Re: What I want vs. what the reality could support

A 2.0L V8? Is there such a thing?

Ferrari made one.

Reply to
Dean Dark
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That's 250cc per cylinder. I've had lawn mowers with bigger cylinders than that. Seems to me that a 2L V8 would need to turn lots of RPMs.

Reply to
Jeff Strickland

Didn't that one explode a lot?

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

I don't know. It was back in the late 70s and I think it was built for the Italian market that at that time had some really nutty cc-related taxation laws.

I had a '66 Triumph Vitesse with a 1600 cc straight six. The cylinders weren't *that* much bigger than 250 cc. Sweet little engine, it was.

Reply to
Dean Dark

2L I6s & V6s are generally regarded as being too small for the number of cylinders; smooth but thirsty is the usual comment. A 2L V8 would be woeful and probably worse in every way than a 2L 4-pot.
Reply to
Scott M

That's what I was thinking when I asked if there was such a thing. I can't imagine why anybody would want such a thing. It would need to turn several thousand RPMs, which would make it very thirsty. I suppose it could go very fast, but as a common motor vehicle it would have to be very impractical.

Reply to
Jeff Strickland

I think you're getting the point. Ferrari never did build everyday cars for people who are concerned about mpg or maintenance costs.

Reply to
Dean Dark

"Ferrari: The Car That Sometimes Explodes" sounds like a great advertising slogan to me.

Or..... "Ferrari: It's Like a Fiat, Only Much Faster."

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Flames Inside Again, Tony

Reply to
Steve Thompson

That would be nearly be funny if it hadn't happened to a mates 5 series (fuse box area) the other day..

Reply to
Zathras

It happened to a lady acquaintance of mine at college, when smoke started coming from underneath the dash of her Sunbeam Alpine, while driving on an empty side road. She jumped out; still doing 20mph. Amazingly she was not injured, which was more than could be said for the car.

-s

Reply to
Steve Thompson

On 20 =D1=8F=D0=BD=D0=B2, 01:50, Dean Dark w= rote:

Hmm, 940kg-2072 lbs, about mazda 2 territory. How much fuel did it gulp then?

Reply to
AD

Ok, I guess i'd have to wait for 3 chamber wenkel to enter production then to reach or overtake the smoothness of a v8 :-)

Reply to
AD

On 20 =D1=8F=D0=BD=D0=B2, 01:05, "Jeff Strickland" wr= ote:

to make a lot of power -> something I do not crave. I'm thinking an I6 or an I7 turbodiesel from a truck line would have suited me ok, but i don't think those things are smooth and i don't like volvo at all; hence 740 is out of the picture

Reply to
AD

It was a long time ago, I don't remember exactly. I recall that it used a bit more than a typical four did but it couldn't have been outrageously more as I wasn't exactly flushed with cash in those days, and I wouldn't have kept it had it been a fuel-swilling pig.

I kept it until tin-worm ate right through the rear of the chassis in

1974 or so. Cars certainly rotted fast in those pre-galvanization days.
Reply to
Dean Dark

to make a lot of power -> something I do not crave. I'm thinking an I6 or an I7 turbodiesel from a truck line would have suited me ok, but i don't think those things are smooth and i don't like volvo at all; hence 740 is out of the picture

I don't get it. You are all over the ballpark. There is no such thing (for any practical reason) of a 2L V8. You can get a very nice 2.5L I6 and some very smooth 3L V6s. You can also get good 2L 4-cylinders. So, you can get smooth, and you can get 2L and you can get V8, but you can't get a smooth 2L V8.

Now, you have abandoned your dream list and switched gears to some monstrosity of a diesel that is not smooth and smells bad, and if you are in the USA, buying fuel is a challenge.

Reply to
Jeff Strickland

Hmm, 940kg-2072 lbs, about mazda 2 territory. How much fuel did it gulp then?

1600 27-32mpg 2000 28-32mpg

Imperial gallons from Parkers guide.

IIRC the Vitesse had a lethal flaw, whereby in hard cornering the outside rear wheel would fold under the car.

Most Triumphs only had fatal (for the car) flaws, such as rust (all models), clogging injection (2500PI), boiling over (Stag), faulty steering (Toledo), poor build (TR7) etc. etc.

Reply to
R. Mark Clayton

That would only happen if you snapped off the throttle in mid-corner, which no capable driver would do. It's the same kind of thinking as the people who believe that the Porsche 911 has a "fatal flaw" because it will spin out if you do the same thing.

Reply to
Dean Dark

I don't see how 1.6L in audi is fundamentally different from that in a different car as plebeian as you imply mazda and chevrolet are (unless i read too much into your response) Automakers, with rare exceptions for honda s2000, aren't exactly eager to extract the most power out of the lowest displacement.

That might have something to do with the fact that

  1. the target audience is not exactly looking for the cutting edge dynamics
  2. you could just as well accomplish the same with the proper gearing and throwing the 6th cog into works.

But, needless to say, one got to ask the question: what is the threshold where there's just not enough power for a/c to be effective and the anecdotal evidence points somewhere in the 1.6 to 2.0 range.

I'm considering a 1.6 mill in A4 because the $4/gallon gas might be history in the heavily screwed up US metro areas such as silicon valley and NY but it's very real where i live. That coupled with the perception that

1.8T is not the best engine audi had to offer. The perception in my neck of woods is that 1.6 is bulletproof due to the simplicity inherent to its design. The locals could not say the same about the bmw 4 pots even though given that I want an xi trim I'd have to pony up for 2.5 I6 anyway which I was considering before i dug for the service part of the equation (see below).

[long rant about my views on service] I want an awd sedan for my current purposes (don't want an suv or a crossover). hence 5 is out of the picture for now: no awd and complex electrics ->

I must have mentioned that bmw service around here is vastly inferior to that of vw in terms of avalilability and quality.

Me thinks i'd have to do with A4 or A6 quattro primarily because of the puny official bmw service in minsk. There are 6 or 7 official vw services in the city of 2 million and one official bmw service that reputedly rips people off (it's good to be the only game in town i suppose).

I definitely don't want to be stranded with no options for service if the relationship with the singular bmw service won;t work. And being the picky bastard that i'm the chances of that are high: the locals just don't seem to buy into the "customer is always right, even when he is wrong". I don't think most of the businesses around here can spell "l-o-n-g s-a-l-e". Hey! Make a buck! Quick!

thanks

Reply to
AD

I am. I have narrowed it down to 325xi, A4 torsen and A6 torsen. Looks like bmw is out due to service consideration (see another posts). With audi the choice of engines is bewildering and 1.6 might not be easy to find. Hence am trying to get as many points of view on the engine part of the equation as possible. I guess I should stop crossposting to a.a.b but I somehow suspect you are on a.a.b side of things.

For better or worse I moved out of the states. Lived the slogan "make america better! leave!" :-) Diesel is plentiful and cheap around here but the quality is probably worse that in the states (and it used to be even worse before now from what i hear)

In silicon valley i saw no shortage of diesel pumps at the gas stations but i assume you are talking about rural areas. Still, I saw plenty of turbodiesel pickups while down there, they've got to get their juice somewhere.

Aside from the refineries not tuned for equal gas/diesel output the all american aversion to diesels stems from smell and rough idle or there is more to it than that?

Reply to
AD

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