How can a 3cylinder Engine be faster?

**wildthing** · February 7th, 2004 07:07 AM

Originally posted by bardigones
i didn't know this was possible...

or baka it was meant that "your car can go faster, or add a few more km/h to the odometer" since nabawasan ang weight (drag factor) of the car.

thanks for the correction!

my mind was on the weight to power ratio...but expressed it wrongly....again thanks.

back to the issue.... with all those modifications....would it be possible to squeeze out more than 80HP on such a small engine?

I personally don't think so kasi....wouldn't it be a waste of money to do the mods....than an engine transplant....just my 2 cents...peace.

**ebbfolls** · February 8th, 2004 12:31 AM

Wildthing,

There are engines smaller in displacement producing around 100-120 hp. Of course, it is possible. The trick is to get the engine to hold up together while letting it develop it's peak torque higher and higher up the rpm range. To do this, the camshaft needs to be re-ground or a new camshaft with a high rpm volumetric efficiency profile needs to be installed, the pistons lightened and/or strengthened, connecting rods/endcaps/bearings strengthened, heads ported/polished, high rpm capacity headers, free flow exhaust, cold air or ram-air intake

**wildthing** · February 8th, 2004 10:42 AM

I know there are smaller engines that could do higher HPs (like the rotary engine of Mazda) but with reference to gearspeeds' orig/stock zuk engine, I don't think (I could be wrong) that he could squeeze more than 80HP from it without spending too much.

It's not that I was mentioning any absolute truth on my opinion. With your mentioned option, magkano kaya ang aabutin nuong ganung changes? Opinion ko ay mahina ang P50,000 na gastos.

That's why I mentioned that "wouldn't it be a waste of money to do the mods....than an engine transplant"

....just my 2 cents...peace out

**ebbfolls** · February 8th, 2004 11:38 AM

Apologies. You did mention the thing about it being cheaper to do an engine transplant. The problem however is that the Fronte is a fwd and fitting a bigger engine would be more troublesome than if it were rwd.

By the way, the Mazda rotary does not count because it has more power strokes per revolution (I think 6 power strokes/rev for a 2-rotor), so it would naturally produce more power than a piston engine of the same displacement.

**wildthing** · February 9th, 2004 07:14 AM

OT (sorry moderators):

Yeh sure, you're right....in as much that I don't want this topic to be a struggle of engine knowledge....

peace out!

**gearspeed** · February 9th, 2004 10:33 AM

Webers are dual barrel compound carbs, meaning the throttle plates open simultaneously. Solex could probably be a single barrel carb. A more efficient alternative to dual compound carbs would be the dual progressive. In this type of carb, the primary side feeds the engine idle to mid-throttle, and the secondary only begins to open up at mid-throttle.

Putting in a large or high flow carb on an unmodified engine is useless. The engine cannot take in additional charge if it is not capable of expelling an equal extra amount of spent exhaust gases. That is why the logical way of modifying an engine is to first improve the exhaust before upgrading the intake. Besides, a carb's "footprint" must match the intake manifold or else there will be a lot of mismatched surfaces which will lead to gas flow turbulence, not to mention, leaks.

Here's what I suggest:
1. Switch to a freer flowing muffler. Preferrably a nice deep sounding one so that you dont only gain on the reduced backpressure but you also get the additonal attractive exhaust note.
2. Install headers that *perfectly* fit the exhaust ports of your engine. If the holes do not match, take the cylinder head and the headers to the machine shop and have them matched. You can also ask them to polish the ports.
3. Install a freer breathing air filter like the cone types that you see showcased among the tuner crowd. The freer breathing filter should help increase airflow into the carb and engine, making good use of the increased exhaust gas flow.
4. Install a cold air intake. But make sure that the cold air intake will indeed pull in cold air for the carb, otherwise you defeat the purpose. It's best to take the car to the shop for this because you can then ask them to make a airbox that will house the cone type air filter and keep it from inhaling hot air inside the engine. IF your car has 4 headlights, remove one headlight and use the hole to siphon in cold air into the airbox.

OR

4. Have a ram-air intake built on your hood. Make sure it's properly designed so that the scoop feeds the air straight into the air filter. If you can, have the fabricator make a rubber seal around the scoop and the air filter so that all that air gets forced into the air filter and is not wasted into the engine bay.

...that's about it. I wouldnt advice on switching to bigger carbs because I doubt there is an aftermarket performance carb specifically designed for your engine. As I said earlier if the carb is not properly matched for your engine and it's supporting hardware, you just end up wasting money on your investment, plus the engine is now going to be more wasteful, if it's not going to give any performance troubles, such as stumbling from an overrich mixture.

I didn't know that I can use those air filters that are just for fuel injected ones. I taught those circular type are for carbs and cone type air filters are for fuel injected type...

I follow all of what you said and thanks for the people who replied...

Anybody here knows a good machine shop for my car?
What kind of free flow muffler would fit in my car?
Ok ba yun nodalos?
In my car those big mufflers won't fit thats why I have it custom made like the headers and mufflers
I think I'll buy those K& N Airfilters or other filters use by most Civic SIR instead of those simota so that I can clean it for more H.P...

**empy** · February 9th, 2004 11:05 AM

with all that said...you will end up spending hundreds of thousands to get a 1000cc engine up to even 100 hp. as ebbfolls mentions engine transplants are pretty tough in these minicompact cars because of size/packaging issues.

basic i/h/e and internal work will not get you major increases either. so you're left with forced induction or ripping the whole engine apart and really going crazy.

at the end of the day, i think you'd be better off by selling your car and buying an older 1.6 car (corolla, sentra, civic, lancer, etc) that already starts with that much power, and has more tuning potential.

**gearspeed** · February 9th, 2004 07:01 PM

with all that said...you will end up spending hundreds of thousands to get a 1000cc engine up to even 100 hp. as ebbfolls mentions engine transplants are pretty tough in these minicompact cars because of size/packaging issues.

basic i/h/e and internal work will not get you major increases either. so you're left with forced induction or ripping the whole engine apart and really going crazy.

at the end of the day, i think you'd be better off by selling your car and buying an older 1.6 car (corolla, sentra, civic, lancer, etc) that already starts with that much power, and has more tuning potential.

well the reason why I want this small car is because I want to join slalom races..instead of those starlets and join carshows in ATC...

Ok na yun 100hp for a small car

Anybody here knows a good machine shop for my car?
What kind of free flow muffler would fit in my car?
Ok ba yun nodalos na muffler?
In my car those big mufflers won't fit thats why I have it custom made like the headers and mufflers...The headers are not from Nodalos I just have it custom made in makati...
I think I'll buy those K& N Airfilters or other filters use by most Civic SIR instead of those simota so that I can clean it for more H.P...

**MeshType** · February 9th, 2004 11:54 PM

gearspeed

if you really want to soup up your Fronte then there is no use spending money on the stock engine kasi all that you will gain after spending thousands of pesos are a few HP's not to mention the fact that the Fronte engine might not hold up well to the mods that you will put into it. I am assuming that you are on a budget as far as spending for the mods are concerned so put you money where it would count most. An engine swap is inevitable to get serious HP. One alternative is for you to go hybrid. a rotary engine can surely fit the engine bay of your Fronte. I have seen KP61 Toyota's fitted with tuned Rotary engines and they are oh so fast. ewan ko na lang kung hindi pa lumipad yang kotse mo pag nalagyan mo nun.