27th Aug 2008, 16:52
Again, I didn't say that Rover cars were better than Honda's. I said that bhp/ (engine weight) is a much better gauge of how good an engine is in terms of performance than the useless bhp/l. In that respect Rover engines are more impressive. In general terms of course Rover engines can't compare to modern Honda engines, I bet Rover had less than a 10th of the development budget of Honda.
People who have a real knowledge of engineering will understand that the Rover K-series; with it's ladder crank bearing structure; maximised flow head; all alloy head/block; sandwich bolt construction; and superior balancing, was far more impressive than the overweight b16 from the Honda civic with it's V-tec gimmick. In fact it took Honda another 10 years to copy ALL of the above technology off of the old Rover and apply it to the K20 in the S2000.
And before you all get your baseball caps in a twist, YES I know the K-series suffered from head gasket failures, so reliability-wise the Honda wins. This had nothing to do with the K-series' cutting edge technology and was more to do with poor testing, Rover were on a shoe string budget though.
The Japanese excel in manufacture, not design. Almost all of their products are blatant copies of European and American designs. Without these initial design costs of the US and European companies, the Japanese have a head-start in financial terms when manufacturing. Now the Chinese are doing the same...
I'm not sure why this argument is still going. I think I've proved that bhp/l is a meaningless figure, and I think everyone now agrees.
28th Aug 2008, 11:57
I don't think any one has agreed with you to be honest, as brake horse power is hardly meaningless, as obviously the more of it you have, the faster you will go!
And Honda were hardly behind Rover, as the old CRX and Civic VTis with the b16 were producing 160 bhp back in the early 90s, and were hardly heavy weighing not much more than a ton.
I agree that the Japanese cars usually do seem to borrow bits and pieces from the European market, but they always improve whatever they have copied and fine tune it.
29th Aug 2008, 13:13
"I don't think any one has agreed with you to be honest, as brake horse power is hardly meaningless, as obviously the more of it you have, the faster you will go!"
Who said bhp is meaningless??? I said bhp/l.
"My point is that the Type R cars and engines are brilliant pieces of machinery, and whether they were 2.0 litre or even a 5.0 litre, it wouldn't matter if they were exactly the same as they are now, i.e. a unique and engaging drive with a near perfect blend of performance, reliability and economy, as well as a soundtrack which is hard to match by anything else on the roads today."
Honda make good cars, they are right up there with their competition. However, Honda cars and engines are not as exceptional as some on here make out.
I'm not sure the current crop of Type-R's warrants your above praise. The new Civic simply isn't very good, and has been left behind by it's competition. The Integra is also a bit of a disappointment, and not a patch on its predecessor.
It's hard to think where Honda can go now with it's Vtec engines, 200hp is no longer enough. Even the 2.2L from the S2000 is lagging behind the current crop of hot hatches. Where can Honda go with the 4cyl??? VTec motors aren't really suitable for turboing. Perhaps a 6 cylinder version? Although that would be enormously heavy.
31st Aug 2008, 07:16
VTec motors aren't really suitable for turboing.
That's not right is it most people have put turbos on them all ready but some people don't like turbos but every ones different.
1st Sep 2008, 12:55
Nobody has disagreed that bhp per litre is a fairly useless figure (although it is quite impressive otherwise nobody would mention it), but you use this as a base to argue the engine isn't special which is clearly wrong.
What teenagers can get insured on a Type R??? Maybe you just don't appreciate an engaging drive. If you were to do a survey of Type R drivers you would find the average age would be something like late twenties. I see a lot of women using these cars just as a runabout who don't look like they would ever thrape it, so it can't be that bad off vtec (it's not I have driven them too).
You also say the engine is expensive and maybe so, but back when the last Civic Type R was released I would like to have seen a better car for sale at 15/16k new.
As for the Atom using a supercharger, if the vtec is such a gimmick then they would only use the Vauxhall engine in the Atoms rather than the majority being Type R engines, which they are!
9th Sep 2008, 17:30
31st Aug 2008, 14:53 Comment.
Now you know why we love the vti and not the lardy Golf.
10th Sep 2008, 08:57
The VTi was from '92, and was heavier than the then Golf GTi. Plus it was a Honda Civic...lol.
8th Oct 2008, 10:12
The Rover K-series was designed as an 1100cc or 1400cc shopping car engine, and was never designed to produce 200 bhp+, a fact which is made painfully obvious by the generally temperamental and unreliable nature of those engines which have been coaxed into producing this kind of power. Yes, yes, the construction is clever, and yes it's light, but frankly if it needs rebuilding every 20,000 miles, what's the point?
Fans of the engine say it's capable of producing a lot more power if tuned by someone who understands it correctly. Maybe so, but the number of engines out there making the huge power figures claimed (250-300 bhp) are notable by their absence. If they exist, how much has it cost to get them to that state, when an "inferior" engine from Ford or Honda could do the same with total reliability and on largely standard internals?
The point is, the Rover K-series is a risky engine. What dowels are in the head? What thermostat is fitted? Do I need to mollycoddle it until the thermostat has opened? Will it just blow up anyway (many do)? And that's before it's tuned! The point is nobody has been able to say for definite, if you do this, and this, the problems are solved. When part of the problem is down to casting quality, you know you're dealing with a dog of an engine.
The whole idea that you need to nurse a modern engine until the thermostat has opened is a joke. You don't even need to do that with a "highly strung" supercar any more.
19th Aug 2008, 06:51
It's not a smaller car than the BMW or Boxster though, they are all similar sized cars.
Nobody said the engine was better, but that the car was better, but the engine IS better anyway, it's better on fuel and is the fastest of the three cars.
I'm not going to trawl through the Internet for facts and figures, copying and pasting, so perhaps you could look for me, but I'd wager that the BMW and Porsche engines are at least as heavy if not heavier than the Vtec.
If we ignore bhp per litre like you want, even just looking at performance statistics, then you will find that the vtec engine is producing as much power with at least as good reliability as the more expensive engines in the other two cars.
If you have nothing against Honda, then why do I keep finding comment after comment moaning about how the Honda engine isn't impressive? In your opinion it isn't because it isn't any lighter for being a 2.0 than some 3.0 which produce the same power (although for all your figures you never give the weight of a similar engine which gives as much power as the Vtec ,except the K series, for which you were shot down on several counts -namely the engine was never put into production and would have been totally unreliable).
In my opinion I wouldn't care if it was a 3.0 or a 2.0 as long as it would fit under the bonnet of a small car (which most the engines you suggest over the vtec wouldn't) and give the same performance and economy.