Quote:
Originally posted by Icemaster
Why?
I'd really like to know why one can't make an air-cooled car that would meet todays emmissions standards.
As for too much noise, c'mon.....
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I'm sure there are a lot of technical reasons involving carefully controlling cylinder and combustion chamber temperatures, running at certain mixture levels, etc. that are incompatible with air-cooled and the very, very low emissions required today. Hopefully someone can explain the details.
But I remember reading an interview with Porsche or one of the top engineers back in the late 90s (I think it was in Panorama). As I recall he mentioned smog and noise, but also said a major reason was the need to go to 4 valve heads for power and efficiency. He said they couldn't run 4 valve aircooled heads, needed to be watercooled to work.
I think he did also mention noise. Remember, they can't make drastically different cars for all markets. Apparently there are several Euro countries that have very strict noise limits, and they expected those limits to get even stricter. Air cooled by nature is louder, with the fan noise and the lack of water jackets to insulate noise.