a little information on engines

[Darrin E. Ward]

Can anyone shed any light on what happend with the engine changes of Corvette's in the 70's? I mean, how did it go from the big block 454, to the L-48 and L-82?

Also, was the L-82 available in the 78 Silver Anniversary? The only engine in the cars I've found is the L-48. I would'nt mind having a Pace Car, but they seem to fetch a heftier price tag.

 

[VetteManiac]

The engines changed b/c of smog laws. The engines had to give off less smog, so that resulted in smaller engines, and lower horsepower numbers.

 

[Geof180]

i'll give it a try...

as far as i know, the L82 was available on any corvette model in 1978...

as far as the engines, are you talking about the drops in power over the years?? we can all thank the federal government for that... smog pumps, fuel economy restrictions, unleaded gas...

does this help any?? if need be, i can elaborate....

have a good afternoon...

Geof

 

[vettepilot]

Although the Feds (specifically the EPA)certainly were responsible for mandating the emissions and CAFE requirements, the automotive industry was scrambling trying to meet the emissions requirements that were being phased in. The technology just wasn't there in the 70s and early 80s. To reduce the emissions levels to the required levels the powertrain engineers reduced the cubic inches, then the compression, then the combustion temperatures, brought the cam specs down so low it almost didn't have any lobes, then also tacked on A.I.R. pumps, cats, EGR valves, and retarded timing. What did they get for their efforts, even more strict revised emissions standards, and the engines were quite enemic. Then somebody figured out how to control fuel mixtures, and ignition timing with electronic sensors that monitored the exhaust then adjusted the A/F ratio and ignition timing to make the engine efficient again, while still meeting the EPA emmisions tests. As computers evolved, so did the Engine Control Modules, today we have 405 HP LS6 engines that are getting 30 MPG on the highway and 21 around town, and they are classified as low emmisions vehicles!

It's easy to see the future of the internal combustion engine in two phases... the first being the use of greater computer control over the engine operation, most likely the evolution of computer controlled electronic valve lift and timing, along with finer control over the A/F ratio tables, and ignition, additionally we might see the entire power/drivetrain being computer controlled to be the most efficient for the road conditions, with very little actual control left for the driver. This would be the true "get in, sit down, shut up, and hang on ride.
The second phase of the internal combustion engine would be the phase out stage, we all will hate to see that day come, but unless we find a renewable fuel to power internal combustion engines, I think we will someday be riding around in those shiny silver futuristic fuel cell powered things that just hum a little louder when you push the throttle forward.
I think we enthusiasts will be very sad when that day comes, and we find ourselves in violation of federal laws, or mabe even the laws of the world court just for going out to our garage and starting up the ole Vette [that's been sitting on titanium blocks for years] just to hear a real engine again. :cry

Well, I got a bit off that subject didn't I
vettepilot

 

[Geof180]

ya know what i would like to see??

i'd like to see the camless engine and direct injection... come out on the corvette...

that way, we could do anything in the world we'd want with our cars... if you wanna meet emissions, then yeah, set it up to keep those valves closed and continue to burn the mixture over and over again - and not stop until every last bit of poison is destoyed in the combustion process...

and if you wanted crazy top end, set it up so you can get lotsa good ole valve overlap.... gonna be idiling around town?? well then, tell the computer to use a more conservative overlap configuration...

yes mr vettepilot, i can see where you are headed with what you are saying.... more and more computer control.. with what i mentioned above, computers today are very capable and could handle it no problem.....

we also need to look at the oil companies' perspective as well... let's say you and i get together and discover a new method of powering our vehicles... and this method was far more efficient and possessed more power per unit volume than traditional petroleum based products... wouldn't the oil companies step in and ensure we "kept quiet" about our new technology...so they remained in business?? with the influencethese organizations have in the world, i am not sure they will just let a new technology come about, unless they had a significant hand in its creation....

what do ya think??

Geof

Geof

 

[JohnZ]

Having spent 37 years in the OEM industry with GM and Chrysler, I've lived through the entire transition "on the inside", where all the work was done to get from carburetors and road draft tubes to today's incredibly clean-burning and efficient power-producers with computerized everything, and another new powertrain control technology being developed every month or two.

I think we'll all be taking dirt naps long before there's any significant shift from internal combustion gasoline and diesel engines to developmental technologies like hydrogen fuel cells, for several reasons:

1. The infrastructure is in place and fully-developed to get crude oil from the drilling rigs to refineries everywhere, and to get gasoline from the refineries to hundreds of thousands of gas stations everywhere; abandoning and replacing all that infrastructure would take decades, and would cost trillions of dollars.

2. A Hydrogen fuel cell technology powertrain costs about ten times what a gasoline powertrain does; the hydrogen fuel cell package to replace a $4,000 engine today costs about $40,000, just for the "engine".

3. Crude oil exists already - you just pump it out of the ground and refine it. Hydrogen doesn't exist - it has to be manufactured, and it takes far more energy to manufacture it than it can release when used as the donor element in a fuel cell.

4. You can store oil or gasoline anywhere, and carry it around in your car in a simple stamped steel tank that's as easy to make as a tin can. Hydrogen can either be stored as a liquid or as a gas; if it's liquid, it requires an insulated container that can maintain it at 250 degrees below zero. If it's in a gaseous state, the container must be able to withstand pressures of 10,000 pounds per square inch. Neither of these alternatives are very practical either for bulk storage (producing site, transport, pipeline, fueling station) or for the tank in your car.

There's no "magic bullet" - we've transformed the internal combustion engine into an incredibly fuel-efficient, clean, and inexpensive power source, and it isn't going to go away any time soon. The whiners grabbing for headlines who say hydrogen fuel cells are right around the corner haven't the faintest idea what they're talking about, and have no grasp whatsoever of reality. Even the wild-eyed weirdo California legislators haven't figured out yet that you can't write laws that defy basic physics.

 

[Paranoid]

Even the wild-eyed weirdo California legislators haven't figured out yet that you can't write laws that defy basic physics.

Yeah, but they're working on it. They have two committee's assigned to the task.:J

 

[Stallion]

Yes, there was an L82 option in the '78 S/A. Heidi had just showed me one. I just found out, though, out of the 14,000 S/As they made (they're not very rare) only 3,300 had manual trannies.

And only 6,000 Pace Cars were made in '78. That's why the price. Otherwise, they are the same under the hood. Just a different paint job and spoilers (which were an option in '79).

TR

 

[vettepilot]

JohnZ,
I agree wholeheartedly with what you said, when I spoke about the phaseout of the internal combustion engine I should have given it a better timeline... way into the future, I don't think either one of us will be around to see it. Then again, who knows, maybe 200 years from now the same old 4 cycle engine will still be going strong powering vehicles. Hopefully by then the fuel will be some form of ultra-clean burning synthetic fluid yielding a much higher BTU than does todays petroleum based fuels, thus doing away with the need for emissions controls as add-on components.
But I wonder if cars [vehicles] will still be as much fun to drive...
vettepilot

 

[JohnZ]

Yeah, but they're working on it. They have two committee's assigned to the task.:J

Yup, and the committees are probably composed entirely of pencil-necked, bearded political science professors from Berkeley, taking time out from burning American flags, who don't know a piston pin from a rolling pin; Gray Davis' finest at work