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Perfection is almost certainly beyond a man with a dremel and needs at least a flowbench.
But port matching doesn't and gives proven results. Yes, it's easy to go just that little bit extra - and go too far. But if you're sensible, there are gains to be made for very little cash outlay.
Easier on older engines as they were much rougher to start with, modern stuff is made with tighter tolerances because higher efficiency is demanded. That's why a 70s production 2 litre 16v (Sprint) makes 127 bhp and a 2020 production 2 litre 16v makes 250bhp or more. It's still an internal combustion engine with the same basic design, just built better! Nowadays Ford will sell you a 1 litre 3 cylinder car that puts out over 140bhp, I wouldn't buy one as that sort of output can't last long IMO, but what do I know?
Steve
While I agree things can be improved on older cars, and new ones are made to much tighter tolerances/generally more accurate, your power figures for the moderns are rather misleading. The quoted numbers for the moderns are for mainly cars with turbochargers. On the other hand, the non-turbo new fiestas are 1.1 and make under 80bhp.....
Yes, there are some screamers out there, honda s2000 will make 250bhp, but that is not a typical engine!
Most 2 litre NA engines are around 150-180ish bhp. But are easily tuned to over 200bhp with a bundle of cash.
And I think the little ford ecoboost has a life expectancy of 120k. I don't think that is too bad, comparable to most triumph engines. And most people who do big mileages probably won't be looking for that little engine anyway. (friend just picked up a BMW 330E, had to be hybrid so his company will pay him, 250bhp, great car, bags of torque but only 41mpg average, nothing like the quoted)
OK, i'll hold my hands up, I may have exaggerated for effect a bit! But all the recent crop of "hot hatches", mostly turbo'd I admit, have outputs around the 250bhhp range, which is pretty much an industry standard since Saab's research proved that 250 horses is as much as anyone can usefully use in a FWD car. (Which they all are nowadays)
I'll also admit that you CAN get 250bhp from a Sprint engine, if you are willing to cherry pick every component and spend an inordinate amount of time and money. Even then, it's not likely to be as reliable as those modern hot hatches in the long run, even if it never sees a track. Though I can't think of a single Sprint with that much power that ISN'T a pure race car. Road going Sprints tend to top out around 180bhp. Probably because the cost of those extra 70 horses is too high for most to pay.
Even my "cooking" and definitely NOT sporty 2006 Citroen Xsara Picasso chucks out 147bhp from it's NA 16v 2.0 (Mi16 derived) petrol engine. I'm perfectly sure that a remap, adjustable fuel reg and maybe some slightly bigger injectors would push that close to 200 horses without breaking the bank. It works on the almost identically engineered Vauxhall redtop. I'm not going to try it as it's basically SWMBO's car and is automatic trans, it has "sufficient" power as it is and I don't want to lose bottom end torque in favour of top end power i'll never use!
Perhaps the point I was trying to make is that, in the 70s, the Sprint was pushing the boundaries of what was possible, to get 127bhp, don't forget, the Sprint was going to be called the "Dolomite 135" till they found they couldn't guarantee the extra 8 bhp! Whereas nowadays, they may be building the cars with only an extra 30-50 horses, but the potential is there to go much higher without sacrificing reliability.
Truthfully, even a speed freak like me doesn't really NEED 250 bhp to be happy, the Carledo survives on a mere 140 by judicious weight saving and is still a ton of fun! Which is probably why manufacturers are going for relatively smaller engines in bigger, heavier bodies. Joe Bloggs on the street has no wish or need to do 0-60 in 5 secs or 170mph flat out. That 80bhp 1100 Fiesta is probably aimed at new drivers with insurance costs in mind, but bear in mind that it's ancestor, the MKI Fiesta 1100 (which WASN'T the smallest engine in the range then) was only something like 50 bhp! And the CAR was probably half the weight of the modern version.
This idea is taken to the extreme by the Ford 1.0 Ecoboost and things like the Citroen C5 Safari, something over 2 tonnes and a 1.6 ltr turbo diesel under it, The Citroen you'll be lucky to get 80k out of before it's toast (helped by EGR and DPF clogging it's arteries) I doubt many ecoboosts will make 120k, I know several people who have killed them in under 50k, especially in the heavier Focus body.
There are of course, other factors, besides better production standards, EFi and mapped EI have improved performance AND economy by an enormous amount, just from making the engine more efficient. I'm just sorry that the latest improvements in IC, like "camless" engines, will never now see quantity production because of the rush to electrify everything.
Steve