A replacement for displacement

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Originally Posted By: rriddle3
Exactly. I saw a Smart car in a parking lot and thought it was one of those shopping carts with the big built-in plastic cabs for carrying your kids in. No way would I take one of those on a highway.

You might want to shift your paradigm slightly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju6t-yyoU8s
I think I'll take my chances in a Smart over most any old iron. (I know, the outcome at 70 MPH isn't nice regardless of what you're in.)
 
Zippy, 1/2 torque, higher revving car for people who can't afford a BMW, but still feel good when forgetting about burning more gas going to rallies to protest earth destroying SUVs and pickups (some of which probably get as good of mileage, in town at least). An Accord in 30 years will be worth nothing unless it's still useful as transportation, while some muscle cars are fetching $300k or more.

But, hats off to Honda and others for getting an amazing level of performance out of their vehicles, 2 wheel or 4, street or track, and for giving people what they willing to pay for.
 
Kudos to Honda (and other manufacturers) for getting the mileage and power they do out of today's smaller displacement engines.

My point is that in 38 years, even with added weight of todays safety equipment, all we can do is take off 100lbs off the car?
Ridiculous.

As for the weight of safety equipment, of course the Buick didn't have ABS or air bags, so that would be added weight. But compare the weight of the Buick bumpers to the Honda's. Seat frames, brake components, instrument panel carrier, wheels, and powertrain. The Buick should be heavier in all these components. And yet the Honda only weighs 100 lbs less?

Seems like the Honda is more overweight than a 38 year old Buick. But that's technology for you.
 
If I had the financial resources to send a 71 Chevelle SS through the Chip Foose treatment, I'd love a classic car as my primary ride. Modern suspension and brake setups are far ahead of any that you see on an untouched classic car. Corners that are do-able in a new Accord would put most old iron into the weeds, and probably on its roof. I don't like everything Foose does to classic cars that roll into his shop needing an update, but some of the suspension and brake modifications I've seen him do are top-notch and make the cars competitive with modern cars from a handling point-of-view. With great power comes great need for a way to control it.

As far as displacement replacement, it seems we're heading back towards the 70s in the MPG department. The platforms are becoming heavier with each new generation and cars that normally got 40mpg on the highway (mid-80s Civics) are barely squeezing 30 out now. Yes, some new cars are nearly equaling the hp numbers of the 60s and 70s with far less displacement, but they're sucking gas in an effort to move the pig-heavy cars they're installed in. My mother's top-of-the-line 1985 Accord SEi put out a whopping 101 hp and made it to 60mph in 9.9 seconds. It routinely got 36mpg on the highway. That car would be left in the dust by a new Accord in every category...except mpg.

It's all in the name of greater safety and comfort...something not all of us necessarily asked for.
 
Originally Posted By: ClarkB

For What It's Worth:


Pretty much nothing. A 1970 Buick would crush a 1970 Honda in any performance metric. A Stage 1 Buick is still worth something. Any 1970's, 1980's, or 1990's Honda is a throw away car.

A 2008 muscle car will crush a Honda in any performance metric. A 2008 muscle car will still be worth something in 35 years. The 2008 Honda will have been thrown away about three decades earlier.
 
That's a very one-sided view of things. While I agree that muscle cars crush same-era economy cars in performance areas, their value at the end of a given time depends wholly on how well they were maintained mechanically and cosmetically. A Chevelle that wasn't given any kind of extradorinary care or refurbishing can take up space in a landfill just as well as a same-era Honda. The difference is that all things being equal on a maintenance standpoint, the Honda is usually the one that's still running. Anything can be a throw-away car if it wasn't cared for and there's plenty of Detroit iron in the scrapyards to prove it.
 
Originally Posted By: Tosh
Originally Posted By: rriddle3
Exactly. I saw a Smart car in a parking lot and thought it was one of those shopping carts with the big built-in plastic cabs for carrying your kids in. No way would I take one of those on a highway.

You might want to shift your paradigm slightly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju6t-yyoU8s
I think I'll take my chances in a Smart over most any old iron. (I know, the outcome at 70 MPH isn't nice regardless of what you're in.)

Please feel free to drive one of these between two tractor-trailers at 70 mph if you want to.
I will not.
 
Originally Posted By: CBDFrontier06
That's a very one-sided view of things.


No, it's not. One has intrinsic value because of what it is. The other is a Honda.

A clapped out Chevelle is worth making into a Chevelle again. Who wants to make any effort to revive a Honda? Just go buy another one and toss it away when you're done with it.

Will modern muscle cars fare as well? Who knows, but the pinheads in Congress and their latest CAFE garbage are doing their part by repeating history.
 
Originally Posted By: cos
100 lb weight difference? No way, try around 500 lbs.

As for performance, yes they're close out of the box but that Buick could easily be running mid 12's with very little work.


And I think that's what he said in the OP. That the performance is very similar, stock, but the Buick would respond to tuning and modifications much more than the Honda.

In other words, the Honda is probably largely optimized already, while the approx 40 year old technology in the Buick could benefit from the optimizations.

It's two different approaches, each that are appropriate for their era.

In 1970, use a bigger engine. In 2008, use a computer to get the most you can out of 1/2 the displacement.

As a car enthusiast, I cannot help but be impressed in the progress made in 40 years in the automotive world.


That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to have one of those big cube muscle cars.

But I can also appreciate how far we've come since 1970, and give props where they are deserved.

Modern carmakers, including Honda deserve credit for the advances we've made since 1970, IMO.
 
For every chevelle there's a 4 door nova, tempest, lemans, torino, satellite, etc with a wheezy inline 6 making 100 hp, 3 on the tree, bench seating, manual steering... you know, the "secretary special". It'll take 20 seconds to get to 60 through a single 1 bbl carb yet deliver only 17 MPG. Crash safety? How about those non-retractable shoulder straps hanging from the roof sheet metal or a paper-thin B pillar?

The lines are almost the same as the $100k muscle car but these basic rides from 40 years ago are shunned as not hot rod material. Yet their engine bays will take a souped up V8 just the same. They're just ignored like today's honda accord will probably be.

Even saturn has gone from 85 hp to 140 in their base model, dropping from 40 mpg to 34 or maybe lower under EPA's new math.
 
 
If you really want to compare the Honda with a Buick, may as well find one with a V6 of similar displacement. How about one that has 231 cubic inches, 276 horsepower, 360 ft lbs of torque, runs 0-60 in 4.7 seconds and does the quarter in 13.4 seconds. This was off the show room floor 21 years ago. Buick did find a replacement for displacement.

Is there any factory stock Honda that can match those numbers today?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick_Regal
 
The fact that few people appreciate the beauty of a successful economy car doesn't mean it's any less worthy of appreciation.
 
Another replacement for displacement is RPM and gearing, i.e. F1 cars.

BMW-Williams F1 : Normally Aspirated 19,000rpm 3.0L V10 ~300hp/Lt, 300cc/cyl = 900Hp
 
Last edited:
For a given engine weight where you wanted to design the engine to make the absolute most power and torque...would you:

1. super/turbocharge it
or
2. have larger displacement?

Remember both engines would have to weigh the same.
 
When power is the most important goal and precedes all others, forced induction is by far the method of choice.
 
Originally Posted By: biomed_eng_2000
For a given engine weight where you wanted to design the engine to make the absolute most power and torque...would you:

1. super/turbocharge it
or
2. have larger displacement?

Remember both engines would have to weigh the same.


The absolute most powerful automotive type engines are supercharged.
 
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