The VTEC strikes back!

[amitoj]

LOL. Boys will be boys!
Come on guys. You all should be congratulating Goldie on his new car and let him enjoy his honeymoon period. You dont necessarily have to spoil his taste by getting into silly boyish "mine is bigger than yours" arguments. We all love our cars, specially the newly acquired ones.

So just ease up!

Cheers
Amitoj

[goldie_malhotra]

Originally Posted by RX135

Well! Even iDSI engine was much more hyped than what it delivered. An engine claiming to deliver 26 kmpl on highways doesnt go more than 16-18, which Baleno or my heavier petra can compare with. (Hate to bring Fiat in here, apologies).

Perhaps NHC owners would like to differ with you on this. The NHC-iDSI gives around 12-15 kmpl in city and 18-20 on highways for many people (self-driven) that I know.

Again, will let you know of my own figures, once I have driven the car for some time (in the short/mid-term ownership review).

So, where is the technology? At variable valve timing? Now that is there for almost a decade.

Sure it is, but some of the cars sold in india run on technology even older than that. And they sell well too bcoz of the cost advantage.

[RX135]

Originally Posted by amitoj

LOL. Boys will be boys!
Come on guys. You all should be congratulating Goldie on his new car and let him enjoy his honeymoon period. You dont necessarily have to spoil his taste by getting into silly boyish "mine is bigger than yours" arguments. We all love our cars, specially the newly acquired ones.

Oops, sorry! Congratulations Goldie on your new car. I am sure it will be fun to drive around in a VTec. I am on this side of 50% folks, who really like NHC looks and finish. Do write 2000/10000 km reviews of your car for benefit of other folks.

[shuvc]

Originally Posted by amitoj

LOL. Boys will be boys!
Come on guys. You all should be congratulating Goldie on his new car and let him enjoy his honeymoon period. You dont necessarily have to spoil his taste by getting into silly boyish "mine is bigger than yours" arguments. We all love our cars, specially the newly acquired ones.

Absolutely .. thanks for pointing it out .. if required we can have a separate thread for this

Meanwhile @goldie .. have a ball ..
Do post some snaps please .. and clear the spare wheel confusion when you can ..

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by shuvc

if required we can have a separate thread for this

In fact, long time back, there was a thread which discussed whether the VTEC is overrated or not. I tried to find it but couldnt. Maybe it got lost during one of the upgrades or downtimes!

By the way, even i am guilty of not congratulating Goldie. Congrats pal.
One question though... what are the running in conditions for vtec? Normally one isnt supposed to rev up the engine a lot during running in, but in a vtec, the additional valves and the different cam profile etc etc wont come into play until u cross a certain limit, right?

Cheers
Amitoj

[sjcherian]

Congrats on the choice of car and the excellent writeup. Have been very curious about the new VTec and was waiting for a TBHP writeup. Finally its here :-)

[Mpower]

Originally Posted by RX135

If I can get 100 BHP at disposal, with or without VTec, why do I care?

because with VTEC you get 100 bhp peak power out of just 1.5 liters and also retain the good low end torque.

[amit]

congrats dude on your new buy.

An engine claiming to deliver 26 kmpl on highways doesnt go more than 16-18

That is a good point. Why was there such a hue and cry when Ford and Fiat cars didn't deliver the kind of fuel efficiency that people expected but no one says anything when City doesn't give 26kmpl.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by amit

congrats dude on your new buy.



That is a good point. Why was there such a hue and cry when Ford and Fiat cars didn't deliver the kind of fuel efficiency that people expected but no one says anything when City doesn't give 26kmpl.

Ummm... my dad gets 21kmpl on highways consistently, with AC, from his NHC. Of course he keeps it around 90 kmph. When i drove from Delhi to Jaipur, i hovered at 120 kmph and my dad didnt even bother calculating the FE then

[thalavoy]

Congratulations goldie. I am also looking to replace my Accent.

Any one! How does NHC (new) ride on real bad roads? Not the potholes of Bangalore. But on bad roads like some village roads where you might not find much of the asphalting. My Accent scrapes a lot, particularly the exhaust dome in the rear.

Thanks

[RX135]

Originally Posted by Mpower

because with VTEC you get 100 bhp peak power out of just 1.5 liters and also retain the good low end torque.

Well, few other 1.6 engines do pump out 100 bhp like Fusion/Fiesta Duratec, Petra Petrol, Accent Tornado 1.6 (103 bhp), Optra 1.6 (104 bhp). So no big deal! Even if you consider 100cc difference, it costs bomb over other 1.6 cars.
About low end torque, it certainly isn't that great as claimed. In fact, old Vtec was better suited for highways than city for very same reason, isnt it? Baleno gives fantastic low end torque. Incidently, VTec produces 13.5 kgm torque at 4800, while Baleno does 13.2 (?) kgm at 3000 and Petra produces 14.0 kgm at 4200. I have not checked figures for fusion/accent/optra, but I am sure they will be comparable.

I would certainly appreciate technical edge of Vtec, if it simply blows off all other competitors in power/torque/FE, which I don't see as a case here.

[imjimmy]

I would certainly appreciate technical edge of Vtec, if it simply blows off all other competitors in power/torque/FE, which I don't see as a case here.

That's not possible bcoz there are so many cars now with roughly similar specs to the NHC Vtec. The Indian market has matured.5 years ago with the OHC Vtec the situation was different.
Again,it remains to be seen whether the NHC Vtec can even match the OHC Vtec.
Also it would be interesting to see if Honda can get away with this pricing riding on it's brand name. Simply bcoz there are other cars with similar virtues costing a lot lesser.

[GTO]

In fact, long time back, there was a thread which discussed whether the VTEC is overrated or not. I tried to find it but couldnt. Maybe it got lost during one of the upgrades or downtimes!

Due to the attention to detail behind our upgrades, NOT A SINGLE old thread or piece of information has been lost. The only posts that will not show are the ones made in a 4 hour before Team-BHP went into upgrade mode.

Here is the link that you were looking for :

Vtec - Useless features? (VTEC is a Useless feature!)

GTO

[Shan2nu]

I would certainly appreciate technical edge of Vtec, if it simply blows off all other competitors in power/torque/FE, which I don't see as a case here.

That's bcoz you haven't understood Vtec technology. U think Vtecs were designed only for performance, don't you? You're wrong!!! Vtec was mainly designed to extract more FE with the already existing power, produced by the high revving Honda engines.

DOHC VTEC
SOHC VTEC
VTEC - E
I - VTEC
3 Stage VTEC

They're not just engines with diff names, they work in diff ways as well.

Types Of Vtec engines and their uses

Shan2nu

[RX135]

Originally Posted by Shan2nu

That's bcoz you haven't understood Vtec technology. U think Vtecs were designed only for performance, don't you? You're wrong!!! Vtec was mainly designed to extract more FE with the already existing power, produced by the high revving Honda engines.

Thanks for the link, Shan2nu! But you got me wrong. "VTecs are designed for performance" is a marketing line of Honda India and not mine. See Honda India website and it is very clear.

Current high revving Vtec produces peak power at 5800. Is that high revving? The moment we talk about 8 valves operating first and then 8 valves at higher rpm, it is indicates trying to extract more FE.

My point was not at all about how Vtec works. My point is what significant advantages does it offer over competitors, when it charges more than 50% over some of its competitors. Power? Certainly not. Torque? Certainly not. FE? Not really much again, but may be marginally. All combined together? Definitely not.