[ContourPower]

Terry Haines, on Jan 30 2004, 07:20 AM, said:

...Hp per litre & power to weight ratio wins races![/b]

Finally someone said it. Tell this to all the mullett wearing, offroad driving hick teachers at my school. To them nascar is GOD...and whatever Dale Earnhart endores, it must be gold.

-Tim B)

[Russell]

Terry Haines, on Jan 30 2004, 07:20 AM, said:

..,'torque wins races'...nope...if that were the case NASCAR engines would be in F1.....HP per litre & power to weight ratio wins races! [/b]

torque wins 1/4 mile drag races :)

sadly that is what matters to most of us americans!

id rather have a high rpm screamer and take it on a nice road course :)

[Terry Haines]

....i'm sorry but the 2 valve set up came to the end of its life 20-30 years ago.I understand your support for the 'ol gal but you need to move on to the new ideas and output etc of multi valves.

[mikeyboy]

whats the HP at what redline?

[Terry Haines]

....a 2 valve hemi is not new,more of a revised antique...Jag was hemi in the '40's....just an old idea brought back to help bad sales.....

[Fern]

New Hemi is a pent-roof design isn't it? Not a real 'Hemi'.

Peugeot used hemi (or maybe a pent-roof) design combustion chambers in their Grand Prix cars in 1912 or 1913 I believe. Ford created a V8 during war-time to power the Sherman tank (GAA, GAN, GAP) with hemi combustion chambers, DOHC's, aluminium block... quite a high level of exotica for the time. Was based on a V12 aircraft engine they were developing (remember Ford was the largest commercial airline producer before the war - the Tin Goose?) and were inspired from the Merlin and Allison aircraft engines of the time. Made more torque than a Buick.... 1050 ft-lbs. and 500 hp but I don't think it can rev easly past 3000 rpm. In the late 1940's Ardun (Arkus-Duntov) made a hemi head conversion for the flathead Ford V8 and Joe Davis also made a DOHC conversion.

[Terry Haines]

...Bentley had 4 valves and pent roof in the Le Mans cars around 1910'ish....Hemi re Jag was late 30's re XK engine by the engineer Haynes for Lyons at Jag.....all 'old stuff'....anyway you cut it 4 valves or 5 are better than two 'big ones' due the the lighter weight of two small Vs one big ...and the increased valve curtian area of 2 Vs one....

[Fern]

Guess the engineers way back then definitely knew how to make power but may not have had the means to put that knowledge into mass production. So when are we going to see a camless engine? Another 50 years?

Ford's GAA/GAN/GAP tank engines in WWII had 4 vavles per cylinder. Any truth to the notion that 2-vavles per cylinder can make more torque? Those tank engines made over 1000 lbs-ft mind you that their displacements were enormous.

[Terry Haines]

...here is another 2.0 V8 from Moto Power 'RST V8' FIVE valves per cylinder, 340 BHP @ 10,200 rpm ,190 lbs /ft @ 7800 rpm, 104 lbs ft @ 1300 rpm...around 15,000 UK Pounds....or the Cylclone2.0 Y40R...302 BHP @ 10,000rpm, 171 lbs ft @ 8,500 rpm, 109 lbs ft @ 2000 rpm........the list of small capacity multi valve V8 race engines goes on...this is the shape of thing to come... :wink

[Fern]

Track day specials seem to be springing up everywhere in the UK. Seems like everytime I buy a British car magazine, there is always a new track-day cars like the Palmer/Jaguar JP1, or a new track-day car engine like the ones mentioned above. Tons of ads for track-day vacations and pro track-day preparation services. I even saw ads for car storage that were on or very close to a road course aimed at track-day fanatics. I wonder why this phenomenon hasn't caught on anywhere else.

[BuckeyeSVT]

Because this is the US. We couldn't handle speeds in excess of 75MPH here without utter regard for safety and road manners.

Personally, I wish they'd open an Autobahn here - Somewhere closer that I could get my fill of speed without the consequence of a hefty fine. But then you have all the naysayers that will want to bring their SUV's there and float along dangerously at 100+... Makes me think I'd be safer on the highway after all.

-Dom

[Fern]

BuckeyeSVT, on Feb 17 2004, 04:53 PM, said:

Because this is the US. We couldn't handle speeds in excess of 75MPH here without utter regard for safety and road manners.

Personally, I wish they'd open an Autobahn here - Somewhere closer that I could get my fill of speed without the consequence of a hefty fine. But then you have all the naysayers that will want to bring their SUV's there and float along dangerously at 100+... Makes me think I'd be safer on the highway after all.

-Dom [/b]

Well, track-day events usually occur in a closed road course so there's no danger to the general public. Personally I'd love to be able to take a car (many track-day events are open to all sorts of cars) to a track-day event, pay a fee and run it on a road course for x amount of time. That is, after I get the proper driver training, of course. It is much more appealing to me than going to a drag strip or an auto-x event.

Cars like, say the ERA from Tiger Motorsports that is pictured on HMS's gallery. You can tell that thing is made for the track-day fanatic (or those who wants to participate in their one make racing series). It drives like an 60's single seater but the Zetec is easy to maintain, people over 6ft can drive it comfortably, relatively cheap.... Then the z100wr with two Kawasaki engines. Ford RS200 Evo still holds the record for fastest 0-60 time but that's probably because the z100wr may not be considered a production car. But definitely a track car rather than an everyday kit-car/replica. Now you have all these small high-reving V8's springing up from the UK.

Autobahns are not all that they are cracked up to be. I've never been on a German autobahn but I've regularly travelled on the Portuguese A1 that, like the autobahn, has no speed limits. Its the highway that joins the capital Lisbon to Coimbra and then Porto; Portugal's three principle cities. Of course, its thrilling the first few times but after that, travelling at 180-220 km/h gets pretty boring... there is hardly any curves. Its like travelling down an Interstate. The only excitement is the kind that you don't want... like a Fiat Punto cutting you off. There are areas of heavy traffic near cities or during rush hours where you must slow down considerably for long periods of time. The Portuguese highway is fairly modern but I heard that some sections of the German autobahn date back to the Third Reich.

BTW, I think the Jaguar V12 was an excellent engine. It was made for the XJ13 (gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous car) to challenge for the World Championship and wins at Le Mans back in the 60's. Kind of got lost in the Ford vs Ferrari war at the time. The V12 eventually did win Le Mans on multiple occasions.

Here's some good info on it.
http://www.jagweb.co...gine/index.html

[Terry Haines]

....the standards of driving in Europe are better .....re speeds. Engines...I look forward to seeing the first 100% USA design & built F1 engine win a season....