RE: Six of the best | Four-cylinder engines

[v8griff]

Alfasud 1.2 boxer......oh the rasp 😁

[daytonavrs]

Jazoli said:

No mention of any bike engines?

200bhp/Litre is not uncommon for a n/a 4 cyl nowadays.

Yamaha's CP4/CP3 engines

Kawasaki's Supercharged H2

I could go on...

+1 to this

Hyabusa 1300 engine, at least superior to 4 out of of the best of 6 ?
But its a car oriented forum so best not include bike engines eh ?

I think the K VHPD as mentioned by others also. I have it in the tuned form a VVC and even in that it does make quite a nice note,
but would be really great in a low slung weight kit or something.
and surprised the focus wasn't on the S2000 Honda engine too.
Oh well nowt strange as folk.

[AC43]

Falconer said:

cerb4.5lee said:

I think that is the problem I have and even the 'best' 4 cylinder engine is still so much worse than anything with 6+ more cylinders for noise for me.

Although I will admit that I always enjoyed the noise that the rally cars made whenever I went to the RAC rally and they were only 4 cylinder engines.

The Subaru flat four sounds better than anything except a V8 or a Harley.

It's strange how we hear things differently.

I love the sound of a Scoobie.

I also love the sound of V8.

But a Harley, to me anyway, sounds like some seriously fked bit of of industrial machinery.

I'll take the Scoob & the V8 all day long, though.

[helix402]

v8griff said:

Alfasud 1.2 boxer......oh the rasp ??

With twin carbs and a pair of K+Ns. I didn’t drive a car with a throttle as responsive as a well set up (valve clearances, ign timing, carbs set up) Alfa flat 4 till I drove an E46 M3.

[biggbn]

Filibuster said:

An i4 engine one never really talks about is the Volvo B18/20 engine!
It'a an old design; pushrod as well; all iron lump of an engine, but a hugely charismatic one!

Despite it's pushrod design, it revs to 6'500 rpm and had an output of up to 135 bhp (B20E) in standard form.
You could buy various tuning kit from the factory to bring power to 160 bhp. Not bad for the late 1960's!

This equates to a specific output of 80 bhp/l. Today, with modern efi (and even with carburetors) and some blueprinting, there are stroked engines to 2.2l (or 2.4l) producing more than 200 bhp and reving to almost 8'000rpm!

Also this is the engine powering the worlds highest mileage car (late Irv Gordon's Volvo P1800) with more than 3'000'000 miles on its original, unopened B18 engine.

Also it sounds rather nice to, even in standard form:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh96cQVOI4M

The later 2.3 engines are super strong too. Great shout.

[biggbn]

Saab four pot in all its turbo guises is a strong, tuneable lump.

[Robziboy]

The majority of the comments are from personal experience and personal preference which are irrelevant in this. When you define ‘best’ you ask the question of reliability, tuning capabilities and general characteristics of the engine from a worldwide perspective. Speak to any reputable engine builder in the world, racing teams etc. The answer will be the 4g63 most of the time. Huge potential in stock form, built engines reliably running 1000+hp. Used in time attack and drag setups around the world (if the other engines are better why are they not using them?). The facts are there against it being a far superior engine to the EJ’s in Subaru’s that doesn’t need to be preached. EJ’s sound better but it takes far more engineering to get similar results to a 4g63. I’m a Honda fan too but in order to get the same levels in forced induction, they do need to be sleeved to cope (4g’s raw cast iron block doesn’t).

Some great engines mentioned and i love all that are mentioned but let’s get the term ‘best’ defined 😉

[Randy Winkman]

helix402 said:

v8griff said:

Alfasud 1.2 boxer......oh the rasp ??

With twin carbs and a pair of K+Ns. I didn’t drive a car with a throttle as responsive as a well set up (valve clearances, ign timing, carbs set up) Alfa flat 4 till I drove an E46 M3.

I learned to drive in an Alfasud ti1.5. Loved it.

[Chuck328]

epicfail said:

I like this one..

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eToHTf-QUBA

Fantasy world, but offer me a few passenger laps round Silverstone in a Senna/LAF/Chiron/whatever or a run down the road/motorway in that. It's a no brainer on the latter.

Fantastic machine.

[Mr Tidy]

AC43 said:

It's strange how we hear things differently.

I love the sound of a Scoobie.

I also love the sound of V8.

But a Harley, to me anyway, sounds like some seriously fked bit of of industrial machinery.

I'll take the Scoob & the V8 all day long, though.

It certainly is strange!

I can never hear a Scoobie without thinking it is a Beetle on steroids (and not in a good way).

Although I do like the sound of a V8, a good straight 6 sounds just as good to me.

But I'm with you on the Harley - just noise for the sake of noise from a tractor that has had a couple of wheels (and the exhaust) fall off. They are just tw*t mobiles IMHO.

Anyway getting back to 4 cylinder engines, the Hot Rod my mate used to race sounded brilliant with a tuned Ford 1,600cc X-Flow on twin Webers.

[Perriace]

For this guy to forget the Fiat twin cam and how many victories it had from the seventies through to the nineties in rallying from both Fiat and Lancia really is poor journalism .

[roy928tt]

Initially I'd be wary of including turbocharged engines, it's a rather easy path to more power.

One however can't help but be impressed with that Merc. engine.

Generally I agree with the list, with one particular exception, the Subaru EJ 20. As a package the car is notable, but the engine alone is not.

I'd have to agree the 4G63 is the pick of the Japanese turbo 4's. But I'd still not include it due to the turbocharging.

I think I'd probably pick the BMW M 10-12-14 series to replace the Subaru engine.

[Old Merc]

How about the Nissan FJ engine from the 80`s? no turbo,just carbs and plenty of grunt, that engine was bullet proof.



And the noise it made was fantastic. Problem was we had to resort to various tricks to get our 240RS through the noise test at scrutineering.

[BFleming]

Max_Torque said:

jet_noise said:

@MT

What is it, please?

Peugeot Mi16 Engine in XU9 format. A 2.0 litre 16 valver, first production in the 405 mi16 of 1988.

I think all the XU9's were 1.9's (1905cc); the first 405 Mi16, 309GTI-16 and BX 16V were definitely all 1.9's. Because of where it was lifespan-wise, the facelifted 405 Mi16 got the 2.0 litre XU10 engine eventually, but the BX and 309 didn't (the Xantia, ZX, 306, etc etc did).

[Old Merc]

BFleming said:

Max_Torque said:

jet_noise said:

@MT

What is it, please?

Peugeot Mi16 Engine in XU9 format. A 2.0 litre 16 valver, first production in the 405 mi16 of 1988.

I think all the XU9's were 1.9's (1905cc); the first 405 Mi16, 309GTI-16 and BX 16V were definitely all 1.9's. Because of where it was lifespan-wise, the facelifted 405 Mi16 got the 2.0 litre XU10 engine eventually, but the BX and 309 didn't (the Xantia, ZX, 306, etc etc did).

The early MI16's with the non cat 1905cc XU9 were the best,probably one of the best Peugeot engines ever. Peugeot ruined that engine when they stuck a cat and associated electronics on it. The extra bit in the 1998cc XU10 did not help much.

[big_joe]

I found this cool little card in the documents with my old CRX, it has some stats for other contemporary 4 cyl rivals which have been mentioned in this thread -

[John_S4x4]

I should mention the Diamond Millingtom 4-pot.


I bet there won't be another comment about this engine in the thread.

[coppice]

My inner pedant compels me to agree with you . Sorry , but I'm sure the the Diamond MillingtoN deserves every plaudit - the ones I've heard (but , sadly , never driven) sound bloody marvellous - and also have the benefit of a name , and not some obscure JDM engine code !

[SidewaysSi]

John_S4x4 said:

I should mention the Diamond Millingtom 4-pot.


I bet there won't be another comment about this engine in the thread.

Yep they seem like stunning things. Good call.

[velocemitch]

yes Diamonds look and sound brilliant, they even have a name not a number.
I'm totally clueless about all these damned number letter combinations people come up with.

I do understand names though.... Busso Nord, Lampredi, Lotus, Diamond..... Merlin... opps got carried away