tiddy1 Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 S2000 engines do fit ina Caterham & it has been done to a german seven, Look here: http://www.superseven.ch/neue_seite_171.htm also search the archive they are heavy though at 147 KG about 20 KG more than a VX simon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dino ferrana Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 Oh Peter was talking about BC derived V8's! 😳 That explains it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterg Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 Personally i'm still baffled as to why they put such an innovative product in such a horrible looking 7 copy probably 'cos the boss of Quantum Cars is funding the design and development of the engine....... 😬 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Carmichael Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 Nah. The Quantum I was thinking of was the works car running the 5 litre V8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P Brews Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 I thought that the thread started as "cheaper ways to 300bhp". Surely turocharging is going to be cheaper than shoe-horning in a bigger engine or than building a 1000km screamer. I think that the WRC guys have done a lot of work over the past five years on eliminating turbo lag. The bottom end would probably need attention but the engine does not need to run particularly fast, so you avoid the associated costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris G Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 Turbocharging is cheap and you get lots of power but it's a very different se7en experience. 2-3k gets you 300BHP. A decent V engine will get you 300BHP for similar money but with a nicer power delivery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
max_torque Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 WRC or similar Group A engines running with antilag strategy in the engine controller, which basically moves the combustion event into the exhaust manifold under overrun conditions effectively totally eliminates "lag". But to make this work with any reliability you need a Myram shafted turbocharger for which just the shaft / turbine wheel is about £700 before you've even got it into the turbocharger! Kinda destroys the "budget" part of the equation. You are also still faced with the perenial turbo issues of boost rpm threshold and a "sudden" non progessive torque curve after the threshold. I am currently facing up to the option of ditching the 2.0 litre turbo engine in my tarmac rally car and replacing it with NA engine for next years events. (quite possibly a 2.5 KV6) 😬 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris G Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 In terms of archieving 300BHP 700 quid isn't a great deal really. Rover V8/VX/Duratec/whatever would be a way over 10k to get to these sorts of power levels. Even with that extra 700 quid, you're still only looking at 3500 or so and you'll have over 350BHP. At 10 quid/BHP that's still cheap power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Carmichael Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 sheez! This is starting to sound like a kit car forum. Since when has cheapness been a virtue... 🤔 Seriously, I would like to unpick some of the creative accounting that is coming to light. When is cheap not cheap? If a conversion involves a change of engine type then that means new exhaust, new engine mounts, gearbox adaptor plate type stuff, which eats into the budget before you get going. Probably new wiring as well. You then have to get that engine to fit which is when you get into the Raceline style of bolt ons - shallow sumps and water rails. These are all necessary just to get that engine type physically into the car. With all of that in mind and 300bhp as a target you have a choice: Option A - big engine Option B - some form of forced induction Option C - tune something to the eyeballs There is a sort of holy grail thought that somewhere out there an engine exists that can have Option C applied with change from a bag of sand and hey presto you're up and running and breaking gearboxes. Step forward the Duratec. Believe it when I see it and the price tag will be the usual megabucks. Honda S2000 engine? Experienced honda tuners are not fooled by the hype and these engines only have their legendary reliability when operated within their design parameters - they blow up real easy, just like anything else. Option B is a non-starter as a cheap conversion for a standard natasp engine. Compression ratios will be all wrong for a start. So you are looking at a full transplant. The packaging is complicated because you need to pipe stuff from one side of the engine to the other. Can't go under for all the usual reasons, so you have to go round the front. You might not get the power (or manners) you're after either unless you get a really top notch intercooler setup. These sorts of things only sound cheap when the converter has devoted zillions of their hours to the project which never seem to be accounted for as a cost. Which brings us back to the big engine option A. There are some excellent big engine designs out there these days, lugging trucks around. As soon as you have more than a single bank of cylinders it gets complicated for the packaging, especially when you attempt to replace the performance cramping induction with something simpler and more suited to purpose. Just don't start down this track having plumped for too small en engine. You'll only regret it later. So my understanding of this is that none of these options are cheap unless you fiddle the books. In particular, any trail blazing installation that hasn't been done before stands the chance of blowing its budget by a factor of 2 or 3 if even a few incorrect decisions are made. So back to my original question: since when has cheapness been a virtue? I've seen all sorts of projects end up more expensive at the end (and cocked up and late) because of inadequate funding up front. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Shurvinton Posted October 17, 2003 Author Share Posted October 17, 2003 I kinda thought that the 'cheap as chips, fast as fsck' mantra was actually started by the late Colin Chapman, who used what was available and cheap as much as possible in many of his car designs. So If you are a true follower cheapness is a great virtue. Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martinwhitcher Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 Peter... , I think your last post about cost is spot-on ❗, these SO-CALLED cheap engine upgrades do soon mount up! , come-on guys i'm sure there is there not many people out there that can make the most (on the road) of a 140BHP K-Series let alone 250+BHP....... most of us could do with driver tutition Martin MW 51 CAT Superlight No.171 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kandyman Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 I also always thought Sevens were about being cheap. If it weren't for Sevens, I couldn't afford a car that does sub 6 secs to 60 and turns heads... -Marin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Carmichael Posted October 18, 2003 Share Posted October 18, 2003 Have you mentioned that concept to Caterham recently? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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