Cars That Don't Deserve Their Engines, Cars That Deserve Better

[YSSMAN]

YSSMAN, that Si might have destroyed the XRS, but the Si before it destroyed it. The EP3 was a pretty crap car with a crap engine.

I was thinking of this one:

The Corolla XRS was only available in 2005 and 2006, that Civic Si came on the scene in 2006 as I recall.

Either way, I know what you're talking about. The EP Hatch wasn't nearly as good as its predecessor, more of a "grown up" hatch in the same way the GTI had ran about beforehand. Nevertheless, I think I'd take the Civic over the Corolla/Matrix XRS. But thats just me...

 

[niky]

Hmm.... a topic that's near-and-dear to my heart... cars that need better engines!

The Mazda Miata NC doesn't really need much more engine, but a turbo-charged version would be nice.

The Mazdas that really need more power are the RX8 (already mentioned) and the Mazda Protege.

The Protege was considered by some to be like a front-wheel drive BMW 3-series... it had good balance, great steering feel (better than the Mazda3 that replaced it) and terrific driving manners. Unfortunately, Mazda's 1.8 and 2 liter engines at the time were the FP and FS series engines. The FP was decent, as far as 1.8s go, but the FSDE was pure crap. It was torquey, but had little room for performance improvements, poor head-flow, was asthmatic at high rpms and wasn't a very durable base for tuning. The penultimate version of the Protege, the Mazdaspeed Protege, was praised highly for its handling, but suffered from too little power... 170 bhp from a turbocharged 2 liter engine? Honda was getting 200 bhp without a turbo at the time... and even the Japanese market Familia version was available with a 170 bhp naturally-aspirated mill... surely Mazda could have done better!

Another car that deserved a more performance-oriented motor is the previous generation Nissan Sentra SE-R:

Yes, the QR25DE was a torquey mother... but c'mon... a car like this deserves a high-revving screamer of an engine... torque may make for better day-to-day driving, but the QR was never as lively a mill as the SR20 it replaced... an engine that could rev over 7000 rpm and was good for over 200 bhp (even without a turbo) in naturally-aspirated form. Big mills may make for more performance, as their average horsepower actually make for better acceleration, but sometimes, character is more important than outright power.

 

[Moglet]

To be fair, I guess if someone tuned the engine, and sorted out the abysmal chassis. There could maybe be a decent performance car. But until then, no. Just, no.

I'd happily have one if it was tuned properly both in terms of the engine and the chassis. It would have to be in brown with a beige interior, slammed over some decent wheels with a good, throaty exhaust.

Aaaaaw yeah!

 

[Giancarlo]

Yeah, I think the Smart ForTwo got shafted by not having the Hayabusa engine as an option.

Agreed.

 

[87chevy]

I just want to make a comment reffering to comments made on Page2.

H1 hummers are not "badass" in any stretch of the word. Well maybe "bad, and run like ass". They only put the good motors in the super heavy armored models, where they are still underpowered. They are capable to a point. But any real off roader would never pick a hummer for serious wheeling.

As far as cars not deserving motors, I would say that as cool as the last Nissan Altima SER was, being FWD just made the whole thing pointless. And I'd really actually have to say that about my former '01 Celica GTS. FWD just sucks.

 

[C-ZETA]

I'd say Mazda should make a turbocharged rotary engine for the RX-8. It probably won't work, since the RX-8 is Japanese, and the Japanese probably have no idea what a supercharger is. They could always make the turbocharged rotary in America though, since half of that were built in America seem to have one.

 

[Rotary Junkie]

I'd say Mazda should make a turbocharged rotary engine for the RX-8. It probably won't work, since the RX-8 is Japanese, and the Japanese probably have no idea what a supercharger is. They could always make the turbocharged rotary in America though, since half of that were built in America seem to have one.

Turbo RX-8: All over, easily done, Mazda's done turbo rotaries many times before.

Supercharged would be different and what I think you're getting at... Please reread what you've wrote before posting mate...

 

[ND4SPD]

I'd say Mazda should make a turbocharged rotary engine for the RX-8. It probably won't work, since the RX-8 is Japanese, and the Japanese probably have no idea what a supercharger is. They could always make the turbocharged rotary in America though, since half of that were built in America seem to have one.

Funny you say that, Mazda actually has built a one off supercharged RX-8 that they lent to a bunch of magazines. It was pushing out 362hp if I remember. I have a magazine somewhere with it in it.

 

[nobuffalo]

I'd say Mazda should make a turbocharged rotary engine for the RX-8. It probably won't work, since the RX-8 is Japanese, and the Japanese probably have no idea what a supercharger is. They could always make the turbocharged rotary in America though, since half of that were built in America seem to have one.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but wasn't the first modern production car to have a supercharger a MR2, which is a...toyota?

Your comment is kind of confusing though, so maybe thats not what you meant.

 

[Leonidae]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but wasn't the first modern production car to have a supercharger a MR2, which is a...toyota?

Your comment is kind of confusing though, so maybe thats not what you meant.

Lancia 037 Stradale, Lancia Delta S4 Stradale.. ring a bell? if it doesn't, google is a friend.

 

[TheCracker]

Lancia 037 Stradale, Lancia Delta S4 Stradale.. ring a bell? if it doesn't, google is a friend.

They were homologation specials, not serious production cars.

But, VW brought out the supercharged G60 engine at around the same time as Toyota's MR2 SC.

 

[YSSMAN]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but wasn't the first modern production car to have a supercharger a MR2, which is a...toyota?

What do you classify as "modern" exactly? The Germans have been tinkering with forced induction otherwise from the beginning, many Auto Union and Austro-Daimler/German-Diamler cars having them. Stateside, they were supercharging Duesenbergs for quite some time as well, and our Anglo friends had them on Bentley and Rolls-Royce cars early on too. Of course, that was in the interwar period, long before you and I existed, which must mean that it didn't count.

Supercharging is nothing new, its just been re-invented countless times.

 

[nobuffalo]

Yea I should have specified that a little more. By modern I did mean around the past 30-40 years or so. I just recently watched a video on the mr2 and the host mentioned that it was the first modern production engine with a supercharger, after that I tried thinking of any cars, more or so american that had a supercharger from the factory but I couldn't so I went with it. I wasn't expecting to be right though.

 

[JCE]

"Cars that deserve better"

1. Dodge Challenger SRT8
2. Dodge Charger SRT8
3. Dodge Magnum SRT8
4. Chrysler 300C SRT8
5. Ford Mustang
6. Toyota Corolla

"Cars that don't deserve their engine"

1. Chrysler Crossfire SRT6
2. Toyota Prius
3. Cadillac Escalade Hybrid
4. Lexus IS-F
5. Toyota Avalon

 

[ND4SPD]

What do you classify as "modern" exactly? The Germans have been tinkering with forced induction otherwise from the beginning, many Auto Union and Austro-Daimler/German-Diamler cars having them. Stateside, they were supercharging Duesenbergs for quite some time as well, and our Anglo friends had them on Bentley and Rolls-Royce cars early on too. Of course, that was in the interwar period, long before you and I existed, which must mean that it didn't count.

Supercharging is nothing new, its just been re-invented countless times.

Yep, say hello to the Bentley Blower

 

[nk4e]

Yea I should have specified that a little more. By modern I did mean around the past 30-40 years or so. I just recently watched a video on the mr2 and the host mentioned that it was the first modern production engine with a supercharger, after that I tried thinking of any cars, more or so american that had a supercharger from the factory but I couldn't so I went with it. I wasn't expecting to be right though.

I believe if you said that Toyota was the first Japanese company that put a Supercharger in a production car in the passed 30-40 years. Otherwise, the Rx7(1986-1992) and Supra would come into my mind first. But I am sure that there are other companies out there that did it within the 30-40 year time span.

 

[Perfect Balance]

I say pretty much any Civic between 90-00 that came with a D series. Most of them came in cars with a great lightweight chassis, but required an engine swap or a turbo to be anything really fun.

 

[wrcsti]

The turbo rotary wont happen because of 1 thing. Emmisions. Rotaries aren't too good for the enviroment by themselves and run fairly rich, turboing won't make it better at all and the required cost to make it effective would most likely make it too expensive for its class.

 

[Rotary Junkie]

The turbo rotary wont happen because of 1 thing. Emmisions. Rotaries aren't too good for the enviroment by themselves and run fairly rich, turboing won't make it better at all and the required cost to make it effective would most likely make it too expensive for its class.

Rotaries don't run rich; Rather, they suffer from incomplete combustion, hence making them rather dirty.

Now then... Turbocharging is actually the best bet. It won't hurt fuel economy at light load but will noticeably help peak power. Emissions won't worsen much either so it's really the best situation to be in.

 

[nobuffalo]

I believe if you said that Toyota was the first Japanese company that put a Supercharger in a production car in the passed 30-40 years. Otherwise, the Rx7(1986-1992) and Supra would come into my mind first. But I am sure that there are other companies out there that did it within the 30-40 year time span.

The RX7's and Supra's where turbocharged , not supercharged. So from the 50's or 60's does anyone know of any production vehicles that came supercharged?

Going along with the topic of the thread, the 3rd gen celicas 82-85 could have used a better engine in my opinion. Maybe the 3tgte, the 22r had good low end torque but could have used to some more power up in the rpm's. It's a fair truck engine, just doesn't fit the celica.

This

With this

Or even this

 

[Jim Prower]

Uh, That's the thing.

All Turbochargers are Superchargers. However, not all Superchargers are Turbochargers.

and, in that case, we're probably looking at the Porsche Turbo.

 

[nobuffalo]

I understand that. By supercharger, I simply meant mechanical or belt driven superchargers. Perhaps I should start explaing myself better.

 

[niky]

And it's irrelevant to the point, this side discussion... which arose because somebody said the Japanese don't know how to do supercharging... which isn't true.