Comparing the VH to the likes of Ferrari, Porsche etc

[Mettler]

How do you guys reckon our king V8 compares to the likes of the engineering in Ferrari motors, or Porsche & Lamborghini etc?

Without really knowing much about it, I'd be inclined to think that despite the terrific engineering in a Ferrari engine, it's been engineered in a proprietary manner. More specifically, they've built it to reach a specific horsepower target, and have certain characteristics to match the cars the engines are released in.

With this in mind, I'd question the possibility of power increases through the installation of better cams, turbos etc... kinda makes me wonder whether the engines are also as lightweight as possible, putting them at the limits of their strength capabilities in factory trim.

I'm just wondering whether we can find more out about this subject, and maybe claim bragging rights that our motors are flasher than Ferrari engines etc

[XRATED]

A workshop is Aus twin turbocharged a 5.5lt mid 90's Ferrari 3 or 4 years ago. They used a pair of HKS 2530's. On a GTR your looking around 320-340rwkw on pump fuel as a max benchmark. On this thing, they ran around 410-415rwkw from memory.

The heads were stock, with custom cams. Everything else was stock apart from the injection, clutch and a set of custom pistons.

They said they could push so much more timing and boost into the thing because the engine was so efficient, also the g-box/drive train was alot more efficeint at transfering the power to the wheels.

[Mettler]

So with more than twice the displacement of an RB26DETT, more boost, and more timing advance, it made less than 100rwkw more ?

Obviously the engine is going to have a much, much fatter torque curve, much broader powerband, and be a generally more driveable engine than a peaky high power RB26... but it's not that much more power.

How comparable do you reckon a VH45 with those turbos with stock heads and custom cams would be?

[mtcookson]

One big thing would be the 180 degree separation crank. Makes it sound awesome and such but I believe they say that setup allows as much as 40% more vibrations. Other than that I'm not sure how else they compare.

[XRATED]

At the similar boost levels it made more than 100kw more. It's interesting because turbos have limits to they're flow potential. A turbo can on efficiently flow air with in the fat section of it's compressor map. Basically regardles of the size engine it's strapped to a turbo can only flow what it can flow. So... it means that the ferrari engine in it's design is a lot more efective at turning that same amount of air from the turbo into hp than an rb26....

[Q45tech]

The use of the mathematical imaginary term horsepower always confuses the discussion since rpm is variable in the equation.

Engineers never use HP unless the marketing department needs a number.

All I ever want is an ACCURATE torque number vs displacement at every rpm.

[Mettler]

Just to expand on that point, I think only flywheel figures should be relevant, not rear wheel figures... seeing as every dyno gives a different result, and gearing changes the final result too.... and since there are so many different factory final drive ratios, power at the wheels doesn't mean jack to me when discussing the engine.