Z4M S54, the ?th most powerful PER LITRE normally aspirated road car ever made?

[MrPT]

Nice job, Jembo.

This little car had an amazing engine that should be on the list.

058C8FFA-77A1-4BDD-9008-98CA717A9D05.jpeg

Mr. PT, you are gonna have to help me here

Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale. It has a race-derived 2 litre V8 that sounds ridiculous. These days it wouldn’t stand a chance in the bhp/£ table.

Aaaanyways...

991.1 GTS 112bhp/l
918 Spyder 130bhp/l

Believe the Spyder is a Hybrid so qualifies out + have your 991.1 GTS down as 395bhp from 3.8 litres

It’s an 875bhp hybrid with a 599bhp normally aspirated 4.6L V8 but ok, fair enough.

991.1 GTS has 424bhp.

[Jembo]

Jem, I suppose you could tweak the equation with bhp per litre and secondhand prices..might take an age to work it out tho!

Bhp per kg might be more interesting

I don’t think the S54 would make the first 100, let alone the 1st 1000

[Joneeboy]

Jem, I suppose you could tweak the equation with bhp per litre and secondhand prices..might take an age to work it out tho!

Bhp per kg might be more interesting

..and then bang for buck, Guido

[Mister T]

The normal ferrari 458 is still missing from your list:

Ferrari 458 562 4,5 124,89 bhp/l

And from the 991.1 GTS there's a Rennsport Reunion Edition that has 430bhp so 113,16bhp/l (little difference)

And the mclaren F1 has a 6,1L engine so 618/6,1=101,31bhp/l

It might also be interesting to look at Radical cars.
There's an RXC (in street legal form) with a 2,7L V8 producing 430bhp (159,26bhp/l) and a 3.0 V8 producing 480bhp (160bhp/l) according to wikipedia.
They tune that engine to 550bhp@3,2L (171,88bhp/L) but I don't know if those are/ever been fitted to street legal cars (pretty sick though as that engine only weighs 88kg)

The Atom V8 had the same 500hp 3.0l V8 and is road legal

[MrPT]

Amazing how much the little Hayabusa-derived V8s (the Hartley V8 crate engine is another) evoke the old Tipo 33 / 33 Stradale engine. Proper angry noise!



Spent quite a lot of time on YouTube as a result of this thread...

[RedUn]

Amazing how much the little Hayabusa-derived V8s (the Hartley V8 crate engine is another) evoke the old Tipo 33 / 33 Stradale engine. Proper angry noise!



Spent quite a lot of time on YouTube as a result of this thread...

Have a look for the Judd E30 M3, awesome

[MrPT]

Have a look for the Judd E30 M3, awesome

It's cool but definitely a car engine! The RXC and Hartley V8s still use the heads from the Hayabusa (or very similar). I just love the whole garden shed hobbyist vibe with them.

The Judd BMWs always reminds me of Georg Plasa now. Very sad.

EDIT - RedUn, did you mean the Judd E36 hillclimber? That was the car Plasa died in. Agree it's an incredible sounding thing.

[RedUn]

Have a look for the Judd E30 M3, awesome

It's cool but definitely a car engine! The RXC and Hartley V8s still use the heads from the Hayabusa (or very similar). I just love the whole garden shed hobbyist vibe with them.

The Judd BMWs always reminds me of Georg Plasa now. Very sad.

EDIT - RedUn, did you mean the Judd E36 hillclimber? That was the car Plasa died in. Agree it's an incredible sounding thing.

Yes I've seen the E36 too, didn't realise the guy had died though

There's an E30 that's knocking about that's completely nuts, I guess it's just an E30 body though but still amazing sounding

[john-e89]

Amazing how much the little Hayabusa-derived V8s (the Hartley V8 crate engine is another) evoke the old Tipo 33 / 33 Stradale engine. Proper angry noise!



Spent quite a lot of time on YouTube as a result of this thread...

And another here, I could listen to that all day.....!!

Won’t it be fun when they ban them all for fully electric or nothing....


(Not gonna start a climate change thang here.....not the time or place.... )

[wspohn]

Nothing wrong with turbos per se.

My 2.0 (non-BMW) street car gets 188 bhp/l. To be equivalent, the new Z4M would have to put out 560 bhp. Sady, it makes do with a modest 382 bhp. They must have left a lot of potential power on the table when they decided to leave it at that. The previous generation (E89) barely matched E85 power levels using mild turbo.

I keep wondering what a current Z4 fitted with the top spec S55 engine (493 bhp) would be like. I expect that some well heeled owner will find out sooner or later, when they locate a wrecked M4 with usable engine - anyone know if it has been done yet?

[Smartbear]

Nothing wrong with turbos per se.

My 2.0 (non-BMW) street car gets 188 bhp/l. To be equivalent, the new Z4M would have to put out 560 bhp. Sady, it makes do with a modest 382 bhp. They must have left a lot of potential power on the table when they decided to leave it at that. The previous generation (E89) barely matched E85 power levels using mild turbo.

I keep wondering what a current Z4 fitted with the top spec S55 engine (493 bhp) would be like. I expect that some well heeled owner will find out sooner or later, when they locate a wrecked M4 with usable engine - anyone know if it has been done yet?

Torque is more useful on the road than bhp, bmw didn’t do a bad job with the e89 35is at 500nm as opposed to the e85 M at 355nm. Obviously larger turbos would increase the bhp output due to higher flow
Rob

[wspohn]

Torque is more useful on the road than bhp, bmw didn’t do a bad job with the e89 35is at 500nm as opposed to the e85 M at 355nm. Obviously larger turbos would increase the bhp output due to higher flow
Rob

True - and that 500 nm is just a bit less than I get from my daily driver GM 2.0 .

OTOH, the high revving Honda S2000 engines are hoot to drive, although anyone familiar with big American V8s seem unable to appreciate not having instant torque the instant the want it.

I really want to like the new BMW/Toyota but the styling of the Toyota smacks of night terrors on the part of the stylist and the BMW done on the same chassis just leaves me a bit cold - a softer car that lacks the precision of the E85/86 (but that's just based one one brief test drive).

[R60BBA]

Nothing wrong with turbos per se.

My 2.0 (non-BMW) street car gets 188 bhp/l. To be equivalent, the new Z4M would have to put out 560 bhp. Sady, it makes do with a modest 382 bhp. They must have left a lot of potential power on the table when they decided to leave it at that. The previous generation (E89) barely matched E85 power levels using mild turbo.

I keep wondering what a current Z4 fitted with the top spec S55 engine (493 bhp) would be like. I expect that some well heeled owner will find out sooner or later, when they locate a wrecked M4 with usable engine - anyone know if it has been done yet?

The Z4 M40i is faster (albeit marginally) than the detuned S55 equipped M2 Competition on the Nurburgring. Not to mention it has a ZF automatic gearbox as opposed to a DCT.

These cars aren’t always about engine performance. Sometimes less weight and better balance is the key.

[Ed Doe]

Amazing how much the little Hayabusa-derived V8s (the Hartley V8 crate engine is another) evoke the old Tipo 33 / 33 Stradale engine. Proper angry noise!



Spent quite a lot of time on YouTube as a result of this thread...

Ugh uttter pornography

[robjones888]

Still comes down to the driving experience if you ask me , noise feel communication so what if you’ve got 500bhp if there’s no soul to what your driving which is so true of many new cars I’d take the Z4m any day without too many driver assists and piped in engine sounds