6 definitely not.


Henri

I don't know about '94, but in '95-'96 the Menard Buick was comfortably over 1000 hp, or so it was quietly claimed. But just as you say, it was still a grenade. At max output the reliability and fuel consumption were horrible. Against the Ilmor it was the classic knife vs. gun fight.

A good person for you to talk to in your project is Butch Meyer. (Son of Sonny, grandson of Louie.) He was a key man in the Menard engine program with a thorough grounding in the other Indy engines as well. Shouldn't be too hard to find him -- until recently he was technical director of the Indy Lights series before leaving to do some things on his own. Last I heard he was working with Jim Guthrie.

[cheapracer]

the F50 V12 is 26lbs lighter than the Corvette LS7, and makes a similar amount of power, whilst being 4.7l vs 7l.

Yep, disgusting isn't it!

I wonder if Enzo were alive if he would take the Corvette on head to head at their own game?

How about a 7litre DOHC V8 unit (lighter than a LS7 being 1 target) for the California?

[Henri Greuter]

Just noticed that the F50 V12 is 26lbs lighter than the Corvette LS7, and makes a similar amount of power, whilst being 4.7l vs 7l.

IIRC that engine has a legitimate link to F1....not like most.

Well, to defend the pushrod within the comparison, don't forget that all of the metal above the cylinder adds up big time to the weight. For all its efficiency, DOHC comes at a price

visiting the IMS museum I have always been shocke to see the Turbo-Ford being so awfully big compared with the equal capacity DFX.

Making one step firther back in time....

Regrettably, there are hardly any of the 9 built engines left to visualize the difference...
But I think that the 1963 Fairlane as used in the Lotus was also much more compact, as well as lighter then the 1964 Quadcam (based on the same block) was.
I can't/won't deny that in such evaluations the pushrods come of better.
But the Fairlane wasn't replaced for no reason at all by the Quadcam....


Henri

[Henri Greuter]

I don't know about '94, but in '95-'96 the Menard Buick was comfortably over 1000 hp, or so it was quietly claimed. But just as you say, it was still a grenade. At max output the reliability and fuel consumption were horrible. Against the Ilmor it was the classic knife vs. gun fight.

A good person for you to talk to in your project is Butch Meyer. (Son of Sonny, grandson of Louie.) He was a key man in the Menard engine program with a thorough grounding in the other Indy engines as well. Shouldn't be too hard to find him -- until recently he was technical director of the Indy Lights series before leaving to do some things on his own. Last I heard he was working with Jim Guthrie.

On a different forum I have read things about the tricks Menard was playing in 1995 in order to cheat on the boost. Those 1995 speeds of Menard are `dirty` and not legally acquired.
And how they got away with it that year but at the expense of being dealt poor valves on race day that assured they couldn't play these games on race day anymore.

I talked with Arie Luyendijk about his 1996 record laps and how it surprised me that he could make a Reynard-XB so much faster within a year in 1996 while in 1995 the Menards had been untouchable in that respect. Arie then told me that there were things going on at Menards that he was not in support with and that it was one of the reasons that he did not want to stay on with Menard anymore for 1996. But since the gains Menard made in 1996 over 1995 was much less that the Reynard XB did from 1995 to 1996, Arie was pretty sure that Menard was not playing any games like the year before anymore in 1996. Thus that he took them on with them playing fair and square this time. Which made beating them for outright speeds as he did so satisfying.....
Arie never told me what was going on at Menard in 1995. But having read that thread, I think I know what they were doing and it at least confirmed for me that Arie had indeed told the truth, if the increases in speed differences from 1995 to 1996 for a Reynard-XB and a Lola-Menard had not confirmed that story already.
Unless the Reynard was a chassis with tons of untapped potential in '95 which Arie managed to uncork in 1996,
And if that was the case, then i really, really regret that Arie never accepted the offer he got to drive the second Tasman Recing Reynard-Honda in 1995, the car that eventually went to: Scott Goodyear!
And we know what he did with that car. But if Arie had a knack on how to dial in a Reynard like he did in 1996 one year earlier in that Tasman Reynard-Honda????

Oh well....




Henri

Edited by Henri Greuter, 18 August 2009 - 14:00.

[Henri Greuter]

Yep, disgusting isn't it!

I wonder if Enzo were alive if he would take the Corvette on head to head at their own game?

How about a 7litre DOHC V8 unit (lighter than a LS7 being 1 target) for the California?

Won't fit in such a small car....
Besides that, they are already trying to make the smaller V8s more attractive and make it comparable with the outputs of the by now imagewise unacceptable V12 monsters....


Henri

[Bob Riebe]

How much torque it produces at 2500 rpm isn't really that relevant as you would select the proper gearing for it. But pulling a 2000 lb trailer up a mountain isn't a problem, neither is engine braking on the way down. But any 2 lite four cylinder engine should be able to do that without too much difficulty.

This is about gasoline engines, not diesels as the paramaters in which diesel performacne is adjusted, is not the same as gasoline engines.

If a little four or six cylinder engine is just as good as a v-8, push-rod or multi-valve, then how come the full-size Japanese pick-ups have mid-size v-8s for a load rating and not the little four or six cylinder engines.
You just said that a four cylinder engine would handle what I mentioned as well , with no more strain, than the p-r v-8s , so why are they not used?

Grunguru:
You are not speaking of the abilities of the engines, you are using a how a vehicle is geared, (yes I know if one wants to be intelligent in buying a car, one WILL look at that equation) as the joker in the equation.

My 2,500 rpm is not a special figure, it is one I picked because U.S. p-r can run at that speed all day long, with little effort pulling a trailer.
Can his four cylinder pull the same trailer, with the same load at the same unstressed engine speed all day long.
IF not then his engine is more stressed to perform the same task.
Can his engine go up and down hills from five to thirty degrees, with no more effort than the large U.S. v-8?
IF you for some reason, NEEDED without exception engne brakng to get down a hill and not **** your pants, would his four banger do as well as the p-r vee-eight or ANY vee-eight?

IF the simple task of correct gearing was the magic-bullet, then how come trucks use larger and larger engines, rather than simply adjust the gearing?

This is all greatly over simplified but then so were his statements and answers.

Edited by Bob Riebe, 18 August 2009 - 17:39.

[Nathan]

It doesn't matter. What matters is something a bit more complex:

"An example - two very unrealistic engines but simplified to illustrate the point.

Engine A. 100 lbs/ft of torque from 2,000 RPM to 10,000 RPM torque drops off sharply either side of that range.
Engine B. 200 lbs/ft of torque from 2,000 RPM to 5,000 RPM torque drops off sharply either side of that range. (they obviously both have the same peak power - A at 10,000 and B at 5,000) Which one has better pulling ability ("torquiness") from a standing start?

Engine B with double the torque? No - its engine A.

If we put a 2:1 reduction on the output shaft of engine A, it will have 200 lbs/ft of torque from 1,000 RPM to 5,000 RPM - clearly torquier than engine B."

How is the MPG?

I'm not sure if all of this has spawned from my question regarding OHV vs. DOHC, but the reason I brought it up is because from a production standpoint OHV makes more sense in many ways. I understand DOHC will always make more peak power, torque and be more efficient in how it uses fuel by volume, but as a package it seems better suited in some applications.

[Wuzak]

Yep, disgusting isn't it!

I wonder if Enzo were alive if he would take the Corvette on head to head at their own game?

How about a 7litre DOHC V8 unit (lighter than a LS7 being 1 target) for the California?

Why would they when the California already has 460hp from 4.3l and the slightly enlarged 458 has 570hp?

[gruntguru]

Grunguru:
You are not speaking of the abilities of the engines, you are using a how a vehicle is geared, (yes I know if one wants to be intelligent in buying a car, one WILL look at that equation) as the joker in the equation.

No, I am speaking about the engines. If you put engine A and it's 2:1 reduction into a black box with just a shaft sticking out, it will look a lot like engine B except the torque extends down another 1000 rpm.

Edited by gruntguru, 19 August 2009 - 05:45.

[Henri Greuter]

Yep, disgusting isn't it!

I wonder if Enzo were alive if he would take the Corvette on head to head at their own game?

How about a 7litre DOHC V8 unit (lighter than a LS7 being 1 target) for the California?

I think Enzo would not do such. Remember that back in the 60's when Ford threw those locmotive sized GT40 out, Ferrari did not follow that.
He stuck with smaller engines with more `rafinesse` despite the fact that back in the 50's there had been ther 4.5 liter V12 (like used in the 375 Plus) to fall back upon if bigger engines had been a suitable/acceptable solution for him. But the 4.5 leter was long a dated design by then.

I already mentioned a 7 liter DOHC engine to be too big for the California. But I also believe that making such an engine lighter then the Corvette engine is about next to impossible without using extremely light and thus expensive alloys (magnesium based?) It remains a fact that with equal capacity and assuming the blocks are made from the same material, a DOHC engine will be more heavy than a Pushrod (Detroit style) engine.

And as already stated by others as well, if a 4.3 produces close to 500 hp already, why bother with building a 7 liter DOHC V8? What car can use 900 or more HP? Only to show off?
Ferrari has participated in the supercar power challenge but never been out ot being the absolutely fastest and most powerful of them all just for the records. That was left to others in order to boost their sales figures. Ferrari didn't need that. Even the F50, not as hailed as the F40 and the Enzo, still sold big time compared with other supercars.

And in the current time of crisis and enviromental thinking, creating a 7 liter DOHC isn't very good for your worldwide (Except the USA) image. Something a number of car builders worldwide are very awared of.


Henri

[cheapracer]

And as already stated by others as well, if a 4.3 produces close to 500 hp already, why bother with building a 7 liter DOHC V8?


Henri

Because of the torque - very suited for the cliental expected to purchase a Cali.


Oh and whats this? The worlds fastest car uses, wait for it....., a Chev 2 valver!
http://network.natio...astest-car.aspx

[gruntguru]

Oh and whats this? The worlds fastest car uses, wait for it....., a Chev 2 valver!
http://network.natio...astest-car.aspx

And he only used half of the available power for his record runs - could he have done it with a 1 valver?

[desmo]

Maybe. Gnome Monosoupape

[gruntguru]

Maybe. Gnome Monosoupape

No - leaves too much oil on the track - bad for traction.

[Canuck]

Oh and whats this? The worlds fastest car uses, wait for it....., a Chev 2 valver!
http://network.natio...astest-car.aspx

Totally (but not completely) unimpressed. I mean, an Ultima with 1600hp would in fact be entertaining and I would be truly impressed once ensconced inside the cozy cockpit, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's a single prototype (near as I can tell) and it cost in excess of a million bucks to beat what Ultima already does with it's own car and Chevy engines (and you could pull that off for well under $200k). It's not the world's fastest (no numbers in that article, just claims), though it may be the quickest. But under what classification? I'll bet there are "street" cars in NMCA that would blow the doors of that thing in it's 0 to 60. And on smaller tires.

I was far more impressed by Kurt Dobson's Ultima with it's claimed 1200hp non-LS SBC. Even more impressive was his creating a software program that "builds" the exhaust system in 3D space based on your constraints (and then spits out an appropriate BOM to build them in the real world). I understand that development effort led to exhaust work in professional racing. Not bad for a retired computer nerd.

[cheapracer]

Totally (but not completely) unimpressed. I mean, an Ultima with 1600hp would in fact be entertaining and I would be truly impressed once ensconced inside the cozy cockpit, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's a single prototype (near as I can tell) and it cost in excess of a million bucks to beat what Ultima already does with it's own car and Chevy engines (and you could pull that off for well under $200k). It's not the world's fastest (no numbers in that article, just claims), though it may be the quickest. But under what classification? I'll bet there are "street" cars in NMCA that would blow the doors of that thing in it's 0 to 60. And on smaller tires.

Did we read the same article?

A couple of points,

Firstly;
Yes he had a million dollar budget yet chose a simple Chev V8 donk to base the effort on.

Secondly;
It was built to obtain the world record for 0-60 times - it acheived it and is the record holder.

After three-and-a-half years, Kirby was ready to take the car to the track, where it shattered three world speed records, including zero to 60 (2.134 seconds), zero to 100 mph (4.541 seconds) and zero-to-100-to-zero (8.861 seconds).

0 to 60 means nothing to me at all but I give respect to those who achieve what they set out to do.

I agree about the 1 million being ridiculous for the result.

Edited by cheapracer, 25 August 2009 - 09:53.

[cheapracer]

Maybe. Gnome Monosoupape

Desmo, you are aware of hundreds of thousands of Detroit Diesels engines in use through history?

http://www.mrsharkey.../vwtp.php?t=376

For those who knows what a Jimmy 671 sounds like we used to have a garbage truck with a Jimmy 6 and a bloody Allison auto - can you imagine what that 'SCREAM' sounded like at 5am in the morning?

Well here what one sounds like on the inside anyway..
http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

[gordmac]

I think Z Cars used to have the 0-60 record with a twin bike engined car. They are in the process of building an Ultima with 4wd and two turbo Hyabusa engines, should be quicker?
http://www.zcars.org...ltima/index.htm

[cheapracer]

They are in the process of building an Ultima with 4wd and two turbo Hyabusa engines, should be quicker?
http://www.zcars.org...ltima/index.htm

I remember seeing that link about 3 or 4 years ago - surely it's done by now!?

If I am correct one engine drives the rear wheels and one drives the fronts - not sure if or how they are coupled.

Just read more here http://www.zcars.org.../conversion.htm 0 to 60 in 2.8.

Edited by cheapracer, 25 August 2009 - 11:37.

[gruntguru]

Desmo, you are aware of hundreds of thousands of Detroit Diesels engines in use through history?

http://www.mrsharkey.../vwtp.php?t=376

For those who knows what a Jimmy 671 sounds like we used to have a garbage truck with a Jimmy 6 and a bloody Allison auto - can you imagine what that 'SCREAM' sounded like at 5am in the morning?

Well here what one sounds like on the inside anyway..
http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Many 2 cycle Detroits have twice as many (exhaust) valves per cylinder as a DOHC 4V!!!

Here's what they really sound like. (Engine starts at about 0:55.)

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Edited by gruntguru, 25 August 2009 - 12:03.

[desmo]

Desmo, you are aware of hundreds of thousands of Detroit Diesels engines in use through history?

http://www.mrsharkey.../vwtp.php?t=376

For those who knows what a Jimmy 671 sounds like we used to have a garbage truck with a Jimmy 6 and a bloody Allison auto - can you imagine what that 'SCREAM' sounded like at 5am in the morning?

Well here what one sounds like on the inside anyway..
http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Well, 2 strokes don't need any valves in the head at all!

[J. Edlund]

This is about gasoline engines, not diesels as the paramaters in which diesel performacne is adjusted, is not the same as gasoline engines.

If a little four or six cylinder engine is just as good as a v-8, push-rod or multi-valve, then how come the full-size Japanese pick-ups have mid-size v-8s for a load rating and not the little four or six cylinder engines.
You just said that a four cylinder engine would handle what I mentioned as well , with no more strain, than the p-r v-8s , so why are they not used?

Grunguru:
You are not speaking of the abilities of the engines, you are using a how a vehicle is geared, (yes I know if one wants to be intelligent in buying a car, one WILL look at that equation) as the joker in the equation.

My 2,500 rpm is not a special figure, it is one I picked because U.S. p-r can run at that speed all day long, with little effort pulling a trailer.
Can his four cylinder pull the same trailer, with the same load at the same unstressed engine speed all day long.
IF not then his engine is more stressed to perform the same task.
Can his engine go up and down hills from five to thirty degrees, with no more effort than the large U.S. v-8?
IF you for some reason, NEEDED without exception engne brakng to get down a hill and not **** your pants, would his four banger do as well as the p-r vee-eight or ANY vee-eight?

IF the simple task of correct gearing was the magic-bullet, then how come trucks use larger and larger engines, rather than simply adjust the gearing?

This is all greatly over simplified but then so were his statements and answers.

The full size japanese pick ups you talk about are built for the US market (often in USA) in order to compete with american built pickups as those were basically alone in that market segment earlier, which was very profitable and the japanse manufacturers wanted a piece of that cake too. However, these pickups are generally only or at least mainly sold in North America. If you want to buy say a Toyota pickup around here you have basically only one option, that is the Toyota Hilux. Hilux comes with two engine options, a 2.5 litre turbodiesel and a 3 litre turbodiesel, both are straight six cylinder engines I think. The 170 hp from the 3 litre engine would hardly offer a staggering performance but it's fine for towing or driving almost anywhere you can drive. British motorshow Top Gear actually drove one of these, with some modifications, to the north pole. But for the american performance oriented pickup buyer it's probably not the right solution. A smaller turbocharged engine is certainly a possebility but to offer the driveability demanded by the average motorist with more than 400 hp from a 2.5 litre engine you would need to look into more expensive solutions in order to get the driveability where you want it. The fuel consumption should be pretty low for a gasoline engined truck though.

Also, I think you're forgetting that a small high specific output engine will be designed differently than a large displacement engine with equal output. Its components will be designed to offer the strength and stiffness required to operate with the kind of peak cylinder pressures, engine speeds and temperatures the engine is subject too. For instance, there can be more material in the cylinder head, which also can be cast from a more heat resistant alloy. Connecting rods, pistons and crankshaft will be stronger compared to the larger naturally aspiranted engine, but at the same time also smaller and/or fewer. In other words, it will handle higher average brake mean effective pressures and/or higher engine speeds to get the job done.

[Canuck]

Did we read the same article?

A couple of points,

Firstly;
Yes he had a million dollar budget yet chose a simple Chev V8 donk to base the effort on.

Secondly;
It was built to obtain the world record for 0-60 times - it acheived it and is the record holder.

After three-and-a-half years, Kirby was ready to take the car to the track, where it shattered three world speed records, including zero to 60 (2.134 seconds), zero to 100 mph (4.541 seconds) and zero-to-100-to-zero (8.861 seconds).

0 to 60 means nothing to me at all but I give respect to those who achieve what they set out to do.

I agree about the 1 million being ridiculous for the result.

Nah - we're reading the same thing. I just can't help but think that spending a million bucks to beat a 0-60, 0-100 and 0-100-0 recrod is...not terribly impressive. Making it that much less impressive, the previous title holder was an Ultima with a Chevy...so...there's not really been any accomplishment. All they've done is get a bigger hammer.

[carlt]

A few years ago production 0-60 was held by a Caterham with 4 pot - thats cheap bang for buck

This thread seems to have wandered a long way off topic

It was originally about comparing :

2.4L , 95kg , V8

5.86L , 260kg , V8



CHALK and CHEESE



springs to mind

[Joe Bosworth]

Edlund,

In my part of the world there are an enormous number of Hiluxs and LandCrushers happily burbling down the roads with twin exhausts out the back. There are a couple of companies that make a pretty good full time living making the changeovers and re-licensing for more than happy owners.

Regards