Rate my flatplane V8!

[Tunerguy21]

Hey guys! I've been playing Automation for a while, but just haven't been posting in the forums until now. I have designed a flatplane V8 for a front-engined RWD sports car, and I was wondering what the community thinks. I can take constructive criticism, as I just want to make the engine better. Keep in mind that I have another version with a performance intake already fitted, so that possible improvement has already been covered (that one is for a different version of the car, though). I apologise for the awful phone camera picture; it was the quickest thing I could do.

[Jakgoe]

8/10 but horribly expensive. I'll go farther in depth if you would like me to.

[Tunerguy21]

8/10 but horribly expensive. I'll go farther in depth if you would like me to.

Please do. I actually didn't notice the cost as a problem, especially since the car I'm putting it in has fairly upper-tier performance and production costs around the 65k mark. I also never quite understood how the production values worked (the ones right above the engine cost). If you wouldn't mind explaining that too it would be greatly appreciated. Its probably somewhere here or in the game, but I'd rather play it instead of snooping around to find the answer.

[utopian201]

I can tell you have used the quality sliders a lot. They push up the production units a lot.
The the problem with doing that is that anyone can do the same and have a good engine. The skill is in creating a good engine, the skill is not clicking on the quality sliders because anyone can do that - if someone creates a better engine than yours via sliders, you can match the sliders and end up with a superior engine again.

For me, I multiply the production units by 25 and add them to the cost of the engine. Once the game is finalised and tooling costs are taken into account, it will be more complex that that, but I think $25 is about the average United Auto Worker Union hourly wage.

[DeltaForce]

8/10 but horribly expensive. I'll go farther in depth if you would like me to.

Please do. I actually didn't notice the cost as a problem, especially since the car I'm putting it in has fairly upper-tier performance and production costs around the 65k mark. I also never quite understood how the production values worked (the ones right above the engine cost). If you wouldn't mind explaining that too it would be greatly appreciated. Its probably somewhere here or in the game, but I'd rather play it instead of snooping around to find the answer.

Production units are generally considered as requiring one hour of work to produce. A general rule of thumb is that each hour is worth around $30, although that's more for a company focused on more large scale production. A company with more limited production, which is what an engine with such high production units would result in, would likely pay more. At $30 per hour your engine is still quite expensive, costing $17,132.23 to produce. That's before the car itself is taken into account. Without seeing the other components, it seems the complete car with probably have an MSRP of at least around $180,000.

[Tunerguy21]

utopian: I did use quite a bit of the quality sliders because I found that without high numbers, I was struggling to get the power and, more importantly, the reliability that I was after. I would normally just go with a larger displacement engine, but I'm a strong believer in power-per-liter over just outright grunt, so I tried to get a higher revving, lower-displacement engine to make similar power to larger engines like those of the Gallardo/Huracan (and for the Huracan I'm already down on power, so I'm glad my car is light). Lightness was also the reason why I went with the smaller displacement (although it may not make as much of a difference in that aspect). Also thanks for the explanation of the production units, to both you and DeltaForce.

DeltaForce: As said above, thanks for the explanation for the production units. I'll have to take this into account for future builds. Also, its funny that you say it should be for around the 180k range for the full car, because that's around what I was thinking given the competitors I had in mind (mainly the Huracan, but possibly also the 458, etc.)

If either of you or anyone else has any ideas on how to improve it while keeping performance similar, I'd love to hear it. The only thing is I want to keep the fuel octane where it is and I would like to have no less than 70-75 reliability. If it can get at around the 80.0 mark, that would be great. I figured the higher cost for the engine was worth it with the 80+ reliability.

[strop]

Given your emissions rating, I think you'd drop a fair few production units without too much in the way of loss of power or reliability if you dropped the quality of the exhaust to begin with. I wouldn't bother going less than long tubular though, or you'll restrict power too much.

Over squaring the engine (up bore, reduce stroke) is good for reliability but will slightly reduce your power, however that means you can drop block quality slightly and keep your reliability about 80 (which is insanely good).

I can tell your can profile is already set pretty high, so there's no need to change that given what you're going for. Because the engine is NA getting the best performance is simply a matter of finding first the right exhaust diameter, then balancing ignition timing with compression ratio. The funny thing is at the pointy end of things, the last 5 RON or so yields far less power, so you won't have to worry too much about losing lots of HP.

[Tunerguy21]

*Automation engine building genius*

Thanks for the helpful hints, strop. I've seen your work while browsing the forums and I must say its very impressive, so I'm glad you stopped by to drop in your two cents. Following your suggestions, I lowered exhaust quality and found that not only was the reliability decrease very slight, but I actually picked up some hp and tq. I didn't lose much reliability with dropping bottom-end quality, either. I tried experimenting with lowering the top-end and fuel system quality, but found the power loss too much even with just one notch lower. That being said, here's what I have now.

[strop]

Excellent. Production hours have been halved and everything else is almost identical... And you're still getting top grade emissions. Actually, I'm only really in the know when it comes to modern tech and I tend to max out the quality sliders because I can but now I'm starting to get into tournaments I'm gradually learning. Probably there's a little room to move here and there but that's plenty good already.

[Corvette6317]

Ahh CHOO!

Engine.png (658.84 KiB) Viewed 6152 times

Sorry didn't have a tissue handy, don't mind me.

[Tunerguy21]

Ahh CHOO!

Engine.png

Sorry didn't have a tissue handy, don't mind me.

If you don't mind me asking, what parts are you using (mainly in the bottom-end)? I haven't run a max rpm test in a while-since I first made the engine-but I don't remember being able to rev much higher than 8 before running into the rpm limit for the internals.

[strop]

The diagnostic messages don't necessarily dictate practice, because when they start coming up, there's a point at which the impact is minimal, but of course, push it too far in the wrong direction and things will deteriorate! Obviously given the nature of these things, detrimental effects increase exponentially with degree.

Now, while corvette is wiping his nose, I got home and jumped on the laptop to see what was possible. Using AlSi block and headers, it's definitely easy to push out something with, well, less impact on the hip pocket. Actually, I'm still yet to work out where all that extra money in Corvette's block came from, given the production units are identical:

Engine.png (910.61 KiB) Viewed 5674 times

What I do know is that I hardly touched the quality sliders. I think the block has +2, the injection and fuel system has +1, and the exhaust has +4. The essence here is that the engine is significantly oversquare, the cam profile is set very high, as is ignition timing. In terms of numbers it's equivalent or superior in most ways (except reliability, mostly due to slightly longer stroke probably), but in reality, the high cam profile is what creates that bump in the torque curve, which I'm not sure is absolutely optimal. Dropping cam profile would help, but of course, reduce the maximum output. Oh, and I used performance filters instead of standard filters, because it didn't have any impact on reliability.

So what I'm curious to know, is how this engine would stack up with yours, actually, in an otherwise identical car. Does it make any difference around the track? I'll attach it if you're interested.

[DeltaForce]

Ahh CHOO!

Engine.png

Sorry didn't have a tissue handy, don't mind me.

If you don't mind me asking, what parts are you using (mainly in the bottom-end)? I haven't run a max rpm test in a while-since I first made the engine-but I don't remember being able to rev much higher than 8 before running into the rpm limit for the internals.

You should be able to design good engines using 1965 vintage internals. That includes regular and heavy cast components as well as all forged components, with the exception of lightweight forged pistons. However, my experience is mostly with smaller engines (around 2.2 liters and smaller) that are square or only slightly undersquare, so it might be different with larger engines or ones that are more undersquare.

[Corvette6317]

Now, while corvette is wiping his nose, I got home and jumped on the laptop to see what was possible. Using AlSi block and headers, it's definitely easy to push out something with, well, less impact on the hip pocket. Actually, I'm still yet to work out where all that extra money in Corvette's block came from, given the production units are identical.

What I do know is that I hardly touched the quality sliders. I think the block has +2, the injection and fuel system has +1, and the exhaust has +4. The essence here is that the engine is significantly oversquare, the cam profile is set very high, as is ignition timing. In terms of numbers it's equivalent or superior in most ways (except reliability, mostly due to slightly longer stroke probably), but in reality, the high cam profile is what creates that bump in the torque curve, which I'm not sure is absolutely optimal. Dropping cam profile would help, but of course, reduce the maximum output. Oh, and I used performance filters instead of standard filters, because it didn't have any impact on reliability.

My engine has +6 quality on the fuel system and 0 everywhere else and I did so for efficiency, going with a bigger engine like you did would have also solved that problem with much lower cost but that would go against my intention of just quickly detuning my 604hp 261. Now while your engine is more powerful and 1K cheaper, again it's bigger plus it uses a performance intake which is something Tunerguy21 said isn't allowed. Performance intakes don't lower reliability but they do increase service costs and loudness, which are perhaps things he cares about.

Edit: I got rid of the quality on the fuel system, switched to performance intakes and put +3 on the top end and got this:

[strop]

ahhhh ok so that's how you got the sub 100 emissions without changing the exhaust. Well, it's all good. There's a hundred ways to skin this cat, depending on the priorities.

Also to the OP, I did a fail and sent you the wrong version of the engine, the one with the lowered cam profile LOL. Just raise cam profile by 10, twiddle with the ignition timing, and replace the performance air filter with a regular one and you should be set. Though for lowered service costs, as corvette points out, higher quality = less service costs, and for all round improvements in power, torque profile, reliability and efficiency, improving the fuel injection is a good way to go.