Update and Engine Choice…

Hi everyone…

I have been knee-deep in research, shop setup, and other miscellaneous issues in the past month. Primarily, trying to decide on what kind of car to start on.

I decided to focus on an engine first, then find the car I want. Though, I kind of have an idea what car I want to use. The engine: Toyota 4AGE.

Here’s the thing… these engines are both over- and under-rated. It’s overrated because of the 80’s lure from a certain Japanese racecar driver rise to fame in an AE86 Corolla and anime series of a teenager touge or tōge street racer. It’s underrated due to its aftermarket support and with a little bit of knowledge, it can make some pretty decent power.

This is where my researching has been at the moment and I got this number in my head: 7 to 1. I want to build a vehicle with a weight to power ratio of roughly 7 lbs for every hp produced. According to Wikipedia… vehicles within that ratio are Nissan GT-R R35, Tesla Model S AWD, and Dodge Charger Hellcat, but it’s Wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt. In order for this engine to reliably reach numbers to that power ratio, forced induction is a necessity as well as a larger displacement. Another thing to think about is proper EFI and possibly flex fueling.

Speaking of forced induction, one variation of the 4A series, the 4AGZE produced ‘meh’ power. One of the limiting factors is the air intercooler and, in particular, its location on the MR2. What some individuals have done would be to replace the stock air intercooler with an aftermarket water-to-air intercooler. As with some if not most, aftermarket kits sometimes lack numbers to verify if it fits the particular requirements. For instance, how much water do you actually need in the system? What about reservoir sizing? What is the actual effectiveness of the radiator/heat exchanger? What about operating temps? One-size-does-not-fit-all and research…

In the images above are OEM for Ford, Mercedes, and BMW water-to-air intercoolers integrated into the intake manifold (the first two actually). This would be an interesting component to develop and using these as a starting point for the engine build ‘could’ make reaching the performance goals easier.

Another item for R&D purposes is Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). I’m an open-source/Linux kind of guy, so I’ve been reading up on OpenFOAM and Paraview for data modeling. Hopefully, I can soon answer some of my many questions.

Research…