<VV> Why no air cooled engines, was: Not expected to last

[JVHRoberts at aol.com]

Cost is important to ALL auto manufacturers, and there's no doubt an air  
cooled Porsche engine is more expensive to build than a wet engine. Two  
crankcase halves, six cylinders, six heads, two cam boxes, and LOTS of other  pieces 
that are extras compared to their wet engines with two block halves and  two 
heads. 
 
Emissions as a factor, cooling was a bigger factor, hitting the wall on HP  
Was probably THE most significant factor. 
 
In a message dated 3/7/2008 10:35:02 AM Eastern Standard Time,  
airvair at earthlink.net writes:

Actually, the official word from Porsche at the time (as published in  the
trade newspapers) was that because of the wider operating  temperatures
present in air cooled engines, it was more difficult to  control emissions
that a water-cooled  engine. Bottom line is that  emission standards simply
got too restrictive for practical controls to  handle.

It was decidedly NOT because of noise, milage, or cost of  build. None of
those are insurmountable issues. Besides, when have they  been an issue for
a Porsche buyer anyway?

-Mark


>  [Original Message]
> From: <jvhroberts at aol.com>
> Subject:  Re: <VV> Not expected to last
>
>  The reason you  stated is NOT why Porsche stopped with air cooled
engines. The reason? Too  hard to cool air cooled 4 valve heads, and with
power levels ever rising,  they kept running into cooling limitations. Also,
the wet engines are  quieter, get better fuel mileage, and are less
expensive to build.  







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