On or around Sat, 4 Mar 2006 09:44:46 +0000 (UTC), "Badger"
<
[email protected]> enlightened us thusly:
>
>Spot-on, that man. I agree with you wholeheartedly re. size Austin, it's all
>very well having more power-efficient modern diesels, but they come at a
>price, that of economy. It'd be better IMO to have, say, a 3-litre
>low-pressure boosted unit with better inherent torque characteristics and it
>would likely be more economical as well! My bmw 330d that I had was a
>fantastic piece of disiesel engineering, but unless you drove it really
>gently it was hard to achieve over 34mpg (ish), hardly anything to write
>home about for a disiesel engine economy figure. Best I ever saw was 44mpg,
>sitting on cruise for 150 miles at 60mph.
>
quite, not much good for a not-very-large saloon. By contrast, the 2-litre
TDi perkins in the Montego can return 50 mpg without trouble and you really
have to go for it to get it to return much less. and that'll sit at 90 on
the motorway without appearing stressed... I daresay that when driven
"keenly" it's not gonna touch the BMW for acceleration, but get the turbo on
boost and it's not exactly tardy off the mark in traffic, in the same way as
the 300 TDi disco is - my main objection to the 300 TDi disco for take-off
is that the gearing's all wrong - second is too high to take off in without
bogging the engine down again, and it can be bloody difficult to get rolling
with a heavy trailer behind on a slope in 1st. A lower 1st and 2nd would
let you pull off in 2nd (like I can in the Convoy) under normal conditions,
and have a lower 1st to pull away in difficult conditions. The high first
doesn't even make for all that good a take-off when booting it, 'cos it runs
out of revs too fast.
Granted, you can use low range. But the number of people who have the
necessary ability to pull off in low range and then change up to high on the
move once it's rolling is rather small.
[duratorq]
>Nope, as I understand it, it appears to allow the overboost whilst
>accelerating hard then trims the boost back down as your rate of
>acceleration decreases at higher rpm. Should be a simple electronic "fix"
>(tuning box or suchlike, no doubt) to make the full boost available at all
>times, but what of engine life....?
point being that if you were towing hard up Shap or something heading into a
gale, would the electronics let you have full power and torque for half an
hour? Or does it have something that says "ey up, we've been at overboost
for 5 minutes, now we have to go back to normal"
Granted it can probably be "tuned" ...
the other thing is that by having a small powerful engine it will run at
maximum output more often and for longer in a working vehicle. something
around 3.5 or 4 litres will be more relaxed for much of the time and will
last a lot longer, in principle.
>
>FFS Ford, fit a decent bloody sized engine in the first place and be done
>with it!
>
>Badger.
>
--
Austin Shackles.
www.ddol-las.net my opinions are just that
"Nessun maggior dolore che ricordarsi del tempo felice nella miseria"
- Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321) from Divina Commedia 'Inferno'
