Best in Class Engines [I4, 1982] [REVIEWS]

[strop]

Honestly the benefit of turbo as it is, in the format of these competitions, is rather limited, given the significant additional cost they incur not just in themselves, but also with the parts you need to buff up and the reliability you lose. That said, I can almost guarantee you that the real "economy" of my engine when put in a car will be on par with or superior to NA engines of similar or even lesser output. But this has already been raised beforehand.

[Packbat]

Oh, absolutely - turbo engines get penalized hugely on economy relative to how they perform in cars. I think the game assumes that you cruise at 2000 RPM, even if that's not enough to spool the turbo.

[Packbat]

Okay, so here's what's in the attachment:

Engines:

• The 1982 PAW Sprite LS, in both the Std trim reviewed here and the Turbo trim that I'd meant to submit.
• The 1978 PAW Sprite engine that the LS is derived from.
• The 1978 PAW Wisp engine - eco-turbo inline-six.

Cars:
The 1978 PAW Murina, in four trims:

• The XC, with the '78 Sprite engine.
• The LC, with the '78 Wisp engine.
• The '82 Sprite LS Test and LS Turbo Test - wherein I threw the newer engines into the older model year car.

It's not the ideal test of the new engine, but it's a quick and easy one. Feel free to do cooler stuff with it.

[VicVictory]

I will also admit that I didn't put in as much effort balancing the individual categories as I usually do. This is apparent in the sporty group. I didn't weight power ratings heavily enough, and weighted maintenance and initial costs too much.

Yep, Packbat won with the accidental wrong engine submission. But to be honest, some of the "balanced" engines were what I felt should have been in the sporty category, and what I envisioned is 100-ish HP NA's going up against 120-ish HP turbos. I missed the mark on that, and I apologize if it puts anyone off. I will do a better job in the future. (That said, Packbat's torque curve was actually damn sexy, even if he power curve wasn't)

On the flip side, I think I weighted initial and maintenance cost a scosh heavily on the Economy side. What I wanted was for dirt cheap pushrod engines and slightly more refined but more expensive SOHCs to duke it out.

[strop]

Hmm I see. In that case, for those of us who aren't familiar with the period (e.g. myself, for anything pre 90s) perhaps some guidance in the form of either one variable or an example may be useful. I'm not 100% sure about this but I guess the clearer the idea you have on what you want to see, the more guidelines you should set.

Though I did get a GTi beating engine out of it, the tradeoffs for which I'm pretty happy.

[VicVictory]

Right. But I didn't want to get TOO stuff and say "it must be between x and y", because peeps don't like that.