Elio Motors, The Next Big Thing?!!...

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

. . . for the motorcycle class. A much easier requirement and thus, the advantage of a 3 wheel vehicle.

Definitely easier for a motorcycle, heck, if it was under 50cc there are effectively no active emissions at all.

To me they should have put in a G1 Honda Insight motor clone, 120mpg + and no worries on the emissions since motorcycles aren't even up to 2001 standards (looking at cars)
12g/mi for motorcyles 4 gr/mi for cars (and only certain ones)

Should be easier to meet indeed.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

To me they should have put in a G1 Honda Insight motor clone

Aluminum block with a magnesium oil pan?

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Xist

Aluminum block with a magnesium oil pan?

And leanburn, variable cam w/ VTEC

[Xist]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

And leanburn, variable cam w/ VTEC

That sounds like more features than the Elio will have total!

[Michael Moore]

Originally Posted by adam728

In some ways a simple 2V engine can do very well for efficiency due to swirl characteristics that can be designed in. 4V engines generally need to use more tumble, getting ports setup for swirl is hard to package, and doing different variable lift or opening just one to promote swirl ads a lot of cost and complexity.

David Vizard patented (US 2002/0185105) a "PolyQuad" 4v setup where different sized exhaust and intake valves and some shaping in the combustion chamber are used to promote swirl. He's also mentioned experiments grinding one of the pair of lobes for exhaust or intake so that duration is about 5 degrees less on one, and he saw different results depending on whether the pair of valves were opening together or closing together.

Elio's custom engine sounds like a good way to push off production whilst burning through investors money.

cheers,
Michael

[ME_Andy]

[ME_Andy]

The email says it is a "dry fit" in preparation for a dyno test soon.

[NeilBlanchard]

Looks real enough to me. Lots of collars on the exhaust manifold; for sensors. Specifically long and equal length intake runners.

I am reposting the picture to get it on this page:

[Randy]

This is an old-school motor: the big hole on the cam end must be for a distributor. It has individual bearing caps instead of a lower block and big looping welded manifolds that take up lots of space.

No variable cam timing. No direct injection. No smooth-but-cheap plastic intake manifold. No money-saving or space-saving anything. I can't see how this improves on the Metro motor. Offset bores, tweaked cams... anything?

If it's this much trouble for such an old motor, who knows how long it will take to get the rest of this car done.

[jkv357]

Originally Posted by Randy

This is an old-school motor: the big hole on the cam end must be for a distributor. It has individual bearing caps instead of a lower block and big looping welded manifolds that take up lots of space.

No variable cam timing. No direct injection. No smooth-but-cheap plastic intake manifold. No money-saving or space-saving anything. I can't see how this improves on the Metro motor. Offset bores, tweaked cams... anything?

If it's this much trouble for such an old motor, who knows how long it will take to get the rest of this car done.

I bet it's just a temporary set-up to get it on the dyno.

It seems to me that type of intake manifold would be way too costly and time-consuming (not to mention big) to duplicate for production.

I'm actually surprised they got it to that point already.