Posted by MarkB_MI on January 06, 2014 at 17:42:24 from (75.219.126.223):
In Reply to: HP vs Cu. In. posted by Texasmark1 on January 06, 2014 at 14:04:46:
In short, there wasn't a demand for high horsepower per displacement, for a number of reasons:
Low octane fuels (really fuels of unpredictable octane) made high compression ratios impractical. What was the compression ratio of that tractor? Probably 7 or 8 to 1. Both horsepower and efficiency are directly related to compression ratio; without high-octane fuel you simply can't have either one.
It was simpler to engineer a heavy, slow-turning engine than a lightweight high-speed engine. There was no real premium on horsepower-to-weight, so make it heavy. The budget to create a new engine today is astronomical. Millions of dollars are spent on engineering before the first block is cast. Then millions more are spent on prototypes; thousands of hours are accumulated in test cells. This kind of effort is necessary if you want a high-horsepower engine that will last. Back then, everything was overbuilt, with the assumption being it wouldn't break if you built it heavy enough.
In some cases, the technology just didn't exist. Variable valve timing, electronic ignition, CNC machining, and closed-loop engine management systems are just a few examples of technology used today to improve efficiency and/or performance.
One thing we should not think is that engineers of the forties and fifties didn't know how to get a lot of horsepower out of an engine. Any engineering solution is a compromise between conflicting requirements: cost, reliability and weight, for example. Those engines made perfect sense at the time, and their longevity is a testament to their durability and utility.
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