I do think this is one of the greatest engines ever made. I am a massive fan of the rotary, and even i would say this is better! The over engineered headroom was incredible, 500+ horsepower with no engine internal modifications needed, and little to no upgraded coolant!SiLo wrote:That 2JZ-GTE engine was an absolute beast. Clearly they peaked too soon and haven't gotten to those heady heights since.
williammcc wrote:many classes of racing use production engines...i used the s2000 as an example many japanese production engines are the same they're already running much closer to their limits than european engines....it's pretty much down to japanese engineering philosophy more than anything else
their philosophy has been the same from as far back as world war 2 and probably before it...if they don't think they actually need something be it another 20 bhp, another thousand rpm or going back to their roots in world war 2 armor on a fighter plane they won't include it or even leave it possible to be included...if the zero fighter plane had any sort of armor at all it would probably have been close to the best plane of the war but it was too fast and maneuverable to be shot down so armor wasn't needed...except they quickly found all it took was 1 or 2 bullets and they went up in smoke and there was no provision in the design to do anything to prevent it...
basically they think totally different every bit as good as designers as a European but if you ask a european to build an engine he'll build the best engine possible within the constraints where the japanese will build the cheapest engine possible within the constraints
The Japanese engines you are referring to are NA designed engines that have a good cam design with a good sport focus for high revs, which their cam profiles prove.
Considering the cost and performance most of the small Japanese engines are faultless by comparison to anything else on the market.
The last two generations of the lotus elise have been praised for the outright crazy levels of reliability. This is purely thanks to the fact they are using Toyota engines. These engines are all standard by design. Then lotus stick on a supercharger with no other modifications and the engines fly with greater reliability than anything ford or rover could have ever dreamed of.
I cannot imagine any 2.0 litre ford engine producing as much power, for as many miles with as little oil consumption.
Not to mention the cost...
Honda offer sports upgrade packs to their engines, these are reasonable upgrades you can buy to increase the HP of your NA engine, they include sports cams, exhaust etc.
The final nail on the coffin... a near 10 year old Japanese road car chassis with an NA motor beat the lap-times of a porsche 911 GT3 around the two tracks it was tested on.
It has been mentioned above that the downfall is in the teams themselves, the culture of Japanese respect limits the ability of freely stating what is wrong and what could be done better.
This affects all and anything that the japanese tend to do, from flying planes to running teams.
Basically they all need a chill pill, although their engines are fantastic, they are being beaten on all other front by groups of guys who love to chat down the pub and laugh.