[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

@ss_traveller, one has to go along with the emotional value of the 2 words you pointed out...
...one has to wonder about the engines like the Bollywood actors - is Farhan Akhtar modern or Shahrukh Khan outdated???

Excellent analogy there, thank you! Of the 3 essentials you mention - emissions, efficiency and cost - methinks the Indian car-buyer is more interested in the cost aspect, On the one hand an engine ought to be cheap to produce (translating into lower vehicle cost), and on the other it should be extremely frugal in its performance.

Question arises then: Would (any of) you consider that an engine that balances these two aspects the best would be considered a *modern* engine? To elucidate by example, is the 1.3L Multijet diesel more modern than the 1.4L T-Jet petrol? (I hope no one responds with Don't compare apples with oranges - these are both engines after all, despite burning different fuels!)

[vina]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Excellent analogy there, thank you! Of the 3 essentials you mention - emissions, efficiency and cost - methinks the Indian car-buyer is more interested in the cost aspect, On the one hand an engine ought to be cheap to produce (translating into lower vehicle cost), and on the other it should be extremely frugal in its performance.

Question arises then: Would (any of) you consider that an engine that balances these two aspects the best would be considered a *modern* engine? To elucidate by example, is the 1.3L Multijet diesel more modern than the 1.4L T-Jet petrol? (I hope no one responds with Don't compare apples with oranges - these are both engines after all, despite burning different fuels!)

Frankly, I wouldn't care which engine is more "modern" - though I'm pretty sure I'm in a real minority here.

When making a buying decision on my Figo, I read it many times that 1.3L MJD uses more modern technology than does the Figo's diesel unit - however when I starting delving into "specifically what?" all I got was that the injector units are capable of much finer control.

My logic went this way - the injectors may be capable of fine control but there are two problems:

(1) injectors don't control a damn thing by themselves, sensors, ECU etc. together do. Improving one component may not lead to much gain unless that component was the bottleneck to begin with.
(2) is the finer control required in the first place?




as @DerAlte has pointed out this is not the kind of analysis somebody would go into - for most people modern=better (and usually that is right), but that may not be so always.


For example my latest laptop has an i3 processor - definitely more modern every which way than the core-2 duo on my sister's laptop bought 8 months before this latest one. BUT my sister's laptop beats mine in performance (I kind of knew about it, but bought it because I got a discount.)

Specifically coming to engines - Aluminium has been replacing cast iron for some time. Now I don't know about the specific metallurgical implications, but from what I did learn in machine shop, cast iron is vastly superior when it comes to friction, fatigue and high temperature strength - all related to long term reliability. I just hope they are not being compromised away from the glare of enthusiasts.

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by vina

... My logic went this way - the injectors may be capable of fine control but there are two problems:

(1) injectors don't control a damn thing by themselves, sensors, ECU etc. together do. Improving one component may not lead to much gain unless that component was the bottleneck to begin with.
(2) is the finer control required in the first place? ...

@vina sir, injectors were always the bottleneck in achieving finer combustion control, which was absolutely essential for meeting the increasingly more stringent emission stipulations after mid-'90s.

If one decouples the passive components from the discussion and considers only the computing part as essential to being 'modern', that would be a big mistake in system engineering (considering the engine is a system). Most effective improvements are simple ones at component level, coupled with an intelligent way of implementing control.