What is the "best" 4 cylinder engine ever made?

[waltonoftsukuba]

The kings of n/a and turbo 4 bangers. Goodnight

[Niponeoff]

waltonoftsukuba said:

The kings of n/a and turbo 4 bangers. Goodnight

Long live the King.

[williamp]

"Patch"

https://www.autosport.com/national/news/the-legend...

As raced by Senna, and others. All engines are equal, but some are more equal than others.

[coppice]

Now you are talking. Who doesn't prefer an engine with a name than (yet another) set of random numbers and letters . Dare I confess that I haven't a clue what some of them are ?

[RC1807]

Niponeoff said:

Long live the King.

I popped in to post a Millington

[MrMotorVI]

There are loads of contenders and all for different reasons but I cant believe no one has mentioned the Lampredi Twin Cam engine used in Fiat from 1966 and Lancia & Alfa until 2000.
Its the most successful engine in the history of World rally championships, Fiat 124, Fiat 131,Lancia 037, Lancia Delta S4.

[anonymous-user]

MrMotorVI said:

There are loads of contenders and all for different reasons but I cant believe no one has mentioned the Lampredi Twin Cam engine used in Fiat from 1966 and Lancia & Alfa until 2000.
Its the most successful engine in the history of World rally championships, Fiat 124, Fiat 131,Lancia 037, Lancia Delta S4.

PH is very UK centric and those were all pretty rare here and it was ages ago, but you're right they were leagues ahead of the wheezing st in the engines we did get here. Unbelievable that the dismal BMC E series engine was developed at the same time as the Fiat 128 engine, really shows what useless stwits BMC were.

[Pepperpots]

Italian stuff can be awesome, I had a rather average 146Ti but the engine was bloody excellent.
It had a 2 litre twin spark that snorted and growled like an angry terrier and pulled really well. Had a Variator which as I understand it is a primitive version of variable cam timing. I remember that engine with fondness.

[Zeugirdor]

I'm going to sound like Jezza here (POWER!!!!) but iirc the A45, first gen and facelift, had the most powerful road production 4 pot out there, which was very impressive.

[TO73074E]

MrMotorVI said:

There are loads of contenders and all for different reasons but I cant believe no one has mentioned the Lampredi Twin Cam engine used in Fiat from 1966 and Lancia & Alfa until 2000.
Its the most successful engine in the history of World rally championships, Fiat 124, Fiat 131,Lancia 037, Lancia Delta S4.

As I posted on page 14 post number 13:

An amazing car and engine. If we are talking race engines I nominate the Abarth 233 ATR 18S as used in the Lancia Delta S4. 1759cc engine that had a rev range up to 10000 rpm using turbo and super charging and eventually used 500+ bhp in competition. They allegedly achieved 1000 bhp from it on a test bench.

In the real world I nominate the K20Z4.

[biggbn]

Zeugirdor said:

I'm going to sound like Jezza here (POWER!!!!) but iirc the A45, first gen and facelift, had the most powerful road production 4 pot out there, which was very impressive.

The Volvo four pot is almost as impressive, in polestar trim 370hp from memory?

[Turkey]

I like the Vauxhall 2.0 16v Red Top fitted to the Astra GTEs, never really liked many other 4 pots very much TBH. Rorty sounding and torquey low down but good up top too. Even the Astra Sris felt very nice and tractable and they were 1.8 8V engines from Vauxhall, and also had a nice torquey rumble to them.

Never owned either though, I had some Fords at the time, which had rubbish 4 cyl engines. N/A V-Tec, not for me, snarly things that need a lot of coaxing to give good performance.

Can't get excited abot Turbo 4 cyls though for some reason, a good turbo 6 like the B58, well that's different.

Currently own a 6 cyl 330i and Mini 1.5 3-cyl, so maybe I just don't like 4 pots on the whole.

Edited by Turkey on Tuesday 14th March 00:56

[Porka986]

How can you choose from a 4 cylinder? there's been so many greats,

Honda K20, Honda F20C, Mitsubishi 4G63, Subaru EJ20, Audi 1.8T 20v, Alfa Romeo Twin Cam, Mercedes M102 16v Cosworth, BMW S14, Nissan SR20DET, VW PD 1.9TDI, Ford Cosworth YB, Ford Pinto, Ford Kent, there's loads and all are great for their own reasons.

[Watcher of the skies]

Honourable mention to the Riley big four, for being an interesting engine.

[Lotobear]

Perhaps not quite 'the best' but certainly one of the most charismatic/iconic - the BDA and DFV can all be traced back to this humble little lump

[njw1]

Transit banana engine...

[ClaphamGT3]

boyse7en said:

A controversial choice, but how about the A-series?


Available in 9 different capacities from the factory (and many more by tuners)

Probably the most widely-used four-cylinder engine in history - Morris Minor, Mini, MG, Metro, Austin Healey, Austins, Morrises, Vanden Plas, Wolseleys, Rileys, Allegro, Montego, Maestro...

Won the Monte Carlo Rally outright three times (beating several Porsches) - should have been four, but for disqualification over a headlamp bulb.
Won numerous other rallies around the world
Won numerous british and European saloon car championships
Won numerous endurance racing championships

I came to post this. I think people forget how advanced, how versatile and how efficient the A series was

[biggbn]

Can't remember if I've 'voted' before and can't be bothered checking but I'd put a shout out for the VAG 1.9 tdi.

[pheonix478]

Niponeoff said:

Long live the King.

Surely the clear winner or I'll eat my bobble hat.

[carlo996]

Not sure there is a ‘best’ B18C, K20’s and Rover K’s are up there. As are the YB’s and M10, not to mention things like the 4A from the AE85. So many JDM engines out there are well over the engineered. Overall for me the B18 has that something, it’s just so angry.