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What goes into making an efficient engine?
Earlier I was pondering on why the new 5.0L Mustang gets equivalent gas mileage to a Honda S2000, while having a better power to weight ratio. This is a pretty extreme example, but why does the 5L 400hp Ford have similar FE to the 2L Honda?
I imagine Honda gave their F20C/F22C engines a very short stroke (robbing them of efficiency) to allow them to rev high and produce such impressive power figures in a relatively light package, but I'd have thought the bigger Ford engine would have significantly more pumping losses due to the large displacement, plus the Honda engine has a higher compression ratio.
What other design sacrifices did Honda have to make? What goes into making one engine more efficient than another, aside from stroke, compression, and displacement? What kind of magic did Ford work?
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