John, you are right, but remember

control is nothing without power.

Whats happened to the project X car then?

David, the Sumo Power skyline isnt the HKS drag car - the HKS car did some 7 sec 1/4 miles in the USA & runs 'slightly' more power than andy barnes's car i believe ;)

I think all the 500plus (bhp & torque) boys should all stick thier names down here :p

Why is there such a lack of big power Imprezas?

Only big power Impreza I know of are those rigoli cars, the easystreet wrx which has 690bhp (740 with 50 shot of nitrous), but it is damn fast as it ran 10s in the 1/4 mile @ elevation. But I wanna see 8-900bhp STis.

A lot of people complain that the STi isn't as good for tuning as an Evo or Skyline. Why? Is it due to the flat 4 engine configuration? But then the next STi will have a flat 6, and that is tuneable as Porsche has one in the 911 Turbo - tuneable to 900bhp without nitrous.

The Skylines that are tuned to that sort of power has much bigger engines though donth they? Like 2.6s or bigger.

Dont think no one has really done that in a scoob. Adams was a 2.5 i think

GSS,

the impreza engine simply is not meant to take that kind of abuse.

The reason for this is the size of the bearing shells supporting both the crank and the 4 big ends.

Compared to a cosworth they are simply minute.

there is limited cooling also, and a concern with the support for the liners within an ally block, not the steel block that the skyline has.

Also you will see the rigolis car and all the aussie cars have their powers measured at the wheels, so the 690 and 740 claims are estimates at the crank. Very few aussie tuners have published their results on engine dynos.

also to my knowledge they were running 150plus shots of nitrous, not 50.

In the impreza, I think the 6 cylinder is the way to go, but the item they ahve talked about using (nothing confirmed) is not ideal for mega power due to its fundamental design. It also has the disadvantage of added weight.

I dont know the size of the evo bearings, but the engine being a straight four is far longer than the subaru, and part of that length if thought aout would have been taken up by wider supporting bearings.

Having said that with the exception of the norris evo (the power of which still makes no sense to me given the boost, displacement and rpm) the evos dont seem to be ahead of the imprezas in the power stakes at all.

Interesting thread this. I have followed the stories of some of the big power scoobs, I remember when a certain tarty one had a pretty powerfull UK car.

Adam - said it before, 600? pah! go for 700 :D (can I hear Mark knocking down my door to beat me with a piston? :D :D :D)

The real question here is, what exactly are we wanting to know? Just because a car has 700 BHP does not mean it will be quick, or stable. Hell, there's a Cadaliac Escalade EXT with 700 brake! now that is just plain scary! If you're just talking numbers then you could probably get an older scooby, decat it, put on an induction kit, wind up the boost to silly levels and get a good dyno result, but it'd probably go BANG in a big way shortly after.

And anyway, it's not really BHP that matters, that's lads pub talk, it's torque that's the real show of power! I'd love to have a car with a reasonable bhp but astronomical torque level (not sure if that's actually possible, but me thick)

it is possible.

If I limit my rpm to 4000 I would have had 560ish lbft but the power would have been only 450.

Mine was last night for about 20 minutes had a 1000bhp F1 BMW engine in the boot.....

The USDM get a 2.5l flat 4. I'd have thought that the forthcoming flat 6 would be tuneable, seeing as though the 911 Turbo's flat 6 is tuneable.

Adam,

The Skyline has a cast iron block, not alloy, which is good as it can resist more abuse as it is stronger (can take much more hp).

A V6 configuration can usually get you more torque than bhp, and an I6 configuration (Skyline, Supra) gets you more bhp than torque.

[Edited by GSS - 7/24/2003 2:16:54 PM]

ggs,

I am aware of the skylines block, which is why I said it has that as advantage.

There is much more to it than just to say it is a flat six and the porsche is a flat six so it will be fine.

The problem with the flat 6 they intend to use is that it has siamesed exhaust ports, which does not lend itself well to removing a lot of gas from a high powered engines.

It is the design of the flat six that counts.

Equally ina quest to make the engine smaller, the bearing surfaces are again still small compared to other high power engines such as the skyline and the porsche. This problem is of less significance on the 6 cylinder as there are 6 big ends as opposed to 4 and 7 mains as opposed to 5.

I am facing the more important question of what exactly is the point.

I am convinced its going to be undrivable with the kind of numbers we are talking, having spoken to andy f about this in the past.

He said he upped his boost for weekend plays because even in the dry it was a real monster.

The fact is, that no road chassis is ever really going to usably cope with power like that, never mind the torque.

That's almost purely down to the stroke/bore of the engine. Compare Skyline/Supra - Skyline has a short-stroke free-revving engine that makes lots of power at high rpm and can be tuned to rev up to 10,000+ pretty easily. The Supra has a longer stroke, hates going above 8000rpm, and costs a fortune to coax up to 9000, yet makes monumental torque low down the rev range. Both are I-6's though.

you also have to look at reliability and every day driving.

All these australia/america high power cars (9.x time ones) are not used for everyday driving, just drag racing.

and christians doesnt do more than 40mph.. so couldnt really be doing more than 500miles a day.. :p

David

Are you asking who has the most powerful scooby that actually runs on a daily basis :D :D :D ;)
Or the most powerful pile of bits that may or may not ;) run one day per year :D

well he didn;t ask who has the biggest head so why are you on here andy? :P ;)

Sorry Adam I misunderstood the question :D
The question was "Most Powerful Scooby?" As far as I know your scooby has had zero power for most of its life and has certainly never seen over 400 bhp ! Why exactly are you on here :p :D :D


PS I never thought for a minute it was me :D Both Bob and Harvey having more power than my fairly standard offering :)



[Edited by Andy.F - 7/24/2003 6:29:51 PM]

does'nt the JUN super lemmon wrx(bug eye) have 580bhp must be one of the most powerfull

mike

Lisa Diamond Skyline R32 .850.... 4WD
Keith Cowie R32 GTR...... 800+ 4WD
Hugh Keir R33 GTR ........800+ 4WD
Gary Marks Mazda RX7 .....700+ RWD


what do you think bullsh1t or not ?

since when was scoo by defined as as subaru impreza?

scoobydoo being rhyming slang for subaru. It is therferore not model specific, and as far as I can tell, not even car specific.

I can guarantee you that the engine is a subaru hence scooby EJ25.

Admittedly it doesn't currently develop that power output, but then if yours is swithced off as we speak, then neither does yours.

How was that for a blag? :p

By the way, I don't believe mine is the most powerful either, so show me where I said it was on this thread?

All I said was that 520 is not the highest I know of, but I wasn't putting my engine forward to beat it.

just through my non-mechanical more political view on the flat 4.

Flat configuration engines are currently used by Subaru and Porsche, inline and v's are used pretty much by everybody else, so for development and racing development across all manufacturers the inlines and v's have had considerably more R & D than flat 4's ever will have. So more reliable power can be obtained from a inline 4 than a flat 4, because more is known about how to get increased power from that engine through the years of joint developments and shared research (and stealing ideas no doubt).

So unless people like Adam M, David W and the other pioneers around the world continue to be at the bleeding edge, we will not know how far a subaru engine can go. Keep up the good work.

[Edited by pbee - 7/25/2003 10:45:02 AM]

Now now boys, lets not get into a.. "my dads bigger than your dad" type argument.

Just to clarify, theres a guy in my area (reportedly) running a 530bhp on a daily basis and i "heard" someone say its the most powerful in th UK and that banzai are doing a feature on it.

The only reason i asked was to clarify whether this was a "BULL$H!T" story or whether it had some substance.

What's the odds as to the most powerful? How do you measure it? 9 mths ago a 380 bhp Scooby was about the limit. Now there are a number of 2 litre cars with 400-almost 500bhp. Before the end of this year a reliable 500 bhp 2 litre Scooby will become a proven reality.
Following TOTB last year and my 417 bhp at Well Lane in October, a lot of gas has been burned on here and there have been many dreams of mega output big capacity engines. With almost a year to achieve these goals and so many unbelievable posts here and 22b the reality is that 22b are unable to field a team of ten runners on 3 August for TOTB and how many of the original big capacity engines will be there?
I have no idea who has the most powerful 2 litre or larger capacity Scoobs in the U.K. and how would you prove a power claim. It is not really relevant. What is the difference between a 380 bhp Scoob and a 420 bhp? On the road there are other considerations.
Andy Forest has 440 bhp but at Elvington on 13th July he was the fastest car in all three disciplines bar none. The handling circuit then 11.66 1/4 mile and top speed at 1.2 miles of 170+mph This was against Skylines with mega power etc.
There is a lot more to building a fast car than sheer power as this proves and although both Bob Rawle and myself have more power than Andy his results will better ours.
What will be interesting is how our cars compare against the big engine brigade and what their subsequent reliability record is. So many of them have fallen by the way-side how many will actually turn up for TOTB.
By the way Andy wants to sell his proven car for £10,000.

Harvey,

There are only two of the big engines which have fallen by the wayside, and without meaning to be rude, they have both moved the game on quite a fair amount.

Bob made the point of saying that you can simply multiply the outputs of his 2.0 by 1.25 to achieve the output of a 2.5 so its easy.

Sadly this simply isn't true as there are obstacles to overcome when getting to cylinders of that size. For example filling the thing becomes a nightmare never mind trying to empty it afterwards, and that is not even tackling the problem of hoping that the entire charge ignites and in the right window for doing so.

Bobs 2.0 figures are incredible in the first place. To expect a 2.5 to achieve the same specific power output in my mind is quite an achievement. and I certainly didnt expect it.

Reliability is going to be issue when you consider that the 2.5 is the same size, so the bearing surfaces are the same size too, the block mass is lower, it is therefore weaker, and there is therfore less support for the cylinder. On top of this concern we are talking almost three times standard power and around 2.5 times standard torque, but retaining the same lubrication system and the same water cooling system.

It is entirely possible that the larger capacity engines of which only 3 of them have fired, have simply pushed things past the boundaries of safety, and so there has to be this development period in this country for us to know what needs to be done to make the engines reliable. You used the term "destruction testing",I objected to it at the time, but ultimately that is what has happened, albeit on my orders. It does mean that I know what component is not up to the task, and when the matter is resolved, hopefully other people will be able to avoid making that same mistake.

with this in mind, despite it costing me fortunes, there is some benefit to it.

Lisa Diamond Skyline R32 .850.... 4WD
Keith Cowie R32 GTR...... 800+ 4WD
Hugh Keir R33 GTR ........800+ 4WD
Gary Marks Mazda RX7 .....700+ RWD

I don't think Lisa's car is that powerful. But Keith & Hughs cars are definately in that range.

Andy Barnes (Sumo Power) has just achieved 565bhp at the wheels at 1.2 bar boost, and soon he'll be going up to 2 bar. A good estimate of flywheel power from that 565 is 773bhp. Shudder to thing what it will be at 2 bar.

Adam

Pat has already posted his consideration of what it takes to claim an engine is 'reliable' IIRC it was something like 30,000 miles running on std pump fuel with only minor servicing.

I know the OEM criteria is very impressive, somewhere in excess of 100,000 miles testing and hundreds of hours at WOT at max power and max torque, including thousands of abusive cold starts and hot shutdowns......Yet we still break em regularly :eek:

What would you consider it takes to verify a new engine design such as your own as being 'reliable' ?

Andy





[Edited by Andy.F - 7/25/2003 12:17:08 PM]

to be honest andy, with the amount of kid gloves treatment my car is going to get, I don't think it will ever be reliable on the scale of things.

Forgetting specific power output, I dont believe the subaru flat ej series of engine design can cope with the power I was pulling out of it on the dyno.

Part of me thinks that if I fix the liner, something else will go.

That is why when it is back on the road, the boost os going to be pulled down to something like 1.5 bar for playing. 2.0 bar for wasting the tires.

If you are wondering, then yes I do consider yours and harvey's to be reliable power.

If I limit the power on mine, then I see no reason why mine shouldn't yield the same reliability, but the outputs it made on the dyno, I simply do not believe are conducive to an everyday runner.

I may be proven wrong, but as of yet that is my gut instinct.

One thing I know for sure based on what you have said, is that the car will be simply too powerful for me by a long shot.

Harvey made a good point about the all round performance of your car, and that is certainly something I would like to be able to emmulate. I think I will put the next lot of effort into making the car as complete an all round package as I can. Since the car is unlikely to be able to contain the power and the torque, that is another incentive to bring them down.

Figures for bragging are all very good, but I would rather have some security. having said that, had I not insisted on trying all the different combinations, it would have gone back in the car, with a faulty component or two still in it!

Adam

Thanks for your refreshingly honest and open reply.

The problem is that we are looking for race car performance with road car reliability......difficult task.

Andy

My attempt is entirely at reliability and driveability with only 450BHP/400lbft targets (maximum sensible for streetable clutch/gearbox options). So why on earth did I go for a high compression 2.33 when I could have gone a more proven 2.0 route? I would not like to drive a 2.0 with that performance because I don't think it would make those targets with a driveable turbo on pump fuel with the length of our exhaust manifolds, given that we don't have twin scroll or VATN turbos at our disposal.

My first attempt at it failed because of an unfortunate incident with a Subaru part that failed because of sheer bad luck, and was not output related, in so doing I hope I have highlighted an issue that many others were not so aware of to avoid them having similar problems. Given that I will undoubtedly be running less boost on the new lump than I was on the original I have every hope that it will be reliable. If it is not I will not be keeping the car.

Given my choice of components/specification (ie 20G, 8.7:1 CR, manifold), I think I will lose power on pump fuel if I try to go over 1.5 bar anyway. So I have a few things to keep me sane I hope.

There is a lot of new stuff with Subaru engines going on in the UK at least, the foreigners are still ahead of us of course. The pioneering attitude should be celebrated and encouraged/supported rather than failures (which will happen if you develop things) being used as ammunition against individuals/groups/factions/suppliers/mafiosa gangs :eek: ;) etc.

Hopefully there will be a few more "proven" routes established by the end of the year. My aim is to see if 450/400 on the car as a package is driveable and reliable... I really want to restrain myself from turning the wick up further as that would spoil the experiment and my bank balance.

[Edited by john banks - 7/25/2003 1:18:28 PM]

I hate you lot.. it really makes me wonder how far I should push mine.. I was wanting to run 3bar.. now I think 2bar..

Now I think std (ish) crank.. eek

david, if it makes you feel better, I resent having done my crank. I dont think its an issue.

bearing surfaces simply cannot be enlarged. Would concentrate more on lubrication and cooling, then block integrity then rotating parts.