Re: Hemis

[James Montebello <jamesm@domain.elided>]

And the weight is distributed nicely, down low, not up high in the head,
which can significantly lower the CG of the engine, and therefore have
good effects on lowering the CG of the car.  This can obviously be an
advantage even on inline engines, not just vee engines.  With the engine
a lot shorter vertically, it will also fit under a lower hood, which is
better aerodynamically, as well as fitting current styling demands.
Pushrod engines are regularly snubbed by many, but quite unfairly.

And, responding to another poster, hemi chambers are NOT the only way to
get an engine to breathe well, a fact I'm sure a great many NASCAR tuners
would support.  Saying they existed in European marques in the 30s is
also a bit specious, as nearly *everything* used in engines today was
invented prior to 1920.  About the only thing really significant to be
designed post 1950 (besides materials) is electronic engine management,
which is allowing things not considered possible 40 years ago (like
100hp/liter with a 200,000 mile lifetime).  Alas, it also brings
negatives, like OBD-II...

james montebello
two DOHC engines
one SOHC engine
three pushrod engines

On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, Greg Hermann wrote:

> At 3:00 PM 2/13/03, Paul  Misencik wrote:
> >> They've designed a completely new pushrod V8 hemi...
> >
> >Is there some theoretical advantage to pushrod engines that I'm not getting
> >here?  Why do American manufacturers continually go back to the drawing
> >boards, create brand new engines from scratch and spend tens of millions of
> >dollars to create all-new pushrod engines?  With cars like the Corvette, is
> >it just to satisfy the purists?
> >
> >There are overhead cam engines that are torquey, cheap to build and
> >reliable.  Why build a 21st century passenger vehicle engine that uses
> >pushrods?
>
> Particularly with a Vee configuration, you can get a LOT more displacement
> into a smaller, lighter package with pushrods. For example--a Ford 5.3 s or
> d ohc "Triton" V-8 DWARFS a 460 pushrod engine.
>
> Greg
> >
> >Curious,
> >
> >Paul Misencik
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