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Old 05-01-2001, 12:05 PM   #16
tw
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Re: What companies do you like?

Quote:
Originally posted by russotto
...
As for the venerable 302, it's hardly low-performance. Low tech, yes, but not low performance.
205 or 215 horsepower divided by 5.0 liters is 41 or 43 Hp per liter - one of the lowest performance, fuel injected, auto engines in the world at that time. The Mustang 5.0 obviously is a low performance engine. Energy that should have been moving the car instead advertises its low performance - loudly. You can tell a low performance engine either by the sound or by the arithmetic. Either way, the obsolete technology Ford 302 is a low performance engine.

So why did they make it? A few engineers were collected to throw together a car using existing parts (minimal design) to sell to those who cannot do the math - the Mustang 5.0. It was designed for people who know nothing about cars but who are impressed by G forces on their sexual organs.
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Old 05-02-2001, 08:58 PM   #17
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Re: Re: What companies do you like?

Quote:
Originally posted by tw
Quote:
Originally posted by russotto
...
As for the venerable 302, it's hardly low-performance. Low tech, yes, but not low performance.
205 or 215 horsepower divided by 5.0 liters is 41 or 43 Hp per liter - one of the lowest performance, fuel injected, auto engines in the world at that time. The Mustang 5.0 obviously is a low performance engine. Energy that should have been moving the car instead advertises its low performance - loudly. You can tell a low performance engine either by the sound or by the arithmetic. Either way, the obsolete technology Ford 302 is a low performance engine.

Horsepower per liter doesn't measure anything particularly interesting in terms of performance. Displacement has no negative impact on performance that justifies dividing by it.

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Old 05-03-2001, 11:14 AM   #18
adamzion
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Re: Re: Re: What companies do you like?

Quote:
Originally posted by russotto
Horsepower per liter doesn't measure anything particularly interesting in terms of performance.
[/b]
True enough, but it does say something about the level of engineering which went into an engine.

Here's a case in point. A friend of mine once had a mid-70s vintage GM car which had a 4 liter straight 6 cylinder engine that yielded 120 HP. That works out to 30 HP/L. At the same time, I was driving a '95 Dodge Neon, with a 2-leter 4 cylinder engine that yielded 150 HP. That's 75 HP/L. The Neon, as you might expect, got better mileage, better performance, and was probably more reliable (although this old beast <b>was</b> still going after ~25 years, so make of it what you will).

The lesson? Better engineering in the case of the newer car yielded a more effecient <b>and</b> more powerful engine. In the older car, GM engineers simply tried to give it more power by making the engine bigger- and less fuel-effecient. That's indicative of less engineering know-how going into an engine.

Y'see?
Z
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Old 05-03-2001, 12:26 PM   #19
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What companies do you like?

Quote:
Originally posted by adamzion
Quote:
Originally posted by russotto
Horsepower per liter doesn't measure anything particularly interesting in terms of performance.
That's indicative of less engineering know-how going into an engine.

[/b]
Not necessarially less engineering know-how. Perhaps just less engineering *effort*. They didn't put much work into making cars more fuel-efficent 'cause it wasn't worth trying when gas was 25 cents a gallon.

Although I am sure that they would not have been able to achieve what can be done now even if they *had* tried.
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Old 05-04-2001, 10:39 AM   #20
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What companies do you like?

Quote:
Originally posted by adamzion
Quote:
Originally posted by russotto
Horsepower per liter doesn't measure anything particularly interesting in terms of performance.
True enough, but it does say something about the level of engineering which went into an engine. [/b]
It's a very indirect measure of that, and I think mostly only holds because the larger engines tended to be the older engines. The C5 Corvette engine is certainly well engineered, but no V8 is going to get as high an HP/l engine as a small 4.
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Old 05-04-2001, 09:05 PM   #21
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Re: What companies do you like?

Once upon a time, cars were designed in companies run by 'car guys'. The average performance 350 cu in engine output about 200 horsepower. 1960 engineers also developed high performance versions - including the famous 350/350. That was 350 cubic inches producing 350 horsepower. That was high performance.

Then came the 1970s, MBAs, pollution problems, cost controls, etc. So how to you produce high performance engines when the top man is a cost controller? You lie. In this thread are classic symptoms of those lies. You make people think that high performance means big engines. That is the same propaganda technique was used on Madision Ave to addict 14 year olds. Twist the truth so that the many 'feel' they know - the facts be damned.

Making decisions based upon feelings: a murder of seven Challenger astronauts, plug-in surge protectors, blaming Japan when the American economy was shit, not blaming Spindler and Sculley for the destruction of innovation in Apple Computers, "there was plenty of blame to go around", the price of gasoline is too high. All are conclusion based upon feel rather than upon fact. It is just what makes 'spin doctors' so rich.

NACAR is a classic example. They use a 5.7 liter engine to only go 140 MPH. Indy racers use something around a 2.x engine to go 220 MPH - IOW put almost 2.5 times more engery in the car with less than half the engine.

Horsepower per liter does measure high performance. Anybody can build a 10 liter engine. Design News demonstrated how three engineers designed and prototyped a 7 liter engine in just over 3 months. It was big. Using the logic of russotto, it was high performance. It was not high performance. The engineers said so. It was a big, low performance engine - which is what they needed. They needed a higher horsepower engine where size was not relevant. IOW they threw together a low performance, higher power engine.

GM performance from this months Consumer Reports: Chevy, Buick, Pontiac and GMC sell 14 basic engines with various degrees of performance.

Two 4 cylinder engines are 1.8 liters : 69 Hp/liter actually designed by Toyota AND the 2.0 liter : 63 Hp/liter engine by Iszuzu. GM's own 2.2 come in 52 and 53 Hp/liter - clearly lower perforance engines for 2000 standards but high performance engines by 1960s standards.

V-6 engines. 3.1 liter comes in 55 or 56 Hp/l versions. 3.4 liter engine has four performance variations - 50, 51, 53, and 54. The 3.8 has two performances - 53 & 54 Hp/liter. The 4.3 is the dog still made mostly for SUVs at 41, 44, and 46 HP/l. Why upgrade the dog when look what just came off the drawing board: a model year 2002 Chevy Avalanche contains their new 4.2 liter enginer - a 64 Horsepower per liter engine. Amazing! Chevy sells an average performance engine. Why the higher perforance? Even GM eventually let their engineers sell current technology - all be it too late.

V-8 engines are also low performance since they are really only for those who 'feel' rather than think - those who think big means high performance.

4.8 liter : 46 and 57 Hp/liter
5.3 : 53 Hp/l
5.7 : 53, 54, 56, and a special 57 Hp/l only for Camaro.
6.0 : 46 Hp/l

However I left out one engine recently designed. A new higher performance version of the 5.7 has finally arrived just for the Corvette. All other 5.7 liter engines remain low performance. But this last year, the Corvette now has 67 Hp/liter - average performance engine (which I understand they did with only two valves per cylinder!).

If Hp/liter did not measure performance, then why do the high performance cars get high performance engines - as indicated by Horsepower per liter? Why do older technology engines with less machine tolerances also get lower horsepower per liter? Why? Hp/l measures performance.


Let's look at other automakers. Lexus cars have five versions of three engines - all between 70 and 73 Horsepower per liter. No wonder Lexus are so quiet, responsive, reliable and have better performance.

Acura has seven versions of three engines in various performance levels of 64, 69, 70, 78, 81, 94 and 108 horsepower per liter (all fuel injected - no superchargers or turbochargers). Acura, a higher performance automobile also demonstrates that Horsepower per liter measures performance.

Porshe: 78 and 80 Horsepower per liter.

Toyota makes a high performance car called Celica at 78 Hp/liter AND 100 horsepower per liter. Honda makes the high performance S2000: 120 horsepower per liter. At 2 liters, this high performance car produces more horsepower than a 5.0 Mustang. Why? 5.0 Mustangs always were low performance cars.

Even in turbo and supercharged vehicles, the Hp/liter holds. Audi TT - a car almost impossible to obtain in Europe or the US is 100 and 125 Hp per liter only using turbocharing. Turbocharged VW and Audi A4 only do about 94 Hp/liter. Did you know that the Buick Regal /Park Ave and Pontiac Gran Prix have supercharged engines? Therefore they must be higher performance than Audis and VWs. Wrong. These GM products are a pathetic 63 horsepower per liter - making GMs supercharged products even inferior to every non-turbo / non-superchargeds Lexus!

Again Hp/liter measures performance.

Of course if you are Madison Ave, then you know the public is stupid. They can be made to believe anything (including a George Bush promise to protect the environment and to protect human rights). Therefore lie to the nieve. Get them to think high performance is a big engine - fast car. That is just what NASCAR has you believe.

Although NASCARs are much higher performance than licensed vehicles, they are low performance compared to most racing cars. NASCAR uses the biggest engines to go the slowest. In racing, NASCAR can lie to a public easily decieved (one that actually believed smoking was good for your health). You see it in previous posts of this thread. Some actually believe that Horsepower per liter does not measure performance.

Big never measured performance. If it did then Russians would have the world's highest performance jet fighters. Performance ,even in fighter planes, is measured by things such as more horsepower per pound of engine.

Size never measured performance - except where people are easily decieved.
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Old 05-05-2001, 09:10 AM   #22
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Re: Re: What companies do you like?

Quote:
Originally posted by tw

Size never measured performance - except where people are easily decieved.
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Old 05-05-2001, 10:21 PM   #23
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Re: What companies do you like?

Quote:
Originally posted by richlevy
Quote:
Originally posted by tw
Size never measured performance - except where people are easily decieved.
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Old 05-06-2001, 02:50 PM   #24
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Re: Re: What companies do you like?

That's quite a rant, but what it lacks is any indication of why HP/l should be considered a measure of performance. The RX/7 13B twin turbo would probably be the highest performance engine ever sold in America, with an astonishing 194 hp/l (255hp @ 1300cc). Yet while it is a high perfomance engine, it's not considered astoundingly superior to anything else out there. That's because while hp/l is an interesting benchmark, and also has some relevance due to foreign taxes on displacement, it's not a particularly good measure of performance.
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Old 05-07-2001, 04:01 AM   #25
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Re: What companies do you like?

Quote:
Originally posted by russotto
The RX/7 13B twin turbo would probably be the highest performance engine ever sold in America, with an astonishing 194 hp/l (255hp @ 1300cc). Yet while it is a high perfomance engine, it's not considered astoundingly superior to anything else out there.
You would compare a rotary engine to a piston engine? Why not just compare a ramjet with an electric motor. To make your point, you must compare a wankel to a wankel. You compared apples to oranges AND provides no science facts to support your claim.

Hp / liter measures performance. Some would falsely claim that a bigger engine is high performance engine because they are victims of 'feeling' rather than 'thinking'? The current Liza Thomas Laury 'feeling' of high performance was generated by Madison Ave propaganda - to coverup that America in and after the 1970s made NO high performance auto engines. Horsepower per liter is an accurate performance measurement for similar engines.

Those lower performance engines also are machined to much poorer tolerances - of course. They are, for example, the 1960s technology engines that are still so popular in low performance, overhyped GM products.
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Old 05-08-2001, 11:11 AM   #26
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Re: Re: What companies do you like?

Quote:
Originally posted by tw
Quote:
Originally posted by russotto
The RX/7 13B twin turbo would probably be the highest performance engine ever sold in America, with an astonishing 194 hp/l (255hp @ 1300cc). Yet while it is a high perfomance engine, it's not considered astoundingly superior to anything else out there.
You would compare a rotary engine to a piston engine?
Sure, they both run on gasoline, right? Of course, it is a silly comparison -- but it only underscores the meaninglessness of hp/l as a measure of performance.

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Old 05-08-2001, 06:54 PM   #27
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Re: Re: Re: What companies do you like?

Quote:
Originally posted by russotto
Sure, they both run on gasoline, right? Of course, it is a silly comparison -- but it only underscores the meaninglessness of hp/l as a measure of performance.
A motor and human both run on alcohol. Using your logic, we should compare the performance of these two "apples and oranges".

However if we used valid statistics, then clearly horsepower per liter is a standard measure of performance for internal combustion engines of the same technology.

Then there is always someone who wants to distort numbers to compare a Stanley steamer (external combustion) engine to a Diesel (internal combustion) engine just to prove themselves correct. The Stanley Steamer has a big boiler, therefore lower performance?

Russotto - performance is measured by horsepower per liter which proves that the 5.0 Liter Mustang is one of the world's low performance engines. Ford engineers knew this. They also knew that many don't understand performance (or cars) and therefore would buy these obsolete technologies as if they were high tech. Your comparison of 'apples to oranges' only suggests that you are a target market for this low performance, high volume, overhyped, low reliability vehicle. People who know cars understand that the 5.0 Mustang (and most GM cars) are low performance vehicles - products to be avoided due to their obsolete technologies, low reliabilities, and excessively high prices.

People who know race cars also know that NASCAR are low performance, obsolete technology race cars. Ahhh but hype is what attracts those who 'feel' rather than 'think'. Most NASCAR fans who also don't know anything about racing. Of course a NASCAR fan probably would not say "anything". He would say "shit". But then that also is indicative of his knowledge.
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Old 05-09-2001, 07:34 AM   #28
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What companies do you like?

Quote:
Originally posted by tw
Quote:
Originally posted by russotto
Sure, they both run on gasoline, right? Of course, it is a silly comparison -- but it only underscores the meaninglessness of hp/l as a measure of performance.
A motor and human both run on alcohol. Using your logic, we should compare the performance of these two "apples and oranges".

Actually, I run on ATP. Alcohol must go through many transformations before it becomes useful as a fuel.

[quote]
However if we used valid statistics, then clearly horsepower per liter is a standard measure of performance for internal combustion engines of the same technology.
[quote]

Argument by assertion is pointless.

Quote:

if they were high tech. Your comparison of 'apples to oranges' only suggests that you are a target market for this low performance, high volume, overhyped, low reliability vehicle. People who know cars understand that the 5.0 Mustang (and most GM cars) are low performance vehicles - products to be avoided due to their obsolete technologies, low reliabilities, and excessively high prices.
Argument by insult doesn't work too well either. Actually, I drive a car with a 1.8L 135hp engine.

The problem with using hp/l as a measure of performance is it indicates that increasing the displacement of an engine somehow reduces its performance. It gives the impression, for example, that a 1.0l engine which develops 75hp is higher performance than a 2.0l engine which develops 130hp -- even if the engines are the same weight and approximately the same size.
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Old 05-09-2001, 09:50 AM   #29
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gentlemen, gentlemen! surely we can agree that there are other things worth measuring in a vehicle besides the relative power of its engine. cars must provide power to the wheels but they must also do so much more. they must, for example, stop once in a while. they must turn. and their front passenger space must provide adequate room for oral sex.

maybe hp/l is an adequate measure of similarly sized engines. i would venture to guess that the mentioned stang 5.0L and its 215 hp is downright cruddy and laughable next to the BMW M5, whose 4.9L engine produces 394 hp. (that's 80hp/l in a massively sized engine which i'm sure is a major feat)

i get to make the point since i started the damn thread and you people changed the subject. although i am a big fan of the BMW and a Ford-basher in general, there are times when i'd rather have the stang. granted most of those times are when i want a POS car to park on south st. but money is an object to the engineers as well.

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Old 05-09-2001, 08:56 PM   #30
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What companies do you like?

Quote:
Originally posted by russotto
The problem with using hp/l as a measure of performance is it indicates that increasing the displacement of an engine somehow reduces its performance. It gives the impression, for example, that a 1.0l engine which develops 75hp is higher performance than a 2.0l engine which develops 130hp -- even if the engines are the same weight and approximately the same size.
But they are not the same weight or size. Increasing displacement also does not decrease performance. A 2 liter engine gets 140 Hp. An equivalent 5 liter engine gets 350 Hp. They have the same performance. A standard performance 3.5 liter V-6 engine gets about 240 Hp. To get 240 Hp from an obsolete technology (low performance) engine, that would be a 4.7 liter V-8 in the Jeep Grand Cherokee. To get the same horsepower, the low performance engine adss more pistons, valves, block, head, fuel injectors, etc. IOW lower performance results in a larger engine and a vehicle that costs more to build.

Guess what. GM low performance engined cars cost more to build than equally equipped Mercedes Benz - because GM uses lesser technology, lower performance. This is further confirmed by a well know industry fact - GM earns no profits on their automobiles - using SUVs to cover up auto losses.

Whether it is a 1.8 liter 135 Hp engine or a 5.7 liter. Both will have the same performance if designed and machined to the same technologies. Based upon the 1.8 liter performance, then how many horse should the 5.7 produce? 425 Hp. The Corvette only does 385 Hp because it does not have the same performance - the Corvette it is a lesser designed engine hyped to the ignorant as a high performance automobile.
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