Quote:
Originally Posted by GONIF
I give up , if you thing a OHV engine is better than a DOCH or SOHC ,the rest of the auto industry must be wrong including MB, BMW ,Audi, Rolls Royce ,Bentley, Ferrari, Ford, Honda ,Toyota , Mazda, Porsche, Aston Martin, Jag ,Bugatti ect ect ect. No point in going on you will not convince me and I will not convince you . The future is OHC until electric powered cars kick every other type of powers ass . The M1 Garand was the best at one time too.
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Yes. An OHV engine is clearly better at some things than an OHC engine. Yes, an OHC engine is clearly better at other things than a OHV engine. Your problem is you don't know enough about the total package each brings to the table.
Every single manufacturer in your list above (except for Ford, which switched to OHC simply because they couldn't keep up with Chevy engineers in the OHV space) started in markets where displacement brings tax. These markets were, and are still today, forced to find ways to make more power out of smaller displacements. OHC engines do offer significant higher-rpm breathing advantages ... and high RPMs are what is needed to make small engines perform better. But when you aren't saddled with absurd displacement taxes, you can do what 'Merica has done. Build fuel-efficient OHV motors that get their efficiency from the low-RPM motoring these engines are capable of. And of course with their size, comes power. And with their simpler design comes more compact packaging, lighter weight per liter, lower friction (which directly affects brake-specific fuel consumption, a true measure of how efficient a motor is), and greater reliability.
If OHV was truly a sub-par design, then the Corvette Racing program (and the Viper racing program, which has had a lot of success in the past 20 years), would have been complete flops.
The only people who continue to praise the benefits of "horsepower-per-liter" are Civic owners who need something to argue back with when their car runs a 16-second quarter .... oh, and you.