Discussion
An idle thought...
... If you stuck a little modern petrol engine (like the Aygo/107/C1 triplet's triple) into a Lotus Seven style chassis, and left it set up for economy, and didn't go overboard on tyres:
a) What kind of urban/mixed economy would you be looking at?
and,
b) Would it be any fun? I guess you're looking at a well-balanced little rear drive car with 100bhp/tonne, maybe a little more.
I reckon you could have Prius-beating economy anywhere the aerodynamics don't matter too much, and of course you'd absolutely slaughter it on a construction materials/energy input basis.
... If you stuck a little modern petrol engine (like the Aygo/107/C1 triplet's triple) into a Lotus Seven style chassis, and left it set up for economy, and didn't go overboard on tyres:
a) What kind of urban/mixed economy would you be looking at?
and,
b) Would it be any fun? I guess you're looking at a well-balanced little rear drive car with 100bhp/tonne, maybe a little more.
I reckon you could have Prius-beating economy anywhere the aerodynamics don't matter too much, and of course you'd absolutely slaughter it on a construction materials/energy input basis.
Good idea, I used to have a an old Peugeot 1905cc XUD turbo diesel and gearbox lying around the garage (as you do) I was often looking around on Ebay at part finished kit cars for something to do with it. Would reckon on 60-70 mpg knocking around, and maybe up to 100mpg could be possible on a long sedate run.
sniff petrol said:
Good idea, I used to have a an old Peugeot 1905cc XUD turbo diesel and gearbox lying around the garage (as you do) I was often looking around on Ebay at part finished kit cars for something to do with it. Would reckon on 60-70 mpg knocking around, and maybe up to 100mpg could be possible on a long sedate run.
I'd've like to have seen that :-)sniff petrol said:
Twincam16 said:
I reckon you'd probably be right. Might need to replace the EFI with throttle bodies, which could hurt the fuel economy a bit, but not much I don't think.
So how would the economy, power and weight differ from say a 1.0l on TB or a 1.4 on stock fuel injection?Timberwolf said:
An idle thought...
... If you stuck a little modern petrol engine (like the Aygo/107/C1 triplet's triple) into a Lotus Seven style chassis, and left it set up for economy, and didn't go overboard on tyres:
a) What kind of urban/mixed economy would you be looking at?
60-70 mpg?... If you stuck a little modern petrol engine (like the Aygo/107/C1 triplet's triple) into a Lotus Seven style chassis, and left it set up for economy, and didn't go overboard on tyres:
a) What kind of urban/mixed economy would you be looking at?
Timberwolf said:
b) Would it be any fun? I guess you're looking at a well-balanced little rear drive car with 100bhp/tonne, maybe a little more.
68 bhp in an engine that may weigh no more than ~80 kgs is not bad news indeed. I think one would be looking at a total weight similar to the bike engined stuff, which means maybe 120-130 bhp/tonne - pedestrian by current Seven standards but would make for a pretty nippy car overall. Doubt you would get much more than ca. 85 mph top end from it though, as you're left with 68 bhp working against brick wall aerodynamics...Edited by 900T-R on Tuesday 8th January 16:26
900T-R said:
Timberwolf said:
b) Would it be any fun? I guess you're looking at a well-balanced little rear drive car with 100bhp/tonne, maybe a little more.
68 bhp in an engine that may weigh no more than ~80 kgs is not bad news indeed. I think one would be looking at a total weight similar to the bike engined stuff, which means maybe 120-130 bhp/tonne - pedestrian by current Seven standards but would make for a pretty nippy car overall. Doubt you would get much more than ca. 85 mph top end from it though, as you're left with 68 bhp working against brick wall aerodynamics...Edited by dougc on Tuesday 8th January 16:38
Twincam16 said:
sniff petrol said:
Twincam16 said:
I reckon you'd probably be right. Might need to replace the EFI with throttle bodies, which could hurt the fuel economy a bit, but not much I don't think.
So how would the economy, power and weight differ from say a 1.0l on TB or a 1.4 on stock fuel injection?What about those 1.4 K-series Caterhams from the early 90's? What are they like on fuel? I'd imagine a bit better than a Metro/200 with the same engine for knocking around but like mentioned above a bit less at high speed due to worse aerodynamics.
The VW TSI engine would be a good choice, 170bhp yet pretty good fuel figures as the power is only provided when it's needed, rest of the time it's just a 1.4L miser. Pity VW currently only plan to put it in their lard arse models. A Polo GTi with the 170bhp TSI engine would make so much more sense than that old boat anchor 1.8L Turbo they have in there at the moment.
Road_Terrorist said:
The VW TSI engine would be a good choice, 170bhp yet pretty good fuel figures as the power is only provided when it's needed, rest of the time it's just a 1.4L miser. Pity VW currently only plan to put it in their lard arse models. A Polo GTi with the 170bhp TSI engine would make so much more sense than that old boat anchor 1.8L Turbo they have in there at the moment.
I imagine it's quite heavy with all the associated plumbing though. When dealing with a light weight/low cost car I think you're better off keeping things simple.I think it's also a bit of musing, "in the second-worst case scenario for cars, what would you do to still have fun?"
The only real thing that could put the kibosh on this sort of car is "safety"; it should hopefully perform reasonably well in car-vs.-wall tests due to light weight and long bonnet, but if legislation starts demanding airbags sprouting from every corner and enormous sacrificial structures you have problems. Mandatory, unswitchable TC/ESP would cut some (if not all) of the fun too.
The only real thing that could put the kibosh on this sort of car is "safety"; it should hopefully perform reasonably well in car-vs.-wall tests due to light weight and long bonnet, but if legislation starts demanding airbags sprouting from every corner and enormous sacrificial structures you have problems. Mandatory, unswitchable TC/ESP would cut some (if not all) of the fun too.
The worst case would be a complete ban on mechanised private transport, although I expect that's a bit of a post-democracy goal.
Timberwolf said:
The only real thing that could put the kibosh on this sort of car is "safety"; it should hopefully perform reasonably well in car-vs.-wall tests due to light weight and long bonnet, but if legislation starts demanding airbags sprouting from every corner and enormous sacrificial structures you have problems. Mandatory, unswitchable TC/ESP would cut some (if not all) of the fun too.
Think single vehicle type approval gets around those things though?dougc said:
Sounds quite similar to the numbers quoted for the Westfield XI. Doesn't that make about 70bhp from the old 1275 Midget lump?
Indeed, 65 bhp and accoding to Westfield it does 0-60 in 8.5s. Sacrilege maybe, but it would be interesting to see how such a car would behave with a modern, lightweight, low inertia engine of similar output. 
900T-R said:
dougc said:
Sounds quite similar to the numbers quoted for the Westfield XI. Doesn't that make about 70bhp from the old 1275 Midget lump?
Indeed, 65 bhp and accoding to Westfield it does 0-60 in 8.5s. Sacrilege maybe, but it would be interesting to see how such a car would behave with a modern, lightweight, low inertia engine of similar output. 
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