Swift 100R is now ASTM

[N201MKTurbo]

1 minute ago, Shadrach said:

I’ve spent a fair amount of time driving on highways that either have no speed limit or speed limits that were not enforced (Italy before speed cameras). I don’t think most modern cars would overheat at 60% power.  Back in the 90s I drove my 15 year-old Mercedes 190E 2.3 from the West Coast to the East Coast. I was young and stupid and elected to set the cruise control at 117mph on highway 90 as I passed through through Montana. I did have to slow down occasionally, but the car would run flat out for extended periods without protest. That s about as was fast as it would go on 130hp. The needle on the coolant temp stayed right at 85C where it always did.  Driving that fast for that long gave me a pretty severe case of velocitation.  This resulted in a painfully expensive interaction with the Highway Patrol shortly after entering Wyoming

Even the vintage Jags that I have flogged have had far more trouble keeping cool in traffic than at high speed.

 

I used to have a 500SL. It was a German grey market car. The operators manual said to limit speeds over 140 MPH to 15 minutes.

So, what % power was your Benz using to go 117 MPH? You were at fairly high elevation. Even at 117 the power was probably well below 50% on the flats. 

[Fly Boomer]

9 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

Driving that fast for that long gave me a pretty severe case of velocitation.  This resulted in a painfully expensive interaction with the Highway Patrol shortly after entering Wyoming

Oh yeah. 

[McMooney]

i remember there being a whole room of engines tested at full throttle till they exploded or didn't, was really impressive.

look at the blurb below about  tbo setting for an aircraft engine

 to be clear not sure if it's true but was interesting

Edited Wednesday at 04:17 PM by McMooney

[1980Mooney]

On 9/22/2025 at 11:36 PM, toto said:

There’s a nice series of articles in Air Facts Journal about a Chevy V-8 installed in a Skyhawk. I think this has been referenced on MS before … well worth an entertaining read. 

https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/11/the-20-an-hour-cessna-172-experiment/

 

On 9/23/2025 at 9:10 AM, Andy95W said:

Interesting article, but if this were truly viable there are a few glaring issues.

That article was from 5 years ago and had numerous claims but no facts showing any of it was actually accomplished.

 

14 hours ago, toto said:

That was the first of the three articles.

https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/11/the-20-an-hour-cessna-172-experiment/

https://airfactsjournal.com/2022/10/the-20-hour-cessna-172-experiment-update/

https://airfactsjournal.com/2024/11/the-corsair-c172-v8-experiment-update-3-readers-suggestions/

Agree with @Andy95W there are almost no facts about the installation.  The AOPA article provides a few tidbits but nothing comprehensive.  Since it is 378 cu inch then it is a LS2 and marine application (per the author).  Weight for the engine is over 400 lbs.  Add gear reduction drive, radiator, coolant, a beefed up engine mount, prop and I bet it is near or over 500 lbs on the nose of a Skyhawk.  I assume he added weight to the tail.  Reliability aside, this is likely a big issue.

[McMooney]

i used to run essentially a ford escort(ish) on the autobahn wot all the time,   can't remember the name of the car but it was def a 2.3 cylinder 4 banger,  did like 130 mph flat out.  it was german so they build them a bit different for that market

[hazek]

I don't understand why people are speaking theoretically about car engines and what is and isn't possible when we have this:

[Pinecone]

7 hours ago, McMooney said:

io-360-a1a  -- 5l engine -- RATED at 200hp@2700rpm and most likely limited by prop i believe the helicopte version is rated higher

dogford -- 4.8l engine -- RATED at 400+hp@5000rpm  --  i don't know what rpm just an example

the rating is a point on set by the manufacturer which is different between the applications.

 

The helicopter engines have higher compression and different cams.  The experimental crowd uses those parts in serious aerobatic machines.  And run them at up to 3400 RPM.

The HP is rated at max HP.  Which is seldom max RPM.  As the engine RPM increases you reach the point where the torque goes down faster than the RPM goes up, so the HP goes down.

[Pinecone]

6 hours ago, EricJ said:

There are lots of counter examples, like Indy, or the Silver State Classic, where they're pretty much WOT all the time.   Penske's famous "beast" Indy motor was optimized for a very narrow range of rpm where it made power, because they knew that's where it'd be nearly all the time.   There are a fair number of oval tracks, both paved and dirt, where you spend most of the time at WOT.   Consumer-based cars gets raced on those all the time, too, for all kinds of crazy classes from skid plates to derbies.

As long as there is sufficient cooling most stock street car engines have no trouble running WOT for very long, even indefinite, periods.    They start to get fragile, or at least more fragile, when they're tuned/modified past stock and start increasing the stress on components and reducing or eliminating design margin.

Normally aspirated cars are seldom a problem racing stock motors.   Turbocharged cars seem to have a lot less design margin, especially in cooling capacity.

And how long do they last?

Tens of hours, maybe 50.

[EricJ]

9 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

And how long do they last?

Tens of hours, maybe 50.

You can keep moving the goalpost, but there are still many counter examples.    

[MikeOH]

4 hours ago, hazek said:

I don't understand why people are speaking theoretically about car engines and what is and isn't possible when we have this:

Hmm, company founded in South Africa in 2003, first engine in 2010, got some funding in 2013-2014...so, if this is the cat's pajamas in 'new tech' why hasn't the GA world adeptly adopted Adept??  Maybe if they included a family size bottle of Snake Oil? to keep that gearbox happy.

[Shadrach]

7 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I used to have a 500SL. It was a German grey market car. The operators manual said to limit speeds over 140 MPH to 15 minutes.

So, what % power was your Benz using to go 117 MPH? You were at fairly high elevation. Even at 117 the power was probably well below 50% on the flats. 

I currently have a 1988 560 SL. I’ll check the owners manual to see if it has a similar limitation.

top speed on that 190 E at sea level is between 120 and 125 mph depending on which source you believe. I’m quite certain it was making 70% power or more, flat out at 4000ish feet.

[Shadrach]

8 hours ago, Fly Boomer said:

Oh yeah. 

Oh yeah…cited for 106mph. I don’t remember what the actual legal limit was.

He gave me two choices:

1) Pay the ticket in full on the spot - $525 (IIRC).

2) Follow him 80 miles in the opposite direction, spend Sunday night in jail and go before the JP Monday morning.

Needless to say, I took option 1, which left me about $30. He gave me a receipt. I was actually hoping that he was corrupt, and had just taken the money, but I got a summons about three weeks after I arrived back east. Cost me another $500 to have a lawyer appear on my behalf. Big money for an early 20 something in the 1990s.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

35 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

Oh yeah…cited for 106mph. I don’t remember what the actual legal limit was.

He gave me two choices:

1) Pay the ticket in full on the spot - $525 (IIRC).

2) Follow him 80 miles in the opposite direction, spend Sunday night in jail and go before the JP Monday morning.

Needless to say, I took option 1, which left me about $30. He gave me a receipt. I was actually hoping that he was corrupt, and had just taken the money, but I got a summons about three weeks after I arrived back east. Cost me another $500 to have a lawyer appear on my behalf. Big money for an early 20 something in the 1990s.

 

I had better luck with my super fast speeding ticket. I was out in the desert on a Suzuki GT750. I was driving pretty sane but decided to make a high speed run. I had it up about 145 for about 10 miles when I saw some cop lights way behind me. I was pulling away from them. I decided to keep going for a while until I couldn’t see them any more. Then I slowed to the speed limit. It was a couple of minutes before he caught up to me. He pulled me over and asked how fast I was going. I said I wasn’t really looking at the speedometer, it’s kind of dangerous taking your eyes off the road when you are going that fast. He said “how about 85?”. I said “Thank you sir. That’s wonderful” 86 would have put me in the really bad ticket.

[Igor_U]

21 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Most auto engines would overheat in short order if they were making 60% power for any length of time.

 

I seriously doubt that. Google the Saab Long run. In mid 80-s they run a number of Saabs 9000 (2l turbo) for 100,000 km at full speed on Talladega oval targeting 220 kph.  It took them 20 days all cars survived with no issues and engines later showed almost no wear after inspection. The PR generated lead them to came up with  Saab 9000 Talladega edition, which I find ironic. 

I believe the test in early 90-s with 900 as well... 

I used to have 9-3 Viggen that I drove for 250k miles but not at full speed.

 

 

[N201MKTurbo]

1 minute ago, Igor_U said:

I seriously doubt that. Google the Saab Long run. In mid 80-s they run a number of Saabs 9000 (2l turbo) for 100,000 km at full speed on Talladega oval targeting 220 kph.  It took them 20 days all cars survived with no issues and engines later showed almost no wear after inspection. The PR generated lead them to came up with  Saab 9000 Talladega edition, which I find ironic. 

I believe the test in early 90-s with 900 as well... 

I used to have 9-3 Viggen that I drove for 250k miles but not at full speed.

 

 

Sure, some are designed right. I used to have a Suburban that couldn’t pull a light trailer up a hill with the AC on. 

[McMooney]

are you guys really gonna let me get away with calling that Ford a dog, omg, what has the world come to.

 

had a thought, don't fault me8) what if i used fuel as a coolant in an aircraft engine?  just thinking, running out is kinda the last thing you want to do anyway.   just thinking no extra fluids to carry, no fuel freezing and possible deicing depending on how you rout the lines.

 

 

[Igor_U]

6 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Sure, some are designed right. I used to have a Suburban that couldn’t pull a light trailer up a hill with the AC on. 

Reminds me of rented Fiat Pallio (sp?) in Brazil 20+ years ago... Engine would noticeably slow when A/C was on but no cold air at all!  

[N201MKTurbo]

1 hour ago, McMooney said:

are you guys really gonna let me get away with calling that Ford a dog, omg, what has the world come to.

 

had a thought, don't fault me8) what if i used fuel as a coolant in an aircraft engine?  just thinking, running out is kinda the last thing you want to do anyway.   just thinking no extra fluids to carry, no fuel freezing and possible deicing depending on how you rout the lines.

 

 

Come’on, we are airplane people, what do we care about cars?