"John Laird" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 14:35:41 +0100, "Nick Finnigan"
wrote:

"MeatballTurbo" wrote in message
et...

TBH, I'm not sure of any car with a reasonable sized engine that has
peak torque at 5krpm.

peak BHP on a normal family car with a petrol engine is normally
arround
the 5-6krpm unless it is a VTEC/VVTi variable timing type engine in
which case it is higher.

The 2.0 Vtecs seem to have peak power and torque at
normal revs, and the Type S and S2000 are higher.

Same technology, widely different implementations for different design
goals. The S2000 is something outrageous like 220bhp, normally
aspirated...
I think these and the Type S engines are the ones supposedly hand-built by
just two guys in Japan.

With a diesel engine you actually get the peak in the torque (which governs
the ability to accelerate out of a bend/roundabout and when changing lanes
on a motorway) at normal engine speeds (eg around 2000 rpm), so you don't
have to change down to accelerate. Driving a petrol-engined car is a real
faff now I'm used to my Peugeot 306 HDi - I tend to forget that other cars
can't take roundabouts in third with smooth progressive acceleration right
back up to 30 or 40 again without the need to change gear mid-way.

What *is* the point in designing an engine whose torque and power peaks are
at even *higher* rpm than normal? I'd have thought that the Holy Grail was
an engine that had as much low-end torque as possible to minimise
gear-changes, especially around town. Is it my imagination or are modern
petrol-engined cars lower-geared that older ones? When I borrowed a petrol
Peugeot 306 while my car was in for a service, the poor thing's engine was
screaming away at about 4000 rpm at 70 on the motorway, whereas my car
manages about 2500 rpm: much quieter. And the poor petrol-engined car ran
out of puff at motorway speed: its 50-70 acceleration was very poor. This
was a top-range 1800 engine, not some under-powered 1300. Give me a diesel
(preferably the 130 bhp one used in the Golf GTI!!!) any day.