Quote:
Originally posted by pocon1
Actually booradley, a lot of the articles I read claim that for instance a stock nissan sentra bottom end can support up to 400 hundred hp, through nitrous, turbo, whatever. That's from 140 hp. For a 5.7 v8 to match the efficiency of a sentra 1.8, it would have to make about 440 hp. If you figure that the 5.7 has 3.2 times the displacement, it would have to put out approximately 1200 hp to match the strength of a nissan sentra engine. I have never heard of any v8 going to that level without new pistons, con rods, rings, crankshaft, valvetrain, arp studs, and numerous other items. in the end, you keep the block and buy all new pieces to mount on it.
Yes, you can argue all day about no replacement for displacement, but for sheer efficiency and strength of design, the sentra wins hands down.
as far as camaros and such, the new 350z costs less than $28,000 and matches the performance of the old 300z without twin turbos. 3.5 liter with 287 hp. try a $500 dollar nitrous kit on that.
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You got a point there... but the 300Z was a very expensive car back in the day. Yes, it could beat a camaro. I am not arguing for "no replacement for displacement" but I am arguing there is no CHEAP replacement for displacement...
Well, the sentra bottom end can hold up to 400 HP, but how about the top end? Also, peak HP probably won't help too much in a short drag race, and the camaro already has 200 ilb-ft over the sentra to begin with. You are right, no V8 could stand being boosted to 1200 HP without major work ... but you don't NEED to go that far, all you'd need would be a short jaunt into 475 horsepower land ( easily and cheaply achievable ) to win a race... and I guarentee it would be much cheapier to build a 475 horsepower camaro engine ( through use of whatever) than it would be to build a 1.8 Sentra engine that could hold the stresses.
If you would like some numbers, think about it this way.
A sentra produces 140 hp stock. If you boosted it to 400 hp, that is 285% of stock power output. Now, engines are built to withstand much more force than they can output for reliabilites sake, but how long does a 400 hp build on a sentra engine last? Point out a reference somewhere that says you can get 200,000 miles on a turbo/NOS sentra engine with stock internals. Replacing a whole engine increases overall cost, more so than replacing just the internals of an engine.
Another way to illustrate it is forces per piston. Take a 400hp camaro and a 400 horsepower sentra. If you generalize it to say "each piston has 100 horsepower" ( which would be the case of the sentra) instead of "each piston has 50 horsepower", which do you think is going to break first? Heres a hint : Not the camaro. Both have the same amount of horsepower at the crank but the camaro has twice the amount of metal to deal with the horsepower without breaking. And in realitiy, it would be more than twice the amount of metal as the camaro has wider pistons so less force over a complete area. If the camaro had to endure the amount of force on each piston as the 400hp sentra did, then it would produce 800hp ( impossible without major mods by sheer force)
Now, you have a camaro. They come with ~300 hp stock. You build it up to 400 horsepower. That is 133% more horsepower than stock. That is well within the acceptable forces and reliability range. There are plenty of Chevy V8s out there that have been modified to produce more power and still have >200k miles on them without a rebuild. I'm from Kentucky, and this describes most farm trucks that family and friends has.
Of course, the sentra would still win if both cars had 400 horsepower.