Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra
After WW-2, increased power demand for car engines was (also) solved by raising the compression and the revolutions per minute. This was an ongoing "race" where engine and petrol engineering go hand in hand. After raising compression and revolutions came the exhaust turbo in the 80s and today the race is on to extract even more power from smaller engines because we strive to lower CO2 and other emissions. State of the art: a 1.4 litre engine delivering 170 hp thanks to a compressor plus a turbo.
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Two points:
It's amazing the power engineers are getting out of the smaller engines these days. Case in point: I remember my old 1968 Mercury Cougar put 210hp out of a 5.0l V8 while my wife's 2007 Mazda CX7 gets 244hp from it's diminutive 2.26l four cylinder. To add to the Ethanol debate, the manufacturer warns against using fuel that is higher than 15% ethanol due to detonation, I surmise with the compression from the turbo. How this is going to play out with talk of E85 fuel in the future is beyond me. Perhaps the U.S. government will have another Cash-for-Clunkers program as so many of the vehicles currently produced won't be able to use the new fuel. Whatever they decide, I'm sure it will be based on fuzzy science such as global cooling, sorry, warming and the need to quit financing Islamic terrorism with our petro dollars.
Derek.