The Great Weight Debate

[tomsullivan]

so last time we had a debate about big and small engines, the same thing keep coming up, that bigger engines made cars weigh more thus playing havoc with the handling, well, i came across the weight of the skyline, and thought that a little high.

Weight: 3432 lbs for the v-spec R34

Weight: 3000 lb for a V8 66 stang

Weight: 3,765 for a 1969 Camaro

Weight: 3269lb for a 1998 supra

and i also read that the RB26DETT, weight more than a iron V8 small block (i dont have anything to back it up tho, just read it on a forum)


and now for something special

a 1994 RX-7 with a turbo rotary engine weights 2821lb that puts out 200+ bhp

put a LS1 in the place of the rotary and you have a weight of 2800lbs with 500bhp.

now for the links to the places i got the info

skyline spec RB26DETT Specs

Camaro specs Howstuffworks "1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z28: A Profile of a Muscle Car"

Mustang specs Ford Mustang - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Supra specs 1998 Toyota Supra Specs & Data

RX7 with a LS-1 RX7 G-machine - Lateral-g Forums you need to reg to see pictures

stock RX-7 Mazda RX-7 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

i posted them link, because one, its the internet you can say anything and ppl will belive you, and second, you can check if, i can acually read.

[Zachary]

Originally Posted by tomsullivan

so last time we had a debate about big and small engines, the same thing keep coming up, that bigger engines made cars weigh more thus playing havoc with the handling, well, i came across the weight of the skyline, and thought that a little high.

Weight: 3432 lbs for the v-spec R34

Weight: 3000 lb for a V8 66 stang

Weight: 3765 for a 1969 Camaro

Weight: 3269lb for a 1998 supra

and i also read that the RB26DETT, weight more than a iron V8 small block (i dont have anything to back it up tho, just read it on a forum)

heres some more correct numbers

if speaking of wights there is some minor differences beteween regular GT-R and v-spec models. (while engine performance are almost identical on all models)

R34 GT-R v-spec: 3439lb
R34 GT-R: 3395lb

R33 GT-R v-spec: 3395lb
R33 GT-R: 3373lb

R32 GT-R v-spec: 3306lb
R32 GT-R: 3262lb

but itself weight of GT-R skylines can be explained with these things:

- cast iron engine block (all models, engine construction baseds on 70's nissan straight sixes, which makes it extreme durable, heavier that SBC block as you said before)

- twin turbos and parts related on them

- attesa-ets (all wheel steering system)

- four wheel drive systems

- on R34 also interior equipment add a lot of wights.


and i think it better to compare cars of same era to each other if looking of wight, since old sports cars are just so simple that they does not weight a thing

like 2 cars that haves preformance that matches each other pretty much

1969 Skyline KPGC10 GT-R (six cyl engine): 2425lb
vs
1966 Mustang (six cyl engine): 2570lb

[Silent][Moebius]

also a big component is the chassis. how good is it, like in the porsches (for example) it compensates for the placement of the motor behind the rear axle, where it actually shouldn't be

[The IC]

id be happy to have an rx7 with a rotary or a v8...however making a rotary reliable and powerful in australia is much much MUCH easier, australia has one of the worlds best rotary motorsport communities (were even called rotary drag racing heaven), america has diddly squat, so i can see why it would be much better to convert to a v8 over there...i googled about the conversion, most places just seemed to turn into flame wars :roll:

plus, cars have winning heritage (well the skyline and the rx7 do), and obviously they did it with the engine they had, so people are going to follow them regardless of whats statisically better

[tomsullivan]

thanks for those figures Zachary, you can never be sure with teh figures you get of the net, lol.


and just so you know this was not a dig at smaller engine, i was just intersted in the figures.

the RX-7 really interested me, great looking car stock. if i had the money i would diferently put an LS in one, i think its a great combination

@ Silent][Moebius, that why i was so suprised that how light teh RX-7 came out after teh LS, because most of the time you ahve to upgrade to heavier duty supesion, swaybar, stiffen up the chasis all that funky jazz, but its still came out near when in had the rotary.

The IC, you ahve these ppl Hinson Super Cars they do LS conversion to RX-7 and SX200

[The IC]

yeah, i saw that place, and theres also http://www.grannysspeedshop.com/

i was more referring to when people asked about doing the conversion on forums, theyd usually get attacked by rotary nuts (who were clearly ignoring the fact that the rotary that would be replaced usually had already done well over 100,000 miles and had worn out) and then also get attacked by american patriots who hate anyone who buys japanese cars

theres also a mob in Australia that does v8s into mazda mx5s, just gotta remember the name...

[tomsullivan]

lol yeah i know wat you mean. i saw this quote on some site.

"you go to a mustang site and you will see, some little kid tried to race me in his honda, i smoked him, and then you head to a honda forum and it will say, i raceing a stang today, kick him" lol

but i am not sure about rotary, from wat i ahve read, the not that powerfull for how heavier they are, they leak, they use a lot of fuel. the Rotary design it self is ingenious, but becuase of that they are overly complicated, if there is a problem with the V or inline engines, its on the back strok nothing happenes, so its just wasted energy from the fricton, rotaries slove this, but it creates its own problems in turn.

on this engine thing, with all the talk about how combusion engines are killing the earth, how do you think engines are goin to be like in the furture, because the one option for "green power" is the hydro cars, but the problem i see with this is, that will they have the power to replace say truck engines, becuase trucks are the back bone of most socities, transporting goods and stuff, so how big will a hydro engine need to be to tow all the weight

electic engines are just stupid, the energy need to create the electricity, polluts just as much as a combusion engine, and they are rather underpowered, they dont have much torque.

it will be interesting to see how engines develop in the future, because i think the combusion engine is a dying bread, most fuel used to power them, pollute

[The IC]

im not a super rotary expert, but i do know that %99.9 of the problems with a rotary are to do with the seals on the corners of the triangular rotor piece...which is where australias rotoring expertise comes in. A fellow in Canberra makes the undisputed best rotor seals in the world (thats what he does for a living...he makes rotary seals, nothing else ), and once you put them on, then you can get a rotary to run incredibly higher amounts of power, its much more reliable etc. etc. ...i think it was just mazda was cost cutting because they were in a financial hole until 2002 (which is funny cos now theyre the only profitable part of ford and are doing very well)...the rx8 engine is supposed to be better too

also the rotary is supposed to put out more power for the same capacity as a piston engine, the 2.6L NA engine out of the mazda 787B put out around 700hp, and had "exceptionally high torque" (noone gives an exact figure), and it was tuned to be reliability rather than for maximum power...i think the basic idea is if you made a 2L rotary it would generally be more powerful than a 2L piston, a 5L rotary (theres no such thing as far as i know, im just making an example) would be more powerful than a 5L piston etc. etc. ...ill try and get some more info on it all, as i said im not a rotary super nut

EDIT: oh yeah, forgot to mention rotaries have a much lower centre of gravity too, youd almost have to turn a piston engine upside down to get the same effect, and also that they usually get banned for power-to-weight advantages in motorsport

[darth carth]

Radical SR8: 363 bhp @ 10300 rpm - 1433 lbs - 605bhp/tonne
This one even holds the world record on the Nurburgring for production cars, which says alot about handling

Ariel Atom: 300bhp@8200rpm - 1005.5 lbs
KTM X-Bow: 220 hp@5900 - 700kg
Koenigsegg CCXR (biofueled) : 1018hp@7200rpm - -1000kg