Big Engines: Good or Bad?

A recent comment by someone I know got me thinking about engine size. We were debating about whether big engines or small engines had it right. I concluded; neither.

Japanese imports are great and all, and are quite capable of tuning their 2.0T(T) to output an ungodly amount of horses out of an engine smaller than the carton I poured the milk from for the cereal I ate this morning. Slap that into an Evo with AWD, and you'd think you'd be set for a 8-minute lap on the Nurburgring. And you'd be right. The problem is, is the simple fact that you'd be in Europe to doing a lap time approaching Audi R8 lap times.

However, here in United States, we have something called "environmental regulations", and "smog checks". This means we can't have 2.0L engines sucking up half the gas tank every time you start up the car. So this means, the logical solution is this: Bigger engine size.

A larger engine in US is the only way to get more power while still passing your smog check. True, you can slap on turbos, superchargers, maybe even a twin charger if you own a Dodge Neon. But that adds wear and tear on the engine, decreasing long-term reliability. Plus it's something else that might break later down on the road.

But that's not to say you can just stick a 6.2L engine into a plastic fiber body and hope to God that it'd go faster around the Nurburgring than a certain 3.8L twin-turbo'd car that costs 30k less, and has 2 extra seats to boot. (But for the extra 30k it should've went a lot faster than a measly .3s).

So what then, is the right engine size out there? I believe the key lies in balance. There's a reason why Lotus is a blitzkrieg on track days. Its all about the balance between your power output, weight, drive system, and transmission. If the ZR1 had AWD, and suspension not from the Stone Age, I truely believe that it would have no problem beating a GT-R. As it is, the ZR1 relies too much on a insane power-to-weight ratio to get it around. Coupled with RWD, the ZR1 is a mess in corners, heavily oversteering, uncontrollable to all but F1 racers. The sheer hp and torque right off the line means that the acceleration causes the wheels and diff loose traction, and as soon as you tap those brakes your rear end goes flying. Sometimes, you don't even need to hit the brakes and you're already in the grass.

So in conclusion, as long as you balance it out, you will be king of the track, whether you're in a Lotus Evora, or a Audi R8. Essentially, neither a bigger nor smaller engine can dominate.