Engineering Magazines

And the US automotive industry is in dire straits. It did not learn from the 1973 energy crisis. It did not learn from the Chrysler experience. It did not learn from Toyota. It continued to depend on old, worn out concepts and on CEO’s that are kept in their positions by nepotism and by boards that do not understand the automotive business.

In a joint effort the Big Three are asking the US government for a $25 billion loan. They argue that government demands for increased fuel efficiency are too expensive to implement and require huge amounts of capital for retooling.

Let’s assume for the moment that the argument has some merit. But how can companies with worldwide manufacturing facilities fail to notice the steady increase in fuel prices and not see the warning signs hoisted by governments across the world that want to limit greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption. This neglect is inexcusable. Efforts of US and European governments to limit fuel consumption are misdirected, counterproductive, and coercive. A comprehensive analysis quickly reveals that we must indeed limit and eventually halt greenhouse gas emissions.

OPEC countries will continue their unstoppable increases of petroleum prices. Electric cars, CNG powered cars, and hydrogen powered cars cannot stop carbon dioxide emissions perceptibly and will not make our country independent of OPEC imports. Automotive companies are critically dependent on the fickle and changing preferences of national and international markets.

Industrial companies that follow political hype will be punished sooner or later. Governments are incapable of designing automobiles for the market place. The world is relegated to using automobiles, trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes for the next century and will have to power most of them with liquid transportation fuels. We may be able to use less of them, we will be able to reduce energy consumption, we can use other forms of energy for some transportation, and we can produce petroleum substitutes from biomass. We can even produce biomass without competing with critically important food crops.

In order to minimize fuel consumption quickly, the auto industry is forced to deal with performance features. American drivers cannot avoid covering much longer distances than European or Japanese drivers. American drivers have less access to public transportation, have larger families, and drive on different types of roads. Automotive companies must listen to their customers.

Toyota and Honda have been listening most successfully. American and foreign car companies have developed a wide range of comfortable cars with a wide variety of utilitarian and luxury features. Sportive cars and SUV’s are attracting large numbers of buyers. All cars offer a wide selection of comfort and entertainment features. One major car component has received only peripheral attention; it is the much maligned internal combustion engine.

Many modern internal combustion engines are marvels of engineering. Materials, manufacturing processes, and especially peripheral components have progressed to unprecedented levels of performance and longevity. There is a last frontier that has escaped deserved attention. This is the highly energy efficient combustion engine. This is the type of engine that the automotive engine needs to develop, this is the engine that legislators should make mandatory.

This is the engine that we need to use for at least one more century. Long term the automotive industry has to develop an entirely new, advanced, internal combustion engine! Average energy efficiency of the worlds inventory of combustion engines is somewhere in the lower mid-twenties. Energy efficiency cannot grow indefinitely. When approaching the 50% efficiency mark, it will be difficult and very expensive to increase efficiency by a single percent. Advanced automotive engines are operating in the mid-thirties.

Large stationary engines are breaking the 45% mark. Large engines on trains and ships are getting above 40%. Looking at the total world inventory, we may still have a chance to nearly double energy efficiency and to cut energy consumption of present inventory in half. We cannot reach this goal by legislating fuel consumption of cars only. We can achieve optimum energy efficiency only by reengineering the processes taking place within and around the internal combustion space.

We know that higher compression ratios will increase energy efficiency, we know how to produce high octane fuel, we know why Diesel engines are more efficient, we know how to minimize formation of pollutants. The automotive industry has developed a huge selection of sophisticated electronic components for single cylinder fuel injection, for precise controls of valve motion and ignition timing, and for reclaiming waste energy at the exhaust.

No company seems to have found the nerve to get a jump on the competition and develop the successor to the two more than century old engine concepts; the Otto and the Diesel engines. If the US government decides to extend a $25 billion loan to the automotive industry, it should attach a few conditions. The loan needs to be secured and must take precedent over shareholder equity. The loan should stipulate that the salaries of top management are tethered to salaries of other top CEO’s like that of the US President.

The obscene bonuses of yesterday should be paid only after a waiting period of at least five years; in which previously agreed upon management objectives must have been met or exceeded. We must stop the prevalent looting of cash from US manufacturing companies by unscrupulous investors. These investors do not contribute anything of lasting value. They are excessively rewarded for ruining once healthy companies. We cannot continue to let a selected few impoverish the many and ruin our country irreparably.

In the United States auto market, the highest selling luxury brand is the Lexus. The brand is a division of the Japanese car company Toyota Motor Corporation. Its popularity among luxury car buyer is evident on the increasing acceptance of the Japanese brand in the United States auto scene.

One of the most notable models from the brand is the LS 460. The model is the ultra-luxury model of the brand. It made its debut at the 2006 New York International Auto Show (NYIAS) and since then has received positive reviews and feedbacks from consumers. Recently, the vehicle is named as the 2007 Best Engineered Vehicle by the Automotive Engineering International Magazine.

The Lexus LS 460 received the distinction after it received the most votes from AEI’s subscribers. Kevin Jost, the Editor-In-Chief of the magazine, has this to say about the award: “The voters had good reason for choosing the Lexus LS 460. ‘The LS 460 brings consumers at least nine world-firsts, including safety breakthroughs such as an advanced obstacle-detection system, emergency-steering assist and rear pre-crash systems. For driving pleasure, there’s also an eight-speed automatic transmission.” Indeed, the LS 460 is packed with a variety of features never before seen in a luxury vehicle.

One of the cutting edge features employed by the Lexus LS 460, as stated by Jost, is the eight-speed automatic transmission. This technology allows the vehicle to accelerate quickly since it provides smooth gear changes in with a wide variety of gear ratios. The smooth transmission also reduces the amount of power wasted thus increasing fuel efficiency.

The pre-crash safety systems are also a first for an automobile and the LS 460 provides such. This means that the vehicle not only provides a good performance but also protects its occupants. The obstacle-detection system provides drivers with sufficient warning to avoid possible accidents. The driver-monitoring system is also a feature of the Lexus LS 460. With this technology, safety can be checked basing on the driver’s capacity to properly drive the vehicle.

Safety features also include the emergency-steering assist which checks oversteer and understeer. With the use of sensors and advanced electronic programs, this vehicle can provide valuable steering assistance to avoid or minimize the risk of accidents.

Aside from the said features, the Lexus LS 460 also employs an intelligent powertrain control system. This system adapts to the engine’s need for power and other variables to provide good performance and respectable fuel efficiency. Rear collisions are also one of the most dangerous accidents a motorist can encounter.

To reduce the risk of severe injury caused by rear end collisions, the Lexus LS 460 features a rear pre-crash safety system. Its roof climate diffusers are also one of the advanced features that the LS 460 boasts of. Another advanced feature that made the LS 460 the top choice for most luxury car owners is the VVT-IE electrically actuated camshaft phasers. These features fused with Lexus performance parts truly make this one of the most advanced cars in the world today.

Winning the coveted title is made even sweeter by the fact that it outclassed some of the most famous vehicles. The Lexus LS 460 took the first spot with the Chevy Silverado/GMC Sierra taking the second spot. The Silverado and the Sierra are acknowledged for their remarkable fuel efficiency.

These General Motors vehicles are known to squeeze 20 miles for every gallon. This is despite the fact that the Sierra and the Silverado are both full-size pickup trucks equipped with humongous V8 engines. Taking the third spot is the sports car from German car manufacturer Porsche, the Porsche 911 Turbo. The sports car made is acknowledged as one of the best engineered vehicles due to its advanced materials and aerodynamic engineering.

Diversity gives strength, and that’s the principle behind crate engines as a variety of automotive engines. Auto Parts Fair can help customers find crate engines at reasonable prices.

Gear heads know that crate engines are constructed by a company or performance shop using mixed and matched parts, tooled to a vehicle’s original manufacturer tolerances (and sometimes better, in the case of muscle cars). This may sound like a puzzling way to put together automotive engines, but there’s a mission to this so-called madness, and that’s performance. Crate engines are crafted with extreme attention to detail. Companies and even mechanics that assemble crate engines choose their parts usually with one intention – to maximize the performance of automotive engines.

Auto Parts Fair understands that a customer seeking a crate engine is a deep-down automobile aficionado, someone who has motors thrumming in his or her blood (yes, chicks can be gear heads, too). This kind of customer knows that in crate engines, experts put together all the best parts, so that the engine arrives either assembled or ready to assemble and install. All the components are brand new, which means it won’t be cheap as automotive engines go, but it won’t be as expensive as a new motor direct from the automobile maker.

Customers often find it tough to locate exactly the kind of crate engines they want, which is where Auto Parts Fair steps into the picture.

Whether it’s a Ford Mustang or a Chevy Camaro or a BMW, Auto Parts Fair can search for the right automotive engine from among its huge inventory of 4 million auto parts. That’s right; Auto Parts Fair has access to 4 million auto parts through its nationwide network of auto parts suppliers. Even a store that tries to keep up with most models, it can be hard to find automotive engines for every Saab and Subaru.

Auto Parts Fair takes the hassle out of finding automotive engines for Honda or Hyundai through its comprehensive online catalogs. The company understands that customers want to save both time and money when they’re looking for good automotive engines or crate engines, so the online store is built with these priorities in mind.

A step-by-step process takes buyers quickly through a search for the right parts, whether it’s Corvette crate engines or Audi automotive engines. Auto Parts Fair’s home page features a picture directory some of the recent most popular purchases for a car, truck, van or SUV, so it can be as easy as “point and click” if the right automotive engine shows up in the picture guide.

What if the crate engine that revs up a customer’s motor doesn’t show up in the pictures? No problem. Thanks to the exceptional organization of Auto Parts Fair’s online store, customers can locate the exact part they need with just a little effort. With a few clicks through the online store’s drop-down menus, customers find what they’re locating for practically in seconds. Plus, if an exact match doesn’t show up, Auto Parts Fair’s online store has an entire section devoted to quality used auto parts, including automotive engines.

With its nationwide network inventory of 4 million auto parts, Auto Parts Fair can offer warehouse pricing on automotive engines and crate engines that’s as much as 70 percent off recommended list prices. Furthermore Auto Parts Fairs backs every part it sells with a 100 percent customer satisfaction warranty, ranging from 12 months to a lifetime depending on the part. There’s no need to worry about losing money on a part that doesn’t perform with a warranty like this.

These advantages make it easy to see why so many customers are turning to Auto Parts Fair for automotive engines and crate engines.

Automotive engine problems cannot be ignored. Don’t just give up on your vehicle, though. Find a reliable mechanic in Tampa and ask for a consultation. A truly professional mechanic will not lead you astray. He should do a thorough auto inspection of all vehicle components, including your car transmission system, and give you a full and honest report on whether you can still profit from auto repair – or truck repair, as the case may be – or if you need replacements for major car parts, even to the extent of engine replacement. To decide between automotive engine repair or replacement, you need to know about the pros and cons of your options.Would it be more cost effective to repair your engine, to replace it, or to buy a new vehicle altogether? Is your vehicle’s engine still repairable? If you decide to replace it, should you get a new engine, a used engine or a remanufactured engine?

According to our mechanic from Tampa, if the vehicle has already depreciated to the point of having a book value that is less than $2,000.00, or if it is more than ten years old, you should not invest more money in it – whether for engine repair or replacement. That would not raise the vehicle’s resale value commensurate to your expense. It would then make better financial sense to buy a new vehicle instead. Perhaps you can still sell the old vehicle for some petty cash.