Quote:
Originally Posted by PAUL K
Haven't you ever seen an Internet thread road map... It zig zags all over the place. Kinda like one of those spaghetti maps that predict the path of a hurricane 
I thought they added stroke to make up for the loss of compression. I also think they did a lot of bad guessing when diving into the emissions part. |
Precisely, Paul. The Big Three were already aware that unleaded fuels were coming. The extra displacement was to compensate for the drop in compression ratios that had already been mandated for 1971. Yes, the bureaucrats at EPA really should have left the engineering to the engineers. It's odd: we are coming full circle. In order to conform with more stringent environmental and fuel economy standards we are returning to high compression engines. I read an article a few weeks back that stated that 87 octane unleaded regular will soon disappear because many of the engines powering hybrid vehicles utilize engines with 10:1 or higher compression ratios. The new grades will be 89 octane unleaded regular, 93 octane mid grade and 100 octane premium.