scott wrote:
>> Erm... 1.6L means that the engine block has a displacement of 1.6L, 
>> while 2.3L means that the displacement is 2.3L - i.e., the cylinders 
>> are physically bigger.
> 
> It used to be like that, if you bought a "one point six" it meant the 
> engine displacement was roughly 1600 cc, but nowadays car makers like to 
> keep the "one point six" naming convention but actually have a standard 
> engine displacement across all models.  A bit like how AMD called their 
> processor an XP2400, but it wasn't 2400 MHz.  If I'd bought the "1.6" 
> version of my car it would have exactly the same engine as the "2.0" 
> version, displacement 1998cc.

Sure, but AMD don't actually call it the XP 2.4GHz. That would be false 
advertising - as would claiming that an engine has a displacement of X 
when it's actually Y.

>> The Real WTF of course is that displacement is not directly related to 
>> power output in the first place...
> 
> There are a vast number of things that significantly affect power output 
> apart from displacement.  A useful quantity is "horsepower per litre" to 
> compare engines.  Really efficient road-car engines can get up to 100 
> HP/litre, racing engines over 300 hp/litre.

Or just HP if you want to know how powerful it is, MPG if you want to 
know how efficient it is... I never did understand the fascination with 
displacement. (Other than that I guess you can unambiguously measure it.)

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