Someone comes along with a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu engine and kicks your butt.
Pros and Cons of owning a Boxer engine
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Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Originally Posted By: rshunter
We're on the same page of the tech manual, but I'm apparently not getting my point across. That is, some here aren't recognizing that the fuel economy numbers being used as a point of reference tell us not about the fuel efficiency of the engine, but of the vehicle as a whole.
Again, that is exactly the point of the post to which you are responding. If it's your point as well, I'm a bit puzzled as to why you are spending so much energy continuing to repeat it when it's already been said five or six times by now. Maybe I'm missing something.
It's probably that one of the early posts stated this as a characteristic of the boxer engine...
Quote:
Cons: Poor fuel economy.
Which as a matter of course for around here, got the usual endorsement. Then, "mormit" tried to point out why the numbers were skewed and then it turned into a stupid game of pointing out that the drive-train wasn't the same as the power-plant, when nobody ever claimed was in the first place. Then I made the point that mormit's point was valid, regarding the basis for comparison, and that without BSFC numbers the whole inefficiency claim is unsubstantiated garbage. Then I got told that the numbers were based on the car and not the engine, which is exactly what I'd said in the first place.
When you said, "This thread is about boxer engines, not cars with boxer engines.", you were right about the title. The problem is that the data points being used for reference are entirely based on cars with boxer engines. You can't separate them in this example.
Nothing makes sense like being told you're incorrect, because you're correct...
Originally Posted By: rshunter
We're on the same page of the tech manual, but I'm apparently not getting my point across. That is, some here aren't recognizing that the fuel economy numbers being used as a point of reference tell us not about the fuel efficiency of the engine, but of the vehicle as a whole.
Again, that is exactly the point of the post to which you are responding. If it's your point as well, I'm a bit puzzled as to why you are spending so much energy continuing to repeat it when it's already been said five or six times by now. Maybe I'm missing something.
It's probably that one of the early posts stated this as a characteristic of the boxer engine...
Quote:
Cons: Poor fuel economy.
Which as a matter of course for around here, got the usual endorsement. Then, "mormit" tried to point out why the numbers were skewed and then it turned into a stupid game of pointing out that the drive-train wasn't the same as the power-plant, when nobody ever claimed was in the first place. Then I made the point that mormit's point was valid, regarding the basis for comparison, and that without BSFC numbers the whole inefficiency claim is unsubstantiated garbage. Then I got told that the numbers were based on the car and not the engine, which is exactly what I'd said in the first place.
When you said, "This thread is about boxer engines, not cars with boxer engines.", you were right about the title. The problem is that the data points being used for reference are entirely based on cars with boxer engines. You can't separate them in this example.
Nothing makes sense like being told you're incorrect, because you're correct...
I've owned 2 subies... a 1.8L and a 2.2L, and we had a waterbox 1.8L vanagon from '84. That van had 82 fuel injected horsepower. oh, and a '73 dual carb VW bus.
All 3 of the first motors exhibited more torque than a typical four. ft/lbs was within 5-10% of HP numbers, which was great around town, but would wheeze at higher rpm. I suspect this was in part due to a central intake point, and longer intake runner length that resulted. Forced aspiration would therefore be a big boon to these motors, and may also explain why they like them to be oversquare, to compensate for the torque-ey intake tune.... all design compromises.
That '73 would not have had the same constraints.... but it was tired when I bought it and didn't last long, so I don't have much experience with its durability or habits.
Those short-crank subarus did not require any sort of harmonic balancer to protect the crank from harmonics and cracks. Can't say the same about an I6 bmw--- whose long crank is particular to such issues. OTOH, the bimmer I6 was fully optimized for performance out of the box, whereas the H4 more of an appliance.
Both H4 subies I owned were *easy* to work on. By comparison, everything of the same era is much harder... Honda, Toyota, jeep, chrysler, Nissan.... none have been as easy as the subies. However, the subie suffered from less "personality" both in good, and bad ways, as a vehicle.
All 3 of the first motors exhibited more torque than a typical four. ft/lbs was within 5-10% of HP numbers, which was great around town, but would wheeze at higher rpm. I suspect this was in part due to a central intake point, and longer intake runner length that resulted. Forced aspiration would therefore be a big boon to these motors, and may also explain why they like them to be oversquare, to compensate for the torque-ey intake tune.... all design compromises.
That '73 would not have had the same constraints.... but it was tired when I bought it and didn't last long, so I don't have much experience with its durability or habits.
Those short-crank subarus did not require any sort of harmonic balancer to protect the crank from harmonics and cracks. Can't say the same about an I6 bmw--- whose long crank is particular to such issues. OTOH, the bimmer I6 was fully optimized for performance out of the box, whereas the H4 more of an appliance.
Both H4 subies I owned were *easy* to work on. By comparison, everything of the same era is much harder... Honda, Toyota, jeep, chrysler, Nissan.... none have been as easy as the subies. However, the subie suffered from less "personality" both in good, and bad ways, as a vehicle.
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