Car questions. Turbo, AWD, Viper...

Factual Questions
1

This may very well be IMHO, but I think it’ll start as a GQ, so Manny, Chronos, if it ends up IMHO move it, okay? Thanks.

  1. Why don’t American cars come as turbo when it’s ubiquious in Asian/European cars?

  2. Why no AWD on American cars? Japan uses it all the time. I think last time we saw it on a American car was the 1992(?) Pontiac 6000SE, and that was a luxury car w/a 3 speed auto.

Seeing as how turbo increases gas mileage, lends to easy tuning for more HP, and is basically foolproof these days, why the heck not?

And AWD lends for better handling (albeit odd characteristics) and a ‘safer’ car, so why not?

See, the Mustang is dying for power these days. It lags behind the F-Body in every test. But why not put a T60 on it and call it a day?

Okay I think I’m done for now. But check back later.

–Tim

2

1.This is also opinion but, turboed cars fell out of favor in the '90s a bit. A lot of turbo cars from the '80s had problems with there turbo. Its just another thing to go wrong on a car. Most people dont know how to take care of a turbo either. You should let your car idle for a few minutes after highway or other heavy footed driving.

2.There kinda is an american car with AWD and there maybe others that I cant think of right now. The nomore Plymoth Laser and Eagle Talon had an AWD option for all of the '90s. Was very popular with the “rice boy” crowd. 200hp, awd and a light car killed many mustangs,camaros,etc at the strip and street. I think they are both no longer with us and even if they were there is no more AWD option on that car. It was/is made in Normal,IL along with the Mitsibishi Eclipse. They were Co-designed with chrysler and mitsi.
The mustang is dying for power becuase it doesnt need more power to beat the current camaro/firebird. The GM cars have kicked its butt since the current genertations came out and yet the american people still buy twice as many 'stangs. And you can get pretty fast mustangs but you have to pay for them. The Cobra and SVT come quickly to mind. Plus lots of aftermarket for all cars these days makes turbo/supercharging most performance type cars fairly easy and even sorta dependable. I own 2 turbo cars(2000 VW golf 1.8t and a '87 RX-7 turbo II that is broke) and just sold an AWD subaru. There is a market for both turbo and AWD cars and GM,Ford and Daimler-Chrysler will catch on…eventually.
deadman

3

Yeah I’m familiar with those cars… I’m wondering when we’ll get a twin turbo Vette again, or, OOOH, a twin turbo Viper…

–Tim

4

No turbos: American car manufacturers are not alone. Japanese have abandoned turbos as well. Why? Reliability, requirements for high octane fuel. Americans like torque and displacement too. American manufacturers have a variety of engines to choose from, right up to V-8s, which are better than turbo-4’s and turbo-6’s.

No AWD: Sport Utility Vehicles are the fastes growing car sect in th U.S. U.S. car manufactureres have developed AWD for these vehicles, and some minivans, because someone shopping for AWD is likely to be a SUV shopper.

Ford developed a turbo 'Stang, bolting a turbo onto a 320 hp Cobra Twin Cam 4.6 liter V-8, but is going to abandon it in favor of the 5.6 liter (?) engine in the F150 Lightening, plus some tweaking.

As for the GT Stang being about a tick slower than the F-bodies from GM: It ain’t about engines in this case, it’s strictly about trannies. Ford still drops in a 5 speed, vs the 6 speed in the Camaro/TA. GM has better gear spacing because of it, and it gives them the few tenths of a second to win bragging rights. NO DOUBT the 4.6 liter single cam and twin cam are much sweeter motors than the ol’ pushrod 5.7 iron horse in the F-bodies (and Ford loves to report horsepower numbers conservatively btw).

Stang Vs. F-body in the real world: First, something like 80% of the F-bodies are sold with wussy 4 speed automatics, Vs. only 30% for the Stang! And in GT or Cobra clothing, the Mustang is something like 90% manual trannies. Mustangs rarely stay stock very long. They are the most hot-rodded V-8 of all time. In the real world, Mustangs dominate f-bodies. Don’t fall victim to the yuppie mags like Motor Trend, Car and Driver, etc.

Amd remember: The American car manufacturers are the standard by which the others are judged, not the other way around. This is the biggest market in the world, and if you’ve noticed, the Japanese and American car mfgrs have developed similar approaches to selling cars here. This is THE market by which others are judged. Mfgrs try to sell cars here, then worry about the rest of the world.

The succesful ones develop v-6’s and v-8’s, and scrap the goofy little turbo idea. Turbos develop PEAK horsepower, but have very inneficient power bands and very little usable power. Every manufacturer has develop 6’s and 8’s and, if you’ve noticed, this is the fastest group of production cars in history - no thanks to the turbo.

Get your nose out of Motor Trend type mags.

5

To defend the turbo, a smaller turbo will give you the torque you need down low. But to get nicer looking numbers manufacturers used to put larger turbos in. Then you get the “turbo lag” problems and the unusable power. The 3rd Generation RX-7 solved both problems by putting in sequential turbos. A small one that was basically allways “on” and a larger one that came “on” at higher rpm. My VW Golf has a “small” turbo and it feels almost like a V6 but only has 150hp. It is still faster than any other stock compact car at comparable prices. SUVs are the fad right now. Its sad really. How many people need an SUV really? It aint for the room 'cause 90% of the ones I see have 1 person in them. We all know its not for the off road ability. It must be for the saftey. But its not safer. I can avoid the recks an SUV gets in. I stop better, handle better, get out of the way better AND I take up less space.
And I agree with you that the 4.6 is a better motor than the 5.7, but the fact of the matter is this. You can get a faster car for less money with a camaro. Sure the mustang looks better and is tunable out the wazzo. But the only reason mustang owners tune there cars is to make them faster than there neighbors stock camaro. And there nephews v-tec civic with 20 pounds of stickers on it.
And I beg to differ about american manufacturers being the leaders in the world. The Brits think we make crap and you can’t sell a non-Jeep American made car in mainland Europe or Japan. Some of the most popular cars sold in America are 4 and 6 cyl. Accords and Camrys. And I hate Motor Trend. Car and Driver is not bad but I prefer Road & Track over Mustang Monthly.

6

Our 2000 Astro has AWD and a 4-speed auto. But does that count as a car?

I want to know what happened to vans with manual transmissions. My 1982 Vanagon had a 4-speed stick and it was the best!

7

One reason turbo is popular in Japan is that cars are taxed by engine size. There is one category of cars with significantly lower taxes and fees, that limits engine size to 0.66 liters. So we end up with lots of cars with 0.658-liter 3-cylinder 12-valve DOHC intercooled turbo engines. That’s not a joke, it’s a very common configuration.

Also in Japan and europe there is more incentive to improve gas mileage, even at the cost of more complex and expensive cars.

As for AWD, my impression that initially they were initially developed to improve handling of high-performance cars. Is this correct? It seems to me that european and Japanese car makers and buyers are more concerned about handling, while Americans tend to value raw power.

8

I did some poking around, and discovered that you can’t even get one of the best (somewhat) affordable AWD turbo cars in the US! the Subaru Impreza WRX. It has a 2.0L turbo flat four. 218 bhp @ 5600rpm and 292Nm torque at 3,600. (Not sure how to convert Newton-meters to foot pounds) Top speed 143 and 0-60 in 5.9. With an aftermarket chip, exhaust, and air cleaner, you can get a reliable 300bhp out of it!

Even better, but more expensive is the Nissan Skyline GT-R. It has AWD and runs a twin turbo 2.6l straight 6 making 280bhp at 6800rpm.

But if you want to stick with Ford, then look no further than the famous Cosworth Escort or Cosworth Sierra. Cosworth are the British engineers that have built race engines for Ford for along time. IIRC, they make over 200bhp out of the box, and in one mag I saw a heavily tweaked one making nearly 500!

9
      • Many countries tax larger engines, as said.
  • Single turbos saddle a broad-powerband piston engine with the narrow-powerband of a turbine engine. You can use multiple turbos, but that raises the cost and reliability issues even more than with a single turbo.
  • From a manufacturing standpoint, it’s cheaper to just use a bigger normal engine than it is to put on a turbo - it has been for decades. Sure, you can get 300 HP out of a 1-liter engine with the right turbo, but then you have to go through that 1-liter engine and replace darn near everything with high-end parts to handle the increased stress, and that all costs money.
  • And FWIW, I understand that in Europe and Japan, many drag-style hot-rodders -with the means- much prefer US musclecars from the 60’s and 70’s. - MC
10

Actually you can buy a Skyline GT-R from MOTOREX, but I guess it’s not exactly affordable this way. Also one newspaper article reported that Nissan plans to make LHD model Skylines available the next time they do a major redesign. I presume this means export to the US. I wouldn’t hold my breath though, things are changing fast at Nissan.

Maybe American muscle cars are popular with Japanese hot-rodders, but I don’t think there are many “drag-style hot-rodders” here at all. The choice of reckless young Japanese guys seem to be Japanese sports cars like the Skyline, Toyota Supra, Mazda RX-7, etc, driven on twisty mountain roads. They look down upon American cars with supposedly poor handling.

11

Well, as others have mentioned reliability was one. Older (70s-80s) turbos generally required major repair work more often than their normaly aspirated brothers. Simple reasons like not changing the oil as often as necessary, and not letting the Turbo run down after being on the highway are examples.

I think the biggest reason now though is that they simply aren’t required anymore. It is very common to get 200+ horsepower out of a 6 cylinder now that is not turbo/supercharged. That is a fair amount of ponies for a family car.

As for the AWD, that is a better one. I would have to hazard a guess that since it was tried in some other vehicles by Ford and GM (The aforementioned 6000 and Fords Tempos) and my guess is they didn’t sell as well as they would have liked so they didn’t justify their expense to keep making. That is an explenation I pulled straight out of my ass, but I think its plausable. Another factor is reliabilty of those AWD systems. I know the Tempo/Topaz system especially was prone to U-Joint and rear wheel bearing faliure. I am quite unfamiliar with the GM setup. As well, even the mid-range cars now have traction control as an option, while not as effective as AWD its still not to bad and may quench the thirst of some buyers.

Now, with that all being said, I understand that GM is somehow in bed with Subaru. If thats the case, its only a matter of time until their AWD system gets put on cars manufactured this side of the pacific.

As for SUVs, I get sick of people always knocking them. Sure, if you live in the desert in Arizona or Texas I don’t see how an 4x4 version is a necessity, but where I live in Canada its sure handy. I have a Cherokee because its comfortable, has lots of cargo room, lots of power for the highway, 4WD so I don’t have to be sooo concerened if the wife or I am stuck in the middle of a raging snowstorm and was relatively inexpensive to purchase. Its a very practical vehicle and there is nothing else that I could have bought at the time for the same price. Is that so hard for people that DONT own one to understand?

12

Does turbo really improve mileage?

I had a 1985 Volvo Turbo with an Automatic (I don’t even think you could get an S/T on that car). Anyhow when the turbo would kick in I could pretty much see my gas gauge start going down.

Now, I had two turbo chargers on this car. Initially I had a water cooled turbo and I replaced it with an oil cooled unit which gave me better performance (they both would glow cherry red after a long road trip), and both of them sucked up the gas big time.

My 262 Bertone Also used a turbocharger but I don’t remember how much gas it sucked down and I did not own it as long as the 85’. I dont’ even remember what kind of turbo the Bertone had in it. I miss the hell out of that car tho’.

Is this particular to older turbochargers or newer ones? Or is it a Volvo thing?

13

I think what they mean is that a turbocharged 200hp engine (which is probably 2-liter or so) has better mileage than a non-turbo 200hp engine (which is probably 4 liters). If you take one engine and stick a turbo on it, I’m sure it would make the mileage worse.

By the way, zen101, I’ve never heard of a 200 series Volvo with a turbocharged V6 engine. Did you drop a 4-cylinder turbo engine into your 262C?

14

I agree with scr4 on the milage issue. I used to have a Chevy Lumina Z34 which was a 3.4L 210bhp non-turbo V6. It got around 17-20mpg in mixed driving. My current Fiat Coupe is a 2L 220bhp single turbo straight 5 (yes, I really mean 5 cylinders, not 4). It gets between 23 and 26mpg.

15

According to Blueovalnews, based on Ford’s own internal documents regarding the near future of the Mustang:

  • by 2003, the 3.8L will die off, replaced by a modular 4.0L SOHC producing 210 horsepower @ 5250 RPM. An optional 3.0L 4V V6 will produce 215 horsepower @ 6250 RPM.

  • The GT will continue to use the 4.6 2V, but it will get a bump in power to 285 horses @ 5250 RPM. An optional 4.9L GT 2V will be an all optional engine for 2003. The 4.9L will produce 290 horses @ 5250 RPM. Yawn.

  • The Cobra will drop the 4.6L 4V at the end of 2002 and will begin using an all new 5.0L 4V that is scheduled to pump out 350+ horses @ 6000 RPM and 340+ Ft. Lbs. Torque at 4750 RPM. Yawn again.

And let’s not forget that whole bugaboo of the 1999 and 2000 Cobras, shall we? Whose engines were so worthless every 1999 Cobra was recalled, and Ford had to cancel production of the 2000 Cobra due to continuing engine and rear suspension problems (the “70 mph shake”, being the worst)

Both the corral.net and Blueovalnews have published interviews with Ford engineers who have called the 6-speeds currently available “big pieces of heavy, high friction shit”, claiming in one article IIRC that there was an extra 5 hp loss from the 6 speed. It is alleged that the only reason the Cobra R came with a 6-speed was for advertising in comparison with the Camaro.

Two things:

  1. Yes, the modular engines have a very good reputation for being outstandingly reliable and well-designed. When it comes time to modify them, I have seen many reports of the blocks now being able to withstand very high power outputs - like around the true 600 hp range. Is that bad in itself? No - it’s just not designed for that level of power.

  2. The Corral has many and numerous references on dyno tests of Mustangs and Cobras from 1994-present. In general, from looking at dyno sheets I can say that Ford in fact is not sandbagging the horsepower ratings at all. From what I have seen, my 1998 GT, rated at 225 hp, typically yields dyno tests of 200 to 215 on mostly unmodified cars. The 1998 Cobra would typically post unmodified dyno tests of 20 to 30 hp less than it’s ratings. On the contrary, many on the corral.net messageboard (99% Mustang fans there, BTW) are pretty convinced that in fact it is GM that is sandbagging the horsepower numbers.

No arguments from this gal - I have never understood the connection between F-bodies, automatics, big gold chains, hairy chests, and Van Halen. Ugh.

What world are you living in, sunshine? What car do you own, for that matter? Around here, the people that run the 1/8 and 1/4 mile drags with SN95 Mustangs get bare-bottomed spankings from same year 5.7L F-body owners.

And yet - the Mustang overall is a much better car in many ways. More reliable, better design inside and out, better handling in real-world driving, better braking control and feel (even if the absolute numbers are close). And until they changed the Mustang’s body to that hideous slab-sided style in 1999, I would have bought another one. I love my 98 GT - with it’s relatively round, feminine curves. It feels like the perfect car under $25,000 for a bad-ass power-crazed lesbian mechanical engineer…

Hey dude - Homer knows a hell of a lot about real-world cars and real-world car issues. From what he’s posted it appears he’s more of a “brake fluid in his hair, gas in his eyes, pieces of metal under his skin, perpetually dirty fingernails” sort of guy. And the effort and work and pain and blood he has contributed to his Z24 is very impressive and shows he is, in fact, “the Man”.

16

Why no turbos? Because us Americans build real engine that don’t need 'em. There’s no substitute for cubic inches :D. Turbos are expensive to repair and easy to break if you don’t know what you’re doing. A 360 cid cast iron V8 will last forever, and if something does go wrong, you can fix it in the driveway for very little cost. AMHIK :wink:

17

I haven’t jumped on the subaru boards for a while, but they are going to bring A kick-ass Impreza over for the 2002 model year. It sounds like its going to be between the WRX and the 22b(even meatier than the WRX) and its supposed to be $25000 max. The only down side is that the spy shot I saw of it looked like an econobox, but for a rally car, I guess I can deal with that.

As to the OP, I don’t want a stupid turbo or supercharger instead of my Big ol American engine. I want to hear and feel that rumble, not whine along at 6000 rpm just so I got a little power.

I’m not sure what would happen if they sent out a AWD Taurus but I can see why they are hesitant. Most of the people who wanted AWD fell in love with Subaru or Volvo or BWM, and there is a fierce loyalty between those people and their cars.

18

I don’t have a clue about what kind of turbo was in the car as it ran perfectly from day one as opposed to the 85’ which had problems and so I had to listen to the mechanic and write stuff down because I was sure he woudl screw me if he knew that I didn’t know about cars. I do remember that the car had a 2.8 litre motor in it but I don’t know about the turbocharger. I owned the car for only 6 months before I got hit on ice and bout the 85’ from my step-father (same guy who sold me the bertone). He is actually the person who changed turbos on the 85’ so maybe he did the Bertone too? Man I really do miss the hell out of that car. I haven’t owned a car that nice since and it was 10 years old when I bought it.

19

Hi Anth! You forgot to mention the F-Body mullet! :wink:

IIRC, the Taurus was offered as a AWD in the late 80s. 86, maybe? I dunno. I can’t remember much about the AWD Tempos. The AWD 6000s were fitted with a weak engine (quad 4, I think) and a 3 speed slushbox w/integrated transfer case. Not exactly a performer. More for safety, I’d imagine. Also, the Escort in England is not the same one we have (or had) here, it’s a different design (or at least, was). I’m not too sure on this, I’ve not seen specs, I’ve just seen pics. But then, in England, Cosworth offered a 1.9l turbo intercooled AWD Escort. From what I read on the web, people over here describe an Escort as “underpowered economy” whilst the English describe them as “frighteningly powerful” so what’s the deal?! Why wasn’t THAT offered as an option? You can’t say it’s not viable because Mitsu showed with the 3kGT that a $13000 option WILL sell if it’s a good one (upgrade from n/a auto coupe fwd to turbo 6spd conv. AWD)

While the Japanese have moved away from turbos in THIS market, in Japan and other parts of Asia they’re still quite viable. Ummm… Mitsu, Toyota, Nissan, Subaru… I know I’m forgetting some more, all market an engine ~2 liters with a smaller turbo making just over 200 horse. But they don’t show up stateside! Even the engine in the Neon (the n/a used in n/a DSMs) uses the same mounts as the designation 4g63 which is the 2.0 turbo used in the Eclipse GST and GSXs. The problem is when the Neon was designed they reversed it’s direction so the accessories for the engine won’t fit because they nail the firewall. Otherwise Dodge could have dropped the turbo engine into it and REALLY made a Neon R/T or ACR. In fact many guys who try to tune N/A DSMs (colloquial name for Eclipse, Talon, and Lasers) just use ACR parts for the Neon because they’re easier to find. Then we get to beautiful cars such as the Mitsu GTO (3000GT/Stealth stateside) which was killed to produce the Montero, IIRC. It had, among other things, a 3.0 V6, twin turbo, AWD, 6 speed, AWsteering, active aero, electronically controlled suspension, a spyder version, etc., etc. We also got a shipment of Galant VR-4s here in… um… 94? that had a 2.0 turbo AWD setup. Didn’t sell AT ALL! We’ve lost the Wankel turbo in the RX-7 because of Utes (it’s coming back, I hear). The 300ZX is gone. Everything we DID have has been lost, stateside! Yet in Japan they still have Skyline GT-Rs, they have EVO VIs, and so many other pure tech-sports cars it’s not funny!

Okay, so we’ve narrowed it down to 1) reliability and 2) “No replacement for displacement” then?

Gunslinger, that 360 CI is nice, but what if you had a supercharger blowing 8psi into it? You’d like that, right? Well then why not a T72 turbo blowing about 20 psi into it? That’s a hell of alot more power than a supercharger will give, and not much more money. If you build it right, you don’t have to crack the engine, and you’ll never have to futz with it.

See, what sticks in my craw about both of these is that the reliability problem has been very much demolished in the last decade, what with ceramic bearings (still expensive, though), better oil cooling systems, and turbo timers (usually only on tuner cars, though). Even the Chrysler/Lotus/Mitsu K-cars tuned by Shelby (jeez, what a group! :D) had some crappy turbos, but they’d still last over 50k miles with very, very hard, race-driving. The Eclipse turbo (14G or 16G) lasts as long as the engine with normal driving, the main problem on turbo Eclipses (and it’s stablemates) is crankwalk in the 2Gs from ill-cast bottom ends. Heck, even the old 2.3 turbo Thunderchickens tore up the pavement, and that turbo would last an easy 75k.

On top of that, V-TEC and ZETEC are both very fancy shit these days, but from what I hear, variable valve timing is more problem-prone than turbocharging.

And as for turbos making a peak rating with no powerband, if you’re having that problem, your turbo is too big. A too big turbo won’t make full boost until high RPMs. A smaller turbo will spin up sooner, giving you your full boost from 1000 to redline. So that argument is bunk.

A turbo will give you worse gas mileage, yes, true. That’s because all the extra air needs extra fuel. But then, you won’t need to give it as much gas to make the same amount of power, either. So there goes that argument. On top of that, power is so easily made with a turbo you can have a much taller gearbox which would also reduce gas use while cruising (right? or am I crazy?) and coupled with the correct size turbo you could constantly stay low in the rpms.

The idea of a turbo engine being high revving and strung out doesn’t necessarily hold true with intelligent engine design. It seems to me that early 80s designs were a huge stepping stone to a better all around engine, and that with OBD I and OBD II tighter engine controls would allow a turbo to be even MORE useful (and much easier to keep an eye on!) So the deal becomes that while the stepping stone was laid by Mitsu (and Chrysler), Nissan, and Subaru in the 80s, no one took the next leap.

As with full time AWD not being plausible because of concerns of equipment wear, you don’t see those concerns voiced about Utes with full time AWD (models w/full time AWD escape me right now) so I don’t think that’s a proper argument, either.

I guess the deal is inertia. ::sigh:: How did I know it could come to laziness? :smiley:

I have lots more to say but dad gummit this is way too long already.

Check out http://www.turboz24.com to see my friend Curtis’s exploits in the world of turbocharging. BTW in 1989 and 90 GM sold a 2.8 (89) and 3.1 (90) turbocharged Sunbird but it had iron heads, was plagued with leaks, and sold horribly.

If I screwed anything up too horribly, call me on it…

–Tim

20

It appears that we’ve concluded that American cars don’t use turbos out of habit/apathy, but what about SUVs and pickups? A turbo diesel makes alot of sense for this type of vehicle, but they seem rare in the US. In Europe nearly all SUVs use turbo diesels.