Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General Year of the turbo

LOL! I completely agree, but...

In an ideal world, perhaps, car makers would be pushing engine design as hard as possible for the sake of engineering inguineity. It won't happen, though. You and I both know that if most car makers took this "higher approach" to making motors, we wouldn't be able to afford the cars that they're in (at least I wouldn't). Troy@SVT said something about this in regards to the Cobra on the GT40 Vs Viper thread; tuning a NA engine to 500 hp gets pricey.

But, you still have a very good point. And how about the RX-8 (250 NA hp)? There's a unique design for you, and they seem to be improving on it.

I'm with brad on this one. Don't get me wrong though, I'm all for further development on the internal combustion engine, but there is still the limitations of fuel. There is a finite amount of fuel stored in any specific amount of gasoline. I don't have the exact equations on me, but any N/A engine can only make so much power before it's limitations are pushed by the amount of gasoline entering the combustion chambers.

Secondly - the gasoline engine is on it's way out. This cannot be denied. Fifty years from now, someone that wants to get fuel for their 1998 skyline will need to buy gasoline at some place like a hobby shop, probably at ~$15 per gallon. Like many other sources for energy, something more efficient has been found (ie. electric), and the majority of attention will be forced towards that. You don't see people riding around on buggys that are pulled by horses on drugs. It just isn't practical - not to mention people would frown at the poop in the streets. Likewise, the 'poop' in the air will only be tolerated for so much longer.

Now, I know that I've gone completely OT on this, but think about the S2000 and E46 M3. If I were to purchase either of these, and wanted more power like most enthusiasts - how would I do so? There are a couple supercharger kits for the S2000, and no forced induction that I know of for the M3. Both engines are pretty much tuned to their peak for N/A operation. Also, while speaking of these engines, there is the issue of power curves. Here are the three most common scenarios:

1) large displacement
pros: insane amounts of power
cons: power band is somewhat narrow, because the torque curve can't easily be made for both low and high RPM power.
Excessive fuel consumption at all engine speeds

2) small displacement
pros: good fuel efficency, and capable of decent power
cons: engine has to rev it's heart out to start making power. Power band looks like a stalagmite.

3) forced induction
pros: low fuel consumption during cruise, very high amounts of power available on demand
cons: high power not readily avialable at off-idle engine speeds. somewhat lagged.

So in all of these, my choice would be the turbo (I don't care for superchargers). I don't care to chew up tons of gas while just driving around town, but if I want power - the turbo takes a second to spool and power is available around 2500rpm (average application). With a small displacement/high revving engine, Honda B16A for example - I don't really want to rev to 6k just for decent power. That's worse than any case of turbo lag I've heard of.

Those are my opinions, reinforce or criticize.

And WTF is wrong with the Neon SRT4?
I'll be buying one when they come out.
/me grabs the flame suit.
Go to allpar.com and do some reading.

Here is a picture :

Mind you this is a pre-production picture.
I'm sure some things (wheels and spolier)
may end up changing...

I have to agree. The future is not in naturally aspirated engines. The future of quarter-miling may be electric or even steam-driven, actually, because they have more torque per horsepower, especially at the low end. But even with gasoline engines, I think the trend will continue to be towards more turbos, and toward more sophisticated forms of forced induction. For instance, one way you could get more boost per amount of wasted fuel than either a supercharger or a turbocharger is to have an electric supercharger powered by an alternator that runs off an exhaust turbine. You could let the turbine freewheel when you actually punch it, running the blower off of battery power. This could be incorporated into a hybrid-electric vehicle. A hybrid-electric with an exhaust turbine alternator could get the majority of its electric recharging power "for free" in normal driving.

A cruder idea for forced induction, which will probably never happen in a production car but might be a neat trick for a purpose-built quarter miler: have a low power pump that compresses air into a tank, and when you punch it, the tank dumps air into the intake at whatever pressure your heart desires.

Either of these techniques allows you to get tons of boost without either blocking the exhaust or draining power from the driveshaft.

Hybrid-electrics in general have a lot of potential for dragstrip use. Consider what would happen, for instance, if you took a front wheel drive hybrid-electric car and put a whole second giant electric motor on the back wheels, and replaced the batteries with some type that supports extremely high current discharge -- maybe even compact lithium cells if you have the budget. Practically any amount of torque you have the traction for, you could put into your car.

Pure electric cars are ideally suited for drag racing. In electric land there's no reason a 1000 lb car can't have 1000 horsepower... as long as it's only going a short distance.