A War on Horsepower?

Things change. We are entering into an era where fuel costs and availability are not likely to improve, and where the environmental aspects of fossil fuel consumption may well become the serious issues that have been being predicted for a long time.

For those of us who love cars, there will -for the foreseeable future- be products, or techniques, that will give us something interesting to drive.

Having more power available is never wasted. The cost of manufacturing an engine capable of 200 or 250 hp is very much the same. A cam is a cam no matter where you place the lobes. The fuel consumption on today's cars at highway cruising speed is even pretty close on engines of that HP range.

I don't want "adequate", I want fast when I want fast. My 234 hp car out performs my former 185 hp car and gets better mileage. I have not, however, had the opportunity to see if the rated top speed of 137 is attainable easily. I've not been past 110 yet.

In almost every case, similar cars with bigger engines use more fuel.

Key word: "want."

If you want to use the word "need" in a sentence, one is "We need to conserve fuel to decrease our output of CO2 and to preserve fuel, which is a limited resource."

And if the new car had an option for a similar engine as your 234 HP engine using similar technology and only got 185 HP, you would also use less fuel.

Jeff

Not completely true. Take a look at a lot of vehicles that have poor aerodynamics (every truck,van suvee and JeeP) the so called fuel savings you theoretically get with the 4 cylinder when compared to the six, is gone once you try to maintain speed since the smaller engine rev's more. Same holds true for the six when compared to the v8's.

Then call on the Goverments and rich ass oil companies to speed up developement of fuel cells and bio fuels.

Snow...

Yet, the vehicles still get more fuel economy with the smaller engines at lower speeds, like in the city.

I have.

I can never remember -- is that the first amendment or the third?

You know, I can't count how many times I've been driving up US 395 in the '80s and early '90s in some POS low horsepower car/truck and "wanted" to pass some f****it driving 45, but wasn't able to because I couldn't safely summons up the needed horsepower to pull out and overtake said f****it.

I recently drove up in my midsize Avalanche (305HP V8, getting the same or better mileage than under-powered cars and trucks of the '80s) and "wanted" to pass three times. I did so with no reservations..

Oh, that's right. We're gonna run out of oil by 1998 or 2000 at the latest, based on projections from the mid 1970's.

Not necessarily.

Keep in mind, my 1987 Nissan hardbody had a 2.5L I4 engine with around 120 HP and got 16-20 MPG.

My 1995 GMC Jimmy 4x4 had a 4.3L V6 engine with around 190 HP and got 18-22 MPG.

My 2002 Kia Sedona Minivan had a 3.5L V6 with around 195 HP and got 16-22 MPG.

My 2006 Chevy Avalanche has a 5.3L V8 with around 305 HP and gets 18-22 MPG.

I lived through a period like that once alread. From 1975 until 1993, there wasn't a car built that *really* interested me (the closest being the Buick GNX). IF it happens again, I'll hang on to the cars I have (most of which predate the FIRST war on horsepower anyway) or snatch up a cheap Hemi Charger or Magnum that someone is trying to get rid of, just like people bought big-block Roadrunners for a nickel on the dollar in the late 70s. The difference being that during the first war on horsepower I was a poor student who couldn't afford a big-block Roadrunner even at a nickel on the dollar. This time things are different... ;-)

I know what you mean. I had one of the 68 Mustang 428 street Cobras (a la Hubert Platt). In those days gas was relatively cheap, but I didnt make much money either. That sucker got 6-8 mpg.

Most cases. Take the basic 3800 GM engine that has been around many years. They've increased both power and fuel mileage over the years. Go back even more. The mid-50's Chevy had a 232 cu in straight six. With changes in technology, that same 232 cubic inches performs so much better and uses fuel much more efficiently.

Questionable.

There is a 4 cylinder with 162 hp that gets 2 mpg more. Not much of a trade-off for me. In a year of my typical driving (25000 miles, the difference is 60 gallons. Most people drive half of that, a difference of 30 gallons. Sure, times 50 million cars it makes a difference but I'd rather conserve more in other areas and enjoy driving.

Yet, in the same model year, the less powerful engine almost always gets better fuel economy.

Not according to the best science available today.

In my car, a Ford Contour, the 4 cyl 2.0 litre engine gets about 34/24 mpg and V6 2.5 litre engine gets about 30/20 mpg. That's about 10%. In a year, I would save about 70 gallons of fuel. Over the life of my car, I would have saved around 800 gallons of fuel and paid less for the car. I would have saved some in car insurance, but, the savings would probably be about the same as the cost of the timing belt replacements. And, for the more powerful engine, I didn't really gain anything.

I don't need the extra power. And, I still would have enjoyed driving.

Jeff

Not to anything like the degree they did in years past. Checked the mileage on a 400-horsepower Corvette lately? Its better than a

4-cylinder Citation would deliver back in the 80s.

The simple fact is that a truly efficient engine only uses as much fuel as is demanded of it. Whether it is capable of 50 horsepower or 450 horsepower doesn't make all that much difference when its only being asked to deliver 25 hp.

With today's cars, the shape and weight of the chassis itself is a FAR bigger factor in fuel economy than engine size.

How does one then accelerate briskly to merge into freeway traffic?

nate

Saying it over and over doesn't make it true. Go spend a few weeks researching magazine road tests (don't just use EPA figures, they're flawed badly). In real world driving, engine in today's cars makes

*very* little difference unless the driver is a consistent lead-foot. There are even quite a few cases where moving up to the next engine size will yield better mileage because acceptable performance can be achieved with a lower (numerical) rear-end ratio, plus the bigger engines often get an extra gear in the transmission too .

The higher the price of oil, the more there is.

-to extract at a profit or shall we say economically.

You need to compare similar technologies, that means of the same ERA. You also need to compare your typical driving environment. Mine is only about 20% highway, so although my car (as for many) gets very good highway mileage, it's the urban driving figures I should compare.

It's interesting looking at the new Jeep Cherokee SRT-8, which uses about twice the fuel of my 3.3L Concorde, both highway and city. The diesel Cherokee uses about 50% of the fuel the SRT-8 uses and it isn't a slouch.

How does one then accelerate briskly to merge into freeway traffic?

nate

"Briskly" may someday come to be a relative term, Nate ;>)

Rickshaws in Bombay accelerate briskly, relatively.

I have a great example.

A former manager of mine lives in Hesperia and works in San Bernardino.

On his daily roundtrip - about thirty miles and 4000 ft elevation change - he figured he'd do better buying an I4 than a V6.

Well, because of the flat torque of the I4, he ended up with worse gas mileage over the first year in his new I4 than he had in his old V6.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

We don't how he would have done if would have had even worse gas mileage if he replaced his V6 with a V6.

Jeff

.... the mileage on a 400-HP Corvette is better than a 4-cylinder Citation back in the 80s. A truly efficient engine only uses as much fuel as is demanded of it. Whether it is capable of 50 HP or 450 HP doesn't make that much difference when its only being asked to deliver 25 HP. With today's cars, the shape and weight of the chassis itself is a FAR bigger factor in fuel economy than engine size. _______________________________________________________________

The greatest increases in mileage over the past 30 years have been attained by making cars smaller to decrease vehicle WEIGHT. Carmakers had to switch to more costly and more failure-prone FWD in these smaller cars to recapture the space taken up by the driveshaft tunnel. A lesser but quite important improvement in mileage was gained by computer controlled fuel mixtures.

Virtually all fuel management mileage improvement has been attained. The only thing left is cutting more WEIGHT. Smaller displacement engines do not provide better mileage, except for the contribution of their lower block WEIGHT.

There are no alternate fuels approaching the efficiency of petroleum in dollars per mile total cost to produce, except for solar power, which is not available in sufficient quantity, and nuclear power, which is religiously feared and shunned.

The car of the future will be small, small, small.

Rodan.