Nissan Unveils 88 Pound 400-HP Race Car Engine 239
cartechboy writes "Motorsports used to be about lots of horsepower, torque, and big engines. In recent years there's been a shift to downsizing engines, using less fuel, and even using alternative energy such as clean diesel and hybrid powertrains. Today Nissan unveiled a 400-horsepower 1.5-liter three-cylinder turbocharged engine that weighs only 88 pounds. This engine will be part of the advanced plug-in hybrid drivetrain that will power the ZEOD RC electrified race car that will run in the 2015 LMP1 class during the race season. Nissan says the driver of the ZEOD RC will be able to switch between electric power and gasoline power with the batteries being recharged via regenerative braking. Even more impressive, according to Nissan, for every hour the ZEOD RC races, the car will be able to run one lap of the Le Mans' 8.5-mile Circuit de la Sarthe on electric power alone. If true, that will make it the first race car in history to complete a lap during a formal race with absolutely zero emissions. If this all works, we could be witnessing the future of motorsports unfold before our eyes later this year when the ZEOD RC (video) makes its race debut at this year's Le Mans 24 Hours in June."
Re:This engine will make my cock 6 times larger. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah... except... over the last few decades, technology advances like this at the cutting edge of racing technology have translated within a few years to increased fuel efficiency and so on in production cars.
Vehicle technology gets driven forward by the people who sink lots of money into vanity projects like this. We all end up benefiting from it.
Re:For the non USA people (Score:5, Insightful)
It's probably 402hp, since Nissan are Japanese and probably told the US press it was 40kg and 300kW.
Thought Experiment (Score:4, Insightful)
You attach a compressor to the exhaust pipe on a normal car. The exhaust is compressed and stored in a tank. The tank can hold the exhaust from one lap of a race. During a lap, no emissions are released. Would you have a "first race car in history to complete a lap during a formal race with absolutely zero emissions". No. You wouldn't. Whoever is claiming "zero emissions" is a fool. Altering the time or location when emissions are released does not make something zero emissions. How much nasty bunker oil was used to ship all the parts around the globe to make the damn thing? How many children in China will get cancer because they live next to the mine that produced all the rare earths that went into the magnets and electronics?
Minimizing pollution is a noble goal. Making blatantly false and misleading statements to support your world view, biases or support your agenda is wrong on many levels.
Re:Samzenpus headline (Score:5, Insightful)
You can get insane power out of any engine, but you use up the engine quite fast. A topfuel engine (~8L) can have 1k HP just of parasitic loss to the supercharger, but still make 8-10,000 HP. Getting 1000-1250 HP/l happens everywhere topfuel is run, but there's a significant risk the engine won't even last 1/4 mile! (Or however long topfuel runs these days - they shortened the race as the cars had become overly dangerous.)
What impressive about this car is it's built for an endurance race: LeMans and a few others leading up to it. Anyone skilled can turn the turbo pressure up on an EVO engine, but getting it to run at power for 24 hours that way is something far more impressive.
Re:Race car (Score:4, Insightful)
What sort of car racing is this for? Is there a motor race for hybrids?
LeMans is an endurance race, making it to the end is a lot more important than going fast and in a race like LeMan's going fast is achieved by light weight rather than big engines.
Endurance races are about managing resources, fuel and brake usage, managing the driver (ensuring they are fed and watered) and so forth.
For those of us who don't have billions of dollars, check out the 24 hours of LeMons, an endurance race for cars under $500.