I just got an email from my friend, really interesting stuff! So before any of you offer to race for pinks, you better know what's under the hood of your competion. I ran an HP calculator and from the weight of his car and ET, I calculate 402 hp at the flywheel. Read on--


There is a story in this months HotRod Magazine about very fast cars
that get good gas mileage too. Basic rule is 20 mpg min and 12 sec
quarter miles. There is a guy in there with a Honda civic 1.5 liter that
runs an 11.07 and gets 28 mpg city 33 mpg highway. Heres the scoop, this
guy is some mad scientist engineer guy who has been known to be able to
extract sick HP from his engines. This 1.5 liter makes 480 HP at 7800
rpm. They wont tell all his secrets but he runs 11.5:1 compression PLUS
a blower. Shouldnt work right???? He claims he has some special
combustion chamber design that allows him to do it.

Anyway check this out. The article says he raced a turbo Porsche and a
Viper for pink slips........... He now owns a Turbo Porsche and
Viper!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you beleive that ****!!!!!!!! THey must
have looked at his little 4 banger and said "no way can that thing make
enough HP to beat me" Dude his motor makes 300 HP/liter!! That is
serious. His car weighs 2300 lbs with him in it.

 

I remember reading in 1965 a Popular Mechanics article about some engineer who developed a rotary combustion engines that developed 335 HP. In the article they said the motor was not much bigger than a 2 lb. coffee can! How many litres is that?

Article went on to say that one of the large US automobile manufacturers immediatedly bought the patent so they would not face a competitor with that engine, and have to re-tool all their engine plants.

Could be a bunch of nonsense. But,I think Popular Mechanics would never had printed the article if they knew it was a hoax.

Also, could be that engine did exist but was never marketed because it may have had major flaws that made it impractical or unreliable.

If I remember correctly Mazda had the Wankel rotary engine they put in their cars but stopped for some reason. Cannot remember what the horsepower and torgue ratings were.
Evidently, those ratings where respectable.

 

Formula 1 cars only make 700-800 hp out of a 3 liter, ie 233 - 266 hp/liter. (at 18,000 rpm)

That is with aluminum-berillium conrods...

Although they did make 1.25Mw out of a 1.5liter turbo in the 80's. (1120 hp/liter)

 

Those old rotary engines sucked down gas like our trucks!
Tom
Oh I forgot!! They suck down oil also.

[This message has been edited by blue blood (edited 02-02-2001).]

 

Isn't the most recent RX-7 still a rotary design?

 

The Porsche 917/30 made 203 h.p./liter. The turbocharged motors in CART racecars make well over 300 h.p./l., but they are turning in excess of 16000 r.p.m. There is no way a 1.5 l. motor can generate the B.M.E.P. at a lowly 7800 r.p.m. to produce 300 h.p./l.

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I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

'84 Alan Record Carbonio, Aerospoke wheels, Campy brakes.
'00 SVT Lightning, silver, built 2/9/00, #133 of 4966, G-tech Pro, JBA headers, 4.10 gears, Swanson chip, Pro-M, NGK plugs, carbon drive shaft, Roadmaster suspension kit
13.39 @ 102.5
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gmvye@pacbell.net

 

F1 cars make awesome power for what they are, BUT they are NA. Back in the olden days they were making 1500 HP with a turbo..I forget the engine displacement back then, but that's crazy horsepower cuz I think they were still in the 3.0L range. I don't think that guys B/Sing you too much on the horsepower because it's easily made. Throw 30psi of boost at a 1.5L and it suddenly thinks it's a 4.5L. You wouldn't think twice about a 4.5L old Busch engine making 450-500 HP would you?? It's all about power to weight, and imports don't need the brute power to get the ET's, all they need is alittle power and traction and they'll haul..

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Curt
93 Lightning #4232

 

Yeah the RX 7 still uses a rotary engine. Although you can't get a new RX 7 in the U.S., you have to order it overseas and have it shipped in. Since Ford owns Mazda, they decided it was to much competition for the mustangs. The logic behind the motor is you never lose horsepower, like you do in a typical motor. It is my understanding, however, you have to have these motors completely rebuilt after about 60,000 miles. I do know that I wouldn't race one in a stock Mustang GT.

My problem with the small motor, high horsepower combo is not enough torque. Not to mention, what are you going to do when the motor comes apart at 12+ grand, there won't be anything left of it.

I find it hard to believe a 1.5 l pushing 300 hp/l especially at less than 10 grand rpm.

 

You can easilty get ~400hp & 300ft-lb @6000rpm out of a new RX7 (93+). This is 310hp/liter.

This is a daily-driver, smog-legal, 18mpg setup (and they dont break half-shafts).

I only got to 320rwhp in mine before I bought my L... now all my money goes there

 

"There is no way a 1.5 l. motor can generate the B.M.E.P. at a lowly 7800 r.p.m. to produce 300 h.p./l."

The engine I am talking about was featured on Speedvision with Nelson Piquet talking about it. It was a BMW cast-iron block, the exact same block as the 1983 4-cylinder 1.8 liter 318 production cars were using, except it was destroked to 1.5 liter, the legal limit. It made 1.25 MW (1650hp) @ 12000 rpm.

This was a qualifying engine and only lasted 3 or 4 laps, then water would be running out between the block and the head from heat distortion. The race engine would last 1 race (2 hours) and made around 1 MW (1350 hp). Apparantly torque was nonexistant until around 8500 rpm when you got all of 1000 lb.ft at once. He did not say what boost they were at, but the next year boost was limited to 45 psi and the other cars were a lot closer to them.

[This message has been edited by BlackLight (edited 02-02-2001).]

 

Hello all..

Numbers, numbers and more numbers...

Don't forget.. there is no replacement for displacement..

You can make a 2.0 litre motor make 400 HP at 9000 rpm... and it will have about as much torque as my lawnmower.. ( Ok.. maybe a bit more ) Small motors can not make alot of torque.. Check the MPH on some of these rice rockets.. The low ET is more a product of light weight and really good traction.. YOu will see them run in the 12's with a MPH just over 100..



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Got Boost ?
1999 SVT Lightning

 

I think the biggest point of the original post was referenced in the title.

Fact is a Civic that runs 11.0x is incredibly fast...one that gets 28+mpg along with turning those times is cool.

Best I can muster with my LX is 23mpg. Oh well.

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'96 Cobra for sale...ONLY 29k miles!

Wes Tarbox
90 LX 5.0 (10.69 @ 134.7)--597rwhp/590rwtq
96 Cobra (12.34 @ 115.8)--392rwhp/433rwtq
99 Lightning (13.20 @ 103.8)--364rwhp/447rwtq
00 Expedition XLT 5.4
http://members.aol.com/Wa2fst/index.html

 

I guess I should have qualified my statement some. The operative word is streetable. Evidently this guy's Honda can be driven on the street with some modicum of reliability. Sure, you can make a 1.5 liter motor that will produce much more h.p., a la the BMW, but it will have to turn much more than 7800 rpm to do it, and it will frag in very short order. The motor in a top fuel dragster is probably making 1100 hp/l (no way to know for sure, you can't put the damned thing on a dyno), but it is being force fed at over 45 psi, and the c.r. is 6.0, not 12+. I am aware that there are plenty of Honda dragsters that make 400+ hp/l but they cannot be driven on the street.
As for rotary engines, specific outputs cannot be compared to reciprocating engines of comparable displacement. That would be as ludicrous as allowing Granatelli to run the turbine at Indy under the same displacement rules as the piston motors. The SCCA has a conversion factor for rotaries, if one cares.

 

Maybe I should have pre-empted the original post by saying I can't stand the fart can type import cars. That being said--

WA 2 FAST;
Thank you, the title was the whole point to this original post.


mracer;
I personally have not yet seen or read the article, but, if you don't think it's possible--It's your noggin that needs to be "synchronized", obviously you are behind the times; the bone stock Intgra R-type makes 105 HP/liter and will probably go over 100,000 miles reliably. You don't need some McLaren F1 to produce 100hp/liter--you can buy a sushi stocker off the showroom to produce more hp/liter than that. With a big blower, 300 HP per liter could very well be possible if everything is optimized. If you really think its "Bull****" lets see you your pinkslip where your mouth is. Here's another example (granted its a 2 stroke), but among the multitude of toys that I own, I have an Arctic Cat ZR440 Sno Pro. It is bone stock, normally aspirated and produces about 220 hp/liter. Again, I can't stand the "sushies" at all, but this kind of power is certainly possible. You obviously must not have watched Speedvision this past weekend. It was the Import Street 8 (whatever that is) races. Much to my complete and total amazement, I watched these "sushies" run high 10 and low 11 second times. Granted the interior was gutted and they were forced induction, etc, etc, etc, BUT to run those times, those weedwacker sounding motors had to be pushing hp numbers probably in the 350-400 hp range.

 

800-1000HP out of a 2.0 Liter Ford:

https://www.f150online.com/f150board...ML/008190.html

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