Best 4 Cylinder Engine - Politics and War Forum
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I'm curious to see what everyone says on this subject. My own opinion is that the Ford 2.3 SOHC "Lima" L4 is, if not the best, definitely one of the best 4 bangers out there. Very modifiable, cheap and plentiful and can fit in anything. Also it's tough as nails and will run 300,000+ miles.
In my book
LN2
LT2 and LT3
420a
sr20det
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Best one I had was in my 99 z24.
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Toyota's 3SGTE
Subaru's EJ-20
If you are asking about reliability, Mitsubishi's 4G37 (1.8L SOHC) should be in the discussion. If you asking about the ability to handle power, Mitsubishi's 4G63 (2.0L DOHC) should be mentioned. No, I don't work for Mitsubishi, I've just owned a few DSM's before I got my Sunfire. Otherwise, I've had good luck on my 2.2 OHV.
What I like about the lima is that it's cheap. I was able to scrouge up enough parts to build a Turbo Mustang for under 1000$ That car can do the quarter in 15 seconds and reliably makes 210hp. That just blows me away.
The engine itself can take up to 450hp without any modifications at all except for Forged pistons. It's super easy to modify, responds extremely well to Turbocharging and is indestructible. Not to mention that you can fit either a Borg-Warner T5 or a C4 racing Automatic behind it. I'd estimate that for 10k I could build a brand new 350hp version of this engine (complete with warranty since the internals would be unmodified), plus a new transmission (with racing clutch) and all that in a wholly rebuilt car, with a brand new coat of paint to boot.
I just can't think of any way to go faster with four wheels.
The 4G63T comes from the factory pushing over 210HP, without any internal mods can be pushed to 450HP and with the right techs it has produced over 800HP at the drag strip. Not bad for a 2litre 4 banger, not bad at all. Reliability? Well Mitsu is kinda famous for having great rally cars, and they are not going boom, so they are tough too. Mitsu has won one off-road series 6 years in a row. Do they know how to build an engine? I'd say so.
Cons? Well, it's a zero clearance engine, so you better have the timing right, and keep the belt in good shape, otherwise it is fantastic. That is the only real drawback I can think of. It needs excellent oil with frequent changes as well, but that's what every engine should have, it's just that the 4G63T demands it.
Then there's the fantastic CBR600RR engine. If we are not limited to cars, this little .6 litre makes 117 BHP from the factory and is a technical marvel. 12:1 compression but can run on 89 octane fuel. 8 injectors because at revs above 11000 things are moving too fast to get a good mix out of the direct port injectors and air box injectors must be used. The nearly skirtless pistons are connected with nutless rods, special coatings keep thinks in check all the way to 15000 rpm and it still comes with a warranty!
If we are not limited to production engines. I'd like to sneek a 5 cylinder in there.. THe RC211V is a .990 litre that produces over 250BHP and revs to nearly 17 000 rpm and can do it for hours of racing without tear down. Without a doubt the best bike race motor out there. It's about to say goodbye as the MotoGP premier class moves to the new .8 litres next year. Bye bye RC211V, hope to see you on the street some day... Maybe...
PAX
The 2.2 OHV.. It may be gutless.. but they seem to last forever..
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Yeah, I heard good things about Mitsu engines. They don't last as long as the Lima, but they've got more potential so it evens itself out. I forgot to mention that the Lima has no problem with engine clearance. Like the Mitsu engine it was designed as a Rallye racing engine so it was made tough as nails and hard to break. The Mitsu's slightly more fragile because of the valve thing, but that's no big deal.
Other 4 bangers on the list I like are the Ecotec and the Honda 140hp 1.8. Nice simple engines with lots of potential and aftermarket support. I simply favor the Ford because it's cheap and the design is fairly modern even though it's 37 years old.
The Volkswagen type 1 aircooled motor. It truely lasts forever, they make more performance parts for it than any other motor (including performance blocks), and ANYONE can work on it.
this is kind of a broad topic to discuss, but my votes for the best overall are the original air cooled beetle engine, and the 420A my brother has the 420a in his neon, pushing 300k miles and the only problem it ever had was a leaky headgasket, easy fix
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B series Honda motors.
Hands down most reliable, inter changable, modable motors ever on the market next to a 350 small block.
Quote:
I'm curious to see what everyone says on this subject. My own opinion is that the Ford 2.3 SOHC "Lima" L4 is, if not the best, definitely one of the best 4 bangers out there. Very modifiable, cheap and plentiful and can fit in anything.
The B series fits all your criteria.
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hotbug1776 wrote:The Volkswagen type 1 aircooled motor. It truely lasts forever, they make more performance parts for it than any other motor (including performance blocks), and ANYONE can work on it.
My 72 type 2 1600CC im building up.
but @!#$ Jcwhitney keeps sending me the wrong crush rings
Ty (Loves teh roras) wrote:hotbug1776 wrote:The Volkswagen type 1 aircooled motor. It truely lasts forever, they make more performance parts for it than any other motor (including performance blocks), and ANYONE can work on it.
My 72 type 2 1600CC im building up.
but @!#$ Jcwhitney keeps sending me the wrong crush rings
then order from one of the thousands of other dealers...litterally. Nice looking motor, I'm working on a T4 1700 turbo project. when it's done it will be a 2.3L with a crapload of parts from RAT.
hit me up on email, I'll get you a short list of some other parts dealers.
www.cip1.com (I think)
www.mamotorworks.com <- good selection.
Thanks hot bug, im just rebuilding the motor for a friend of mine,
and thatsk for the links, hes the one paying for evreything, im just building the engine, and im looking into getting a Bhaha bug or a thing
The old Poncho Super Duty 2.5L. Found a 1987 Hot Rod magazine at a local garage sale with a Super Duty build up, 3.0L with the ability to acheive 370hp reliably with a few modifications including a dual OHC head.
GM 2.0L OHV, may be anemic but obviously able to outlast the transmissions they were mated too.
GM Ecotec. If I remember the Hot Rod article a few years back about this engine correctly the stock internal's are able to reliably handle 300+ hp.
Saturns 1.9L. Able to take a beating and keep on going.
You guys don't know what the hell you're talking about.
You can't even have this discussion without talking about motorcycle engines. My Kawasaki Ninja has .636 liters and makes 139hp (131hp w/o ram air effect occuring above 130mph). That's 219hp per litre... if it had a liter. That's the equivalent of a 2.0L motor making 437hp
naturally aspirated
Who can beat that?
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hotbug1776 wrote:The Volkswagen type 1 aircooled motor. It truely lasts forever, they make more performance parts for it than any other motor (including performance blocks), and ANYONE can work on it.
x1000
Been around since the 1930's and people are still building them. People have been hot roding them and forced induction became available in the 1950's thanks to the Judson and Okrasa superchargers. Empi, Scat, and Deano Dinosaur really put them on the map in the 60's and 70's. It wasn't uncommon to see beetles whooping up on big block muscle cars in southern California back in the day...
AGuSTiN wrote:You guys don't know what the hell you're talking about.
You can't even have this discussion without talking about motorcycle engines. My Kawasaki Ninja has .636 liters and makes 139hp (131hp w/o ram air effect occuring above 130mph). That's 219hp per litre... if it had a liter. That's the equivalent of a 2.0L motor making 437hp naturally aspirated
Who can beat that?
I talked about 2 bike engines, perhaps you should have read the thread
Also, what have you done to the 636? It certainly doesn't make 131 HP on any dyno I've seen in stock form. Roger Hayden's 600 makes about 140 HP but seeing as the 636 is not race qualified, I can't see any racers giving it a serious tuning job. I'll quote numbers from Jake Zemke's CBR600 next time
I have been there for dyno tuning with a slip on and it made about 110 at the wheel, so at best 12XHP at the crank, with a slip on and a PC.
Keep in mind that engines do not scale up. That same design but in a 2 litre would not make 437HP, not even close. If that were true than the little scale model engines like the Nitro powered COX engines would be dominating the world. They make crazy power for their size, but they can only do it because they are small. Low recipricating mas leads to crazy high rpm to make power. Notice the ZX10R (also Kawi) makes more like 165HP, not over 200.
The RC211V is still, hands down, the best race bike engine ever (to date)
PAX
Guys at Kawiforums dyno their stock bikes at 115-125hp (depending on dyno). Remember, like any dyno at wheel, you have to account for parasitic losses of the tranny, etc. A bike should clearly have less loss than a car, however.
The ZX6R (the 636) isn't built for a track, it's built for the street. The ZX6RR is built for the track. It's the same bike, but with 36 less CC's, and a stiffer suspension tune. All race parts that fit the ZX6RR fit the ZX6R. BTW, you can race a 636 on a track, but you'll have to run with the 750's and above.
And you don't have to be intro track racing to tune a bike. I mean, please, like car guys have to be into drag racing or track days to have a reason to build a car?
I know engines don't scale just as they are, but scaling them isn't necessarily what you'd do. You'd do like some guys and mate a couple of engines together, essentially creating an 8 cyclinder engine. I saw this on TV and had some links (I'll try to find them).
As you know, motorcycles are a performance bargain that cars can't match. Period. But I paid $8500 for a vehicle that weighs 380lbs. Clearly I've paid for technology, development and a superior manufacturing process.
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My point was that Team Hayden is making 140HP with their 600, and an unlimited budget and Kawi factory support. Do you really think any street tuner can hit the numbers they hit? Not likely, although race tuning isn't always for all-out power, ofter they will change the curve to save tire wear etc. but HP still wins races so power is still top of the list.
Too bad about the 636, I hear it's going the way of the Dodo. Nice bike, but it's gone and I'm not sure why. Perhaps the lack of race support (racing with 750 is great for amateur racers or pro/am races, but not full on pro) killed sales, or maybe some other reason. AMA does not have a 750 class nor do any of the bike European or Asian series. Only smaller regionals support that class, so that may have factored in as well.
What I have seen so far of the testing done on the new MotoGP 800cc bikes looks really promising. We'll have to wait for engine specs and power out but I do know the Duc was running laps within 1 second of race pace at Brno on it's first day of testing.
You're in Cali right? Can you do track days at Laguna? Just curious. I'd love to ride there or maybe Road America in Atlanta some day. Tight technical tracks with many downhill blind corners. Great way to bring your skills up (or tuck the front, depending)
I agree that bikes are, by far, the best bang for the buck out there, hands down, no contest.
PAX
Hahahaha wrote:My point was that Team Hayden is making 140HP with their 600, and an unlimited budget and Kawi factory support. Do you really think any street tuner can hit the numbers they hit? Not likely, although race tuning isn't always for all-out power, ofter they will change the curve to save tire wear etc. but HP still wins races so power is still top of the list.
Well, I think you hit on the head with the statement "although race tuning isn't always for all-out power". I don't recall anyone hitting 140hp at the wheel. Sportbikes gain 1hp here, 2hp there. Even with full exhaust, chip and cam, most tuners would be lucky to near 130hp. However, I've seen more than a few turbo 600's past 160hp, some near 200hp. That's hardly uncommon.
Hahahaha wrote:
Too bad about the 636, I hear it's going the way of the Dodo. Nice bike, but it's gone and I'm not sure why. Perhaps the lack of race support (racing with 750 is great for amateur racers or pro/am races, but not full on pro) killed sales, or maybe some other reason. AMA does not have a 750 class nor do any of the bike European or Asian series. Only smaller regionals support that class, so that may have factored in as well.
Kawasaki only leaves their bikes on the market for two years before changes occur. The 03-04 636's have inferior suspension and engines to the 05-06's. That's just the way it is, nothing really new there.
Hahahaha wrote:
You're in Cali right? Can you do track days at Laguna? Just curious. I'd love to ride there or maybe Road America in Atlanta some day. Tight technical tracks with many downhill blind corners. Great way to bring your skills up (or tuck the front, depending)
PAX
Yeah, a track day at Laguna runs about $200 on average. You'll make get an hour of total on-track time at that price. But for a beginner or intermediate level rider, that might be plenty. Laguna is no joke.
The better deal is a motorcycle school weekend. Spent $1100 dollars and get schooled by pros for a weekend.
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217BHP at 8000 rpm is cool, but with a 8.4k rpm redline, that power isn't very usable is it?
I still say Honda, but not the K series.. Actually not Honda proper, but HRC.. They know how to build an engine that's for sure.
In cars though, Mitsu's 4G series (the 4G63T in specific) are just fantastic.
RC211V dammit! Even if it is a V5, it's only .99 litres and makes over 250HP and that's plain cool.
PAX
L61, LE5, LSJ, or the LNF ecotec
I think the LNF is going to quickly emerge as the king simply because it has a few years of development and lessons learned from the previous engines, as well as cutting edge technology and a very robust structure to work with... and a turbo
The L61 in a destroked 2.0 liter and later a 2.2 liter square bore/stroke layout puts down 1000hp and 1500hp respectively and in an earlier incarnation of the 2.0 liter with 10:1 compression made 800hp on 22psi of boost.
That is not a high boost pressure for that amount of power.. Talk about efficiency.
Honda's B, mitsu's 4G, Nissan's SR, and Subaru's EJ are aging powerplants that have years of aftermarket development as their only advantage.
As the ecotec engines advance and aftermarket companies have more time with them, we'll start seeing some more street driven insane ecotec powered cars. The stereotype of the J-body made the ecotec's first few years of release rocky, which I think is why GM killed the car and brought in the cobalt to start fresh.
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