My letter to SCC...

[garland]

Hi. I have another hair-brained car buildup idea (as per the subject of this email). First the obligitory info about me:

A) I'm a 3 car owner. I own a nissan se-r spec v, a saturn ion redline, and a 95 saturn single cam (don't ask).

B) I've subscribed to your magazine for several years. Like, at least 3 but I've forgotten how long exactly.

C) I used to own a motorsports company. www.midpennmotorsports.com

Anyways. I know you guys hate saturns (Hey, who in print media doesn't?), and I'm sure the ion redline is like your least likely choice for a buildup. However, with the cobalt SS garnering some attention, maybe you'd cast your focus on that. Anyways, I have a few ideas I would love to see done and if you'd consider them I'd appreciate it.

First, take a redline or cobalt ss supercharged and tear the crank out of it. The steel crank is nice and all, but for the purposes of this, it simply isn't suitable. Next, either offset grind said crank to add stroke, or take the 2.4 liter crank out of the vvl Ion engine and drop it in there. Of course the rods will need changed out too.

This provides the basis of it. The addition stroke will offset that problematic early fuel cut imposed by the ecu for reasons you're already aware.

Then, you can put on the standard bolt ons (duh), lower boost pulley, and do whatever (twincharge, bigger s/c, nitrous, etc) to make it really rip.

Next, have a showdown vs a stage 3 neon srt-4. Figure the increased displacement of the 2.4 liter crank (98mm) + the stock 86mm bore gives us 2.3 liters (I don't know the sleeve thickness of the different sleeves in the lsj motor so I won't suggest changing bore, plus response would suffer mildly).

So you get a torquey, boosted, strong engine (unless of course the 2.4 crank is weak) with excellent response, good cooling for track runs. I think that would fair pretty well against a stage 3 srt, assuming you built up the suspension to a comparable level on the redline/ss.

It'd be a battle of the domestic bad-asses. Or something like that.

Just a thought.
Thanks for your time,
Michael Messina, soon to be former owner of Mid-Penn Motorsports, LLC

[garland]

whaddya think?

[AJSINAZ]

Do you think they'll do it? If they do that'd be cool.

[garland]

Originally Posted by AJSINAZ

Do you think they'll do it? If they do that'd be cool.

Heh, probably not. It's a saturn/chevy, after all.

[Sp00ner]

I'm confused on the stroking of the engine... the rest sounds good to me. Like you said though, they're a bunch of haters...

[garland]

Comon. You guys haven't thought about this already?

Take the 2.4 liter ecotec crank (same block, different head, bigger pistons, bigger stroke on the crank) and drop it into our motor. Gives us a 98mm stroke, which with 86mm pistons provides about a 139 cid motor, or 2.3 liters/2217 cc. This gives us alot more torque, while the stock ecu redline at 6450 makes more sense given the piston speed (4147.6 fpm). This makes BETTER use of the available engine by providing more torque via more stroke, more displacement, and no need to have to reprogram the ECU!

So you end up with a saturn ion redline with 2.3 liter displacement, more torque, better response (the engine would put you back in the seat almost instantly), more horsepower, and the list goes on. Plus, it'd put you .1 liter away from the srt-4's monstrous 2.4 liter turbo engine. So it's alot closer if you were to compare than say 2.0 liter supercharged vs 2.4 liter turbo.

And the best part is it could probably be done with only minor fabrication/changes to stock components! This means budget tuner territory.

The *ONLY* concern I have is that the stock 2.4 liter ecotec crank may be cast instead of forged steel like the 2.0 liter crank is. This in turn would of course reduce horsepower potential considering it would probably shatter at like 300 hp.

But if it's forged or built worth a damn, which it might considering it's the base solstice/sky motor, it might hold up to like 450 hp, which is MORE than enough for a challenge against a stage 3 srt4.

[pclear9061]

soooooo with all this thinking that your doing you also gotta give us some ~ i mean ~ estimate of how far this would put me ...... i mean us back? thousand, thousands, hunderds???? where about on the money tree?

[Sp00ner]

Right, I understand your what you're after, but the engine was destroked to 2.0 for a reason. Not saying you can't get more power out of larger displacement, but the shorter stroke makes for easier high revving. There must be some reason the altered the whole engine like that, instead of just using a built bottom end in the already existing motor.

I do know that the stock crank you're talking about is not as strong as ours, but SMS sells one that is.

Your idea interests the hell outta me though, I'm a fan of displacement. I used to roll big blocks a few years ago. So you're gonna need a new forged crank though, and rods... I think you can also need the pistons too? Also, the bore is the same in the two engines, just the stroke is different, or am I talking about the wrong engine?

[sidejam]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone tried to calculate the compression ratio if the 2.4L crank was swapped in?
How much higher would the compression ratio be?

[pclear9061]

Originally Posted by Sp00ner

Right, I understand your what you're after, but the engine was destroked to 2.0 for a reason. Not saying you can't get more power out of larger displacement, but the shorter stroke makes for easier high revving. There must be some reason the altered the whole engine like that, instead of just using a built bottom end in the already existing motor.

I do know that the stock crank you're talking about is not as strong as ours, but SMS sells one that is.

Your idea interests the hell outta me though, I'm a fan of displacement. I used to roll big blocks a few years ago. So you're gonna need a new forged crank though, and rods... I think you can also need the pistons too? Also, the bore is the same in the two engines, just the stroke is different, or am I talking about the wrong engine?

http://www.saturnmotorsports.com/sto...or=&PT_ID=Next