Factory video on everyone's favourite engine to hate.

[TJ Hopland]

I think there are some models that just have either a front or rear motor but all of the 'performance' models have both.   The upcoming truck and maybe some other models I think will have 3 motors but I don't remember which end had the dual.   Rivian who is supposedly going into production soon with a truck I think uses 4 motors so it can do 'tank' turns.

[Cadman-iac]

Sort of on topic what if there was a bolt in kit for the 4100 cars?

Wouldn't that just be a 3/4 horse swamp cooler motor?

As you can tell,  I'm not impressed with the 4100 at all. They would have been miles ahead to just stick a 250 Chevy inline 6 in it if the cubes were all that mattered.  And it would have been WAAAAYYY more dependable.

[Big Apple Caddy]

I think there are some models that just have either a front or rear motor but all of the 'performance' models have both.   The upcoming truck and maybe some other models I think will have 3 motors but I don't remember which end had the dual.   Rivian who is supposedly going into production soon with a truck I think uses 4 motors so it can do 'tank' turns.

Starting around 2017, dual-motor (AWD) became standard on all Model S and Model X Teslas.  The Model 3 is available single-motor (RWD) or dual-motor (AWD).  The upcoming Cybertruck is available single, dual or triple motor.

[dochawk]

Due to oil companies and vehicle manufacturers greed, it's been suppressed for years.
Just call me an old conspiracy theorist!

I've been suspicious of this particular conspiracy theory for over forty years.

The execs at GM, Ford, and Toyota would cut one another's throats for a 1mpg edge, and spend billions to get it from engineering.

Greed is enough to dismiss the notion of the auto manufacturers being in on such a conspiracy.

They also have armies of lawyers to pry the info from the oil companies . . .

As for electric conversions, while we would end up with the extra weight,, and perhaps some trunk people are leaving out ditching the weight of the large block v8, transmission, and (for some) driveshaft.

[Cadman-iac]

As I understand it,  years ago when the oil and gas industry began making gasoline,  it didn't have any additives in it to improve its qualities. And therefore if you were to leave a bottle of it sitting out in the sun, at the end of the day you would have an empty bottle with no residue in the bottom.
If you try this today, you would have a half empty bottle with a nasty gooey mess of chemicals that were intended to raise the octane, prevent evaporation, and a host of other things that we can only speculate on.
The "light ends" of the fuel are the first thing that evaporates,  and the most volatile part.
When the auto industry first began,  engines had a compression ratio of something like 4 to one, and the gas then didn't need any additives for anything. It was then that the first people started experimenting and working on a better carburetor.
I've heard tales of them getting 100 mpg out of some of them. But when compression went up, the requirements for the fuel performance did as well, and the additives were born.
Back in the late '80s me and a friend of mine had been experimenting with a fuel vapor carburetor system that we used on my truck. We were able to get it to run well at an idle,  but anything over that we would lose the draw on the vaporizer and the engine would die. There were several problems with our design of course,  but one problem we had was that the fuel wouldn't completely vaporize because of the other chemicals/additives in it. We had to install a drain in the vaporizer to let the goo out, or the whole unit would eventually fill with this stuff.
Needless to say,  we never really got past this problem and eventually gave up on it. But it was kind of exciting to be involved in it at the time.
I had modified a quadrajet for the experiment, and I had saved it after removing everything from my truck. It may still be here somewhere.
Thinking back on it, we were probably lucky we didn't blow ourselves up, but it was sure fun at the time.
Today's fuel injection systems will spray a pattern of droplets into an engine,  but they still can't actually vaporize the fuel. I think that's one reason why the mileage rates haven't changed that much even with all the advances in technology. There's more energy in a gallon of gas than we will ever be able to extract with the current methods in use today.
Rick

[35-709]

Speaking of the 100 (200) MPG carburetor, here is an interesting read ---
http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2014/12/why-100-mpg-carburetor-is-nonsense.html

Pay particular attention to the part about "the stoichiometric ratio."  I first heard the 100 MPG carburetor "wives tale" in about 1958 or so, related to me as gospel truth!  A BS story that won't die for some to this day!   

[Cadman-iac]

Yes, all very true,  but when I was young and impressionable,  I had heard of this stuff from a friend and together we tried to either prove or disprove it to ourselves. We never did get any good results for our efforts, and gave it up as a "wives tale" as you put it.
I did learn a lot about carburetors, and I know that a fuel injection system is much better than a carb from having to work on them on my own vehicles.
  I still wonder about the energy available in a gallon of gas and if the current technology can extract all of it. Is there really that much more,  or are we already to the point where we are getting as much as we can out of it without a totally new design of engine?

[dochawk]

If you try this today, you would have a half empty bottle with a nasty gooey mess of chemicals that were intended to raise the octane, prevent evaporation, and a host of other things that we can only speculate on.

injector cleaners are a biggy, without which the Northstar would be a no-go . . .

Early gasoline was a byproduct of producing petroleum, making it a cheap way to fuel a car (what else were they going to do with that junk?  at least they could get *something * for it from those lunatics with their horseless carriages . . .)

In the 30s, significant changes were made, roughly doubling the octane.

Octane is *not* a measure of energy, contrary to popular misconception.  Rather, it measures how much you can compress without detonation.

hawk

[dochawk]

  I still wonder about the energy available in a gallon of gas and if the current technology can extract all of it. Is there really that much more,  or are we already to the point where we are getting as much as we can out of it without a totally new design of engine?

Yes, you can get higher efficiency from that fuel--but it takes something *far* larger than an internal combustion engine.

hawk