RE: 156 Direct Injection - 165 bhp, 152lb-ft from 2.0 liters

[Nizam Zambri <nizam@domain.elided>]

On Friday, February 8, 2002, at 08:23 AM, alfa-digest wrote:

 >The 1.8 in the Toyota Celica, Toyota Matrix and Pontiac Vibe
 >put out 180hp, are naturally aspirated and I think they are
 >mass produced.
 >
 >I believe the 240hp in the Honda S2000 takes top honors for 2.0 litre
 >output in a car designed for street use.

The one BIG difference here is, of course, where the power is produced, 
and how much torque is available.  If you notice, most Japanese car 
makers have taken to putting large horsepower claims (which are largely 
true) for their mainstream sporting cars.  But I'm sure you'll also 
notice that this horsepower is produced at very, very high rpm's.  
Nothing bad about this, as F1 cars make large horsepower in the 
15,000rpm range.  I don't know many of my Silicon Valley yuppie friends 
who rev their S2000's to eight grand as they get smoked by my rather 
large, old-tech 164 - front end squirrelling away as I haven't put in 
AlfaBill's Superpro bushings yet.  They just resign it to "he's a crazy 
driver" <grin>.

Why I think the Alfa engine is worth a mention is torque.  While I don't 
have the RPM numbers here with me, based on past experience with Alfa 
motors I can safely say the torque peak is probably at a more usable 
4200rpm and horsepower peaks at around 5,500rpm.  I'd rather not get 
into 0-60mph or 0-100km/h times because manufacturers also purposefully 
gear their cars for the reviewers or editors of car magazines (there was 
an article in European Car on how 90% of the cars they tested touched or 
slightly surpassed 60mph/100km/h in 2nd gear, regardless of horsepower 
etc)

Check out the other vehicles quoted in this forum:

Toyota Prius:  180bhp@7600rpm, 130lb/ft@6800rpm
Honda S2000:  243bhp@8300rpm, 153lb/ft@7500rpm
Acura Integra Type-R: 195bhp@8000rpm, 130lb/ft@7500rpm
Pontiac Vibe: 180bhp@7600rpm, 130lb/ft@6800rpm

Wow.  130lb/ft?  If memory serves me correctly, my dad's Alfetta 2.0L 
from 1982 produced almost that much torque (118lb/ft) and he didn't have 
to rev it to 7600rpm either.

Oh, then there's the Audi turbo motor:

Audi 1.8T:  170bhp@5900rpm, 166lb/ft@1950rpm (!)

So to recap, in terms of numbers alone, there is nothing special about 
the new 156 Direct Injection motor.  But if you read between the 
numbers, the 152 lb/ft of torque sounds very usable to me, and if they 
got the motor to produce it between 3-4K rpm, I think it's worth 
boasting about.

Nizam

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