2011 M5: Now with V8 and KERS ?

[prizrak]

It's not a useless point, because at some stage you need a good hp per litre number. I mean, weight is very important, but so is size, and you can't just keep making an engine bigger and bigger to get more HP - sooner or later you're gonna run out of bonnet space.

Got a friend who recently sold an S14 240sx (200sx to you guys) with an LS2 engine in there. This is in a car meant for a 4 banger. As was posted displacement != size. LS engines tend to be very compact even though they have huge displacement numbers.

Truck engine? What makes an engine a truck engine? The Ford GT40 Mark II had an engine sourced from a Ford pickup truck and it beat the shit out of Ferrari's race designed Colombo. The Koenigsegg CCR, which was the fastest production car in the world for a time, used an engine based of the above 4.6 DOHC. Is the Corvette a truck or the TrailBlazer a sports coupe? Both use the same "truck" engine.

You forgot the V10 from Dodge Viper.

 

[pepitko]

They're not actually quite the same thing.

KERS specifically extracts energy under breaking from the kinetic energy of the car.

A hybrid makes use of electric motors and batteries to improve the efficiency of a conventional power source by storing energy from that power source.

You can however use KERS to improve a hybrid.

but doesn't KERS add weight? The latest M5 is quite heavy already..

 

[Buktu]

They do.. The F1 ones weigh in at around 40 kgs.. But that's probably a pretty useless comparison.. :b

 

[LeVeL]

Got a friend who recently sold an S14 240sx (200sx to you guys) with an LS2 engine in there.

yummy.

Speaking of "truck" engines, I went to an autocross last weekend and there was a guy there with a swapped Miata. The block was out of a pickup truck and he had various f-body bits on it. The thing hauled ass. Granted, he had like 215s on it so it couldnt hook up, but still

 

[WillDAQ]

but doesn't KERS add weight? The latest M5 is quite heavy already..

True, but in theory you can stick all that weight under the floor (nice and low) so it's effects on the dynamics can be minimised. Hopefully the reward you get from it is greater than the weight penalty.

 

[thedguy]

It's not a useless point, because at some stage you need a good hp per litre number. I mean, weight is very important, but so is size, and you can't just keep making an engine bigger and bigger to get more HP - sooner or later you're gonna run out of bonnet space. :lol:

I guess I should have left in my original response.

HP/liter is COMPLETELY pointless except in racing classes that require you to stick to a max/min displacement.

A 7 liter Chevy LS7 is dimensionally smaller than BMW's v8's (that the M division worked fairly hard to stretch to 5.0).

I could argue that the GM design is more efficient than anything else in this case. More efficient use of space anyway. Too add insult to injury, their motors keep most of the weight down low rather than up high. Supposedly Jags v12 Le mans racers ditched Twin cam heads because the drivers didn't like the extra weight up high (not that any of us would feel it on a street car).

 

[Disciple]

Some things I didn't know there.

It'll be interesting to see if BMW just turn the wick up on their 4.4L TT V8 they currently have for the M5, or if they give it a bespoke displacement.