![]() To compensate for the reduction in brawn, engineers set out to fine-tune the coming generations of engines. ![]() Fuel injection, turbochargers and four-valve-per-cylinder designs have all made it possible for automakers to deliver the power that makes drivers reach for their checkbooks, yet remain in compliance with air-quality regulations and often with little penalty in fuel economy.Īfter the energy squeezes of the 1970s, the future of automobiles seemed to be small - downsized cars and trucks powered by engines with fewer cylinders and smaller displacements. High horsepower and high technology usually march in lockstep, advances in performance arriving whenever mechanical innovations permit. Still, the Viper V-10 would have a full complement of technology tricks inside, like variable valve timing, which makes it possible to tune the engine for both high power and low emissions with a few computer-controlled adjustments. Instead, they learned, the monstrous Viper engine would continue to breathe through two valves in each cylinder, and those valves would still be opened by pushrods, a venerable mechanism that has all but vanished from modern cars. Some reporters in the crowd might have thought that DaimlerChrysler engineers had at last modernized the Viper’s brute-force V-10 engine with dual overhead cams and four-valve cylinder heads. ![]() AT a Detroit auto show press conference last week, Dodge announced that for 2008 the Viper SRT10 would get a boost of 90 horsepower - to 600, from a mere 510. ![]()
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