I was reading a book the other day about internals of a Ferrari F40 engine. I read that the compression ratio from tha factory was like 7.5:1 !! Why on earth would they choose to go with that? For those that don't know this is a small displacement V8 quad cam engine with twin turbos I know its not Honda related but it got me thinking wouldn't that make a really laggy car until high boost is met? Would there be any reason to do this in a Honda? Come one I know there are some smart guys around here...

 

DSMs are very similar and are not slow and not laggy.

Lag mostly is due to turbo sizing.

 

The low compression is not nessessarily simply because they wanted it that low. The Ferrari engine has a very short stroke and a lot of valves, which require a larger combustion chamber.

 

Oh that makes sense, I'm not sure but I think It may have had 5 valves per cylinder so that makes sense. Plus if they wanted try and unshroud the valves at all it would make it even harder to maintain a high compression ratio. I have heard NA Formula One engines have pretty low compresison as well. Well 10.5:1 or so due to unshrouding. But they rev to 18K rpm so its not a big deal.

 

if i remember, the f40 is around 20lbs on stock boost. Im sure the turbos arent huge, so lag isnt really an issue. Id LOVE to have an f40, best ferrari ever