On Fri, 10 Dec 1999, George Hernandez wrote:
[...]
> And there are countless other street driven (V-8)cars that can claim the same.
>
> Trucks are a little harder to make fast, but then again an omni was mentioned.
> Obviously with the same budget I personally think its gonna be easier to make a
> v-8 fast. Its nice to see people working hard to make up for their lack of
> displacement but to say that a v-6 or 4 cyl is better than a v-8 (in most cases
> anyway) is ludicrous.
Agreed. The old "there is no replacement for displacement" adage does
hold true. The more fuel and air you can burn at any given time, the more
power you will make, all else being equal. I greatly enjoy hearing about
and seeing 4 and 6 bangers that equal or beat bigger motors though,
especially when they do so in some innovative way that can be applied to
any engine. That is, they have some great obstacles to overcome, and in
doing so, they can get pretty creative, and help us all out in the process.
A common comeback to someone who said "there is no replacement for
displacement" was to say that a turbocharger more than makes up for the
difference. Of course, this meant that "all else" was no longer equal.
Recently, I have noticed more and more people taking the next logical
step and asking themselves, "well, if turbochargers make these little
riceburners so fast, what would happen if I put it on my V8??" The
answer is street legal cars running 7-9 second 1/4 mile passes!! I don't
know what the holdback has been; until recently, turbos have only shown up
on small displacement engines (aircraft and large diesels aside), and
I think people are starting to realize that they work just as well on
bigger engines. I don't expect the automobile manufacturers to adopt
this practice anytime soon (or ever, for that matter); its a good
thing there are a handful of insane individuals willing to experiment
and expand the envelope of this little hobby of ours. :-)
-Jon-
.--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu ----------------------------------------.
| Jon Steiger * AOPA, DoD, EAA, MP Race Team, NMA, SPA, USUA * RP-SEL |
| '96 Dodge Dakota V8, '96 Suzuki Intruder 1400, '96 Kolb FireFly 447 |
`--------------------------- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---'
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