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Fabulous Flops is a monthly series profiling some of the spectacular failures in the automotive industry. The automotive industry is by nature an innovator, but sometimes those innovative ideas are taken out of the oven before they are done cooking, and others fall victim to poor timing. Today, we are profiling Chrysler's two terrible piston-equipped children, the 2.2L four-cylinder engine and the 2.2L Turbo I four. During the course of automotive history, we've seen automakers take the engineering that goes into building an engine and turn it into something of an art form. The end result usually is nothing short of something brilliant. For example, Ferrari has given us microscopic engines that somehow produce massive horsepower numbers and still have at least eight cylinders. Then there's Alfa Romeo, who have built engines so beautifully detailed they've somehow managed to make the innocent act of raising the hood of one of their cars into something totally adulterous. Detroit, during the late '60s and early '70s, managed to produce the most heroic symphonies the world had ever heard from their massive V8s. On the subject of Detroit, remember the old 2.0 liter, forced-induction Ecotec four-cylinder from General Motors? That really was nothing short of a 21st-century small-block Chevy. Those are just a few highlights from the century-plus long automotive footage reel, though. Watch the whole film in its entirety and you'll find that there have been many an instance where an automaker strives to push engine — uhhh — engineering to the outer edges of the envelope only to fall flat on its face. And while it's certainly true that GM has succeeded in this century with building a great four-cylinder engine, you certainly couldn't say the same for Chrysler in the closing quarter of the 20th century. Suffering Through the K-Car Years For those of us who had to suffer through the K-Car years and the subsequent fallout, the mere mention of the name LeBaron or New Yorker conjures up images of some bland, front-drive car with a nasty paint job and electrical issues. Okay, yes, I know Chrysler was more concerned with building affordable, efficient cars that would pay the bills back then. Yes, sure, some of them were sort of reliable and not completely terrible, but the K-Platform-derived Chryslers were all cars devoid of the rather admirable, plucky Pentastar personality that made the original Hemi Challengers and Road Runners such magical machines. In my eyes, the fact the platform spawned a billion soulless children and carried on relatively unchanged for over a decade is one of the many great automotive mysteries. Born From a Volkswagen, Raised by Chrysler It's even more mysterious when you consider people actually bought them with Chrysler's horrible 2.2 liter four-cylinder engine. I'll admit Chrysler seemed to have all of its stars aligned and ducks in a row when they were designing it. First, they benchmarked a fairly solid 1.7 liter engine they had bought from Volkswagen to use in the Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon/Talbot Horizon triplets. After that, they grouped together a team of guys that was led by Willem Weertman, who worked on the old warhorse Slant 6. How the 2.2 became the end result then is a huge letdown. The original Chrysler 2.2L four was more or less born from the VW 1.7L four used in the Dodge Omni. A Recipe for Blown Head Gaskets For starters, the 2.2 had an aluminum cylinder head and an iron engine block, exactly like the 1.7 liter VW motor. This was by no means a bad design and was advanced for an American four-pot in its day. However, Chrysler failed to understand the mixed metallurgy required additives to the coolant that would prevent a total meltdown — additives they decided to forgo for production and subsequently forgot completely. American buyers, who were then used to a four-cylinder motor that required very low maintenance, weren't exactly ready for the high demands of the aluminum/iron design either. As a result, cylinder head gaskets had to be replaced as often as the driver would change his underwear, and the cylinder heads themselves would eventually crack. The Carburetor and Distributor From Hell Then, there was the terrible carburetor and distributor chosen for use on the 2.2. The carburetor came from Holley, who by no means makes bad carbs, but on the day they built the ones chosen for use on the early 2.2 liter motors, they must've forgotten everything. The design was an electronic progressive feedback, two-barrel design that only lent itself to stalling when you wanted to go, wheezing when you did, and bizarre burps of power at random intervals. The distributor, in particular, was a rather nasty device because the shaft support bushing was so cheap it would wear out in such a fashion that the rotor would eventually hit the distributor cap, which would then break. The end result of that, well, is obvious. The 2.2 also had a rubber timing belt, which would break between oil changes, and the whole thing only produced an underwhelming 84 horsepower. As for torque? Let's just say your grandmother is probably capable of a higher amount of twist if you handed her a torque wrench. The Dodge Shelby Charger used a tuned version of the 2.2 that produced all of 107 horsepower. How's that for power? Enter the Turbo I: More Heat, No Intercooler Chrysler knew the engine left plenty of room for improvement, so it didn't take very long for them to set about changing things. For 1983, they fiddled around with the pistons and the aluminum head and wrung a whole 10 more horsepower out of it. Poor Carroll Shelby also had to use a modified version of the 2.2 in the front-drive, Horizon-based Shelby Charger. His tuned 2.2 managed to just barely break the 100 horsepower mark. Then, in 1984, Chrysler installed throttle body fuel-injection, which bumped the power up to 99 and actually had few advantages over the terrible Holley carburetor. 1984 also was the first year Chrysler built the laughable 2.2 Turbo I motor. What Chrysler did for the Turbo I was take the 2.2 and, well, put a turbo on it. That sounds like it could've made a bad motor decent and that would be true if they had fitted it with something all well-built turbo engines have — an intercooler. The decision to save a few bucks by not installing an intercooler on an turbocharged motor that was, in turn, based on an engine that already had cooling system issues meant that the Turbo I was one of the least reliable engines Chrysler had ever built. Take a Turbo I-equipped LeBaron up a decent grade of a hill and you were guaranteed to boil your coolant into oblivion. So, in 20/20 hindsight, the Chrysler 2.2 and 2.2 Turbo I were flops, perhaps not in sales, but from a reliability and engineering standpoint. To Chrysler's credit, they tried to at least rectify some of the issues that plagued the Turbo I when they rolled out the 2.2 Turbo II, which actually had a factory intercooler. The Turbo III and Turbo IV 2.2 motors that succeeded it also were fairly respectable performance motors. The Turbo IV, in particular, was responsible for making the old Dodge Spirit R/T the fastest North American production sedan money could buy when it was new. * * * * * Do you have a nomination for a Fabulous Flop? Drop an email to [email protected] with your nomination. Make sure to share this with your friends on Facebook or Twitter using the buttons below. -
Fabulous Flops is a monthly series profiling some of the spectacular failures in the automotive industry. The automotive industry is by nature an innovator, but sometimes those innovative ideas are taken out of the oven before they are done cooking, and others fall victim to poor timing. Today, we are profiling Chrysler's two terrible piston-equipped children, the 2.2L four-cylinder engine and the 2.2L Turbo I four. During the course of automotive history, we've seen automakers take the engineering that goes into building an engine and turn it into something of an art form. The end result usually is nothing short of something brilliant. For example, Ferrari has given us microscopic engines that somehow produce massive horsepower numbers and still have at least eight cylinders. Then there's Alfa Romeo, who have built engines so beautifully detailed they've somehow managed to make the innocent act of raising the hood of one of their cars into something totally adulterous. Detroit, during the late '60s and early '70s, managed to produce the most heroic symphonies the world had ever heard from their massive V8s. On the subject of Detroit, remember the old 2.0 liter, forced-induction Ecotec four-cylinder from General Motors? That really was nothing short of a 21st-century small-block Chevy. Those are just a few highlights from the century-plus long automotive footage reel, though. Watch the whole film in its entirety and you'll find that there have been many an instance where an automaker strives to push engine — uhhh — engineering to the outer edges of the envelope only to fall flat on its face. And while it's certainly true that GM has succeeded in this century with building a great four-cylinder engine, you certainly couldn't say the same for Chrysler in the closing quarter of the 20th century. Suffering Through the K-Car Years For those of us who had to suffer through the K-Car years and the subsequent fallout, the mere mention of the name LeBaron or New Yorker conjures up images of some bland, front-drive car with a nasty paint job and electrical issues. Okay, yes, I know Chrysler was more concerned with building affordable, efficient cars that would pay the bills back then. Yes, sure, some of them were sort of reliable and not completely terrible, but the K-Platform-derived Chryslers were all cars devoid of the rather admirable, plucky Pentastar personality that made the original Hemi Challengers and Road Runners such magical machines. In my eyes, the fact the platform spawned a billion soulless children and carried on relatively unchanged for over a decade is one of the many great automotive mysteries. Born From a Volkswagen, Raised by Chrysler It's even more mysterious when you consider people actually bought them with Chrysler's horrible 2.2 liter four-cylinder engine. I'll admit Chrysler seemed to have all of its stars aligned and ducks in a row when they were designing it. First, they benchmarked a fairly solid 1.7 liter engine they had bought from Volkswagen to use in the Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon/Talbot Horizon triplets. After that, they grouped together a team of guys that was led by Willem Weertman, who worked on the old warhorse Slant 6. How the 2.2 became the end result then is a huge letdown. The original Chrysler 2.2L four was more or less born from the VW 1.7L four used in the Dodge Omni. A Recipe for Blown Head Gaskets For starters, the 2.2 had an aluminum cylinder head and an iron engine block, exactly like the 1.7 liter VW motor. This was by no means a bad design and was advanced for an American four-pot in its day. However, Chrysler failed to understand the mixed metallurgy required additives to the coolant that would prevent a total meltdown — additives they decided to forgo for production and subsequently forgot completely. American buyers, who were then used to a four-cylinder motor that required very low maintenance, weren't exactly ready for the high demands of the aluminum/iron design either. As a result, cylinder head gaskets had to be replaced as often as the driver would change his underwear, and the cylinder heads themselves would eventually crack. The Carburetor and Distributor From Hell Then, there was the terrible carburetor and distributor chosen for use on the 2.2. The carburetor came from Holley, who by no means makes bad carbs, but on the day they built the ones chosen for use on the early 2.2 liter motors, they must've forgotten everything. The design was an electronic progressive feedback, two-barrel design that only lent itself to stalling when you wanted to go, wheezing when you did, and bizarre burps of power at random intervals. The distributor, in particular, was a rather nasty device because the shaft support bushing was so cheap it would wear out in such a fashion that the rotor would eventually hit the distributor cap, which would then break. The end result of that, well, is obvious. The 2.2 also had a rubber timing belt, which would break between oil changes, and the whole thing only produced an underwhelming 84 horsepower. As for torque? Let's just say your grandmother is probably capable of a higher amount of twist if you handed her a torque wrench. The Dodge Shelby Charger used a tuned version of the 2.2 that produced all of 107 horsepower. How's that for power? Enter the Turbo I: More Heat, No Intercooler Chrysler knew the engine left plenty of room for improvement, so it didn't take very long for them to set about changing things. For 1983, they fiddled around with the pistons and the aluminum head and wrung a whole 10 more horsepower out of it. Poor Carroll Shelby also had to use a modified version of the 2.2 in the front-drive, Horizon-based Shelby Charger. His tuned 2.2 managed to just barely break the 100 horsepower mark. Then, in 1984, Chrysler installed throttle body fuel-injection, which bumped the power up to 99 and actually had few advantages over the terrible Holley carburetor. 1984 also was the first year Chrysler built the laughable 2.2 Turbo I motor. What Chrysler did for the Turbo I was take the 2.2 and, well, put a turbo on it. That sounds like it could've made a bad motor decent and that would be true if they had fitted it with something all well-built turbo engines have — an intercooler. The decision to save a few bucks by not installing an intercooler on an turbocharged motor that was, in turn, based on an engine that already had cooling system issues meant that the Turbo I was one of the least reliable engines Chrysler had ever built. Take a Turbo I-equipped LeBaron up a decent grade of a hill and you were guaranteed to boil your coolant into oblivion. So, in 20/20 hindsight, the Chrysler 2.2 and 2.2 Turbo I were flops, perhaps not in sales, but from a reliability and engineering standpoint. To Chrysler's credit, they tried to at least rectify some of the issues that plagued the Turbo I when they rolled out the 2.2 Turbo II, which actually had a factory intercooler. The Turbo III and Turbo IV 2.2 motors that succeeded it also were fairly respectable performance motors. The Turbo IV, in particular, was responsible for making the old Dodge Spirit R/T the fastest North American production sedan money could buy when it was new. * * * * * Do you have a nomination for a Fabulous Flop? Drop an email to [email protected] with your nomination. Make sure to share this with your friends on Facebook or Twitter using the buttons below. View full article
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Good to see the big bug getting some traction.? Type 4 literature
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Motors Of History, Including the 1916 Hybrid with Regenerative brakes! C&D did this history of motors that have made a mark, have to say awesome that in 1916 the first Hybrid powertrain was produced with regenerative brakes. Shows it just took 100 years to make it a variable reality. 14HP ICE and 6HP EV. http://www.caranddriver.com/flipbook/engines-au-naturel-an-unfettered-look-under-the-hood-at-some-of-historys-most-significant-engines Love the steam motors, turbines, etc. So cool. Check it out. -
The future of the Ford Taurus is uncertain. The once revolutionary sedan in the 80's, was brought back by Ford CEO Alan Mulally for the 2008 model year to replace the Five Hundred full-size sedan has seen its sales slump. Automotive News reports that full-size sedans like the Taurus have seen their sales tank. Through July, full-size sedan sales are down 28 percent. But the Taurus is one of the worst off. The blue oval has sold 29,867 Taurus sedans through July. That puts it on track to 2009, which was the worst year for Taurus sales with 45,617 models sold. Not helping matters is the Ford Fusion, which not only offers more passenger space than the Taurus, it also looks better. In July, Ford moved 25,105 Fusions. There was hope for the Taurus when Ford introduced a redesigned model for the Chinese market earlier this year. Despite Ford saying the model was going to be built and sold only in China, there was some hope that something like that could happen for the North American version. But Ford has been quiet on what the future holds for the Taurus. "Taurus continues to play an important role in our North America vehicle lineup," Ford spokesman Said Deep told Automotive News. Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required) -
The future of the Ford Taurus is uncertain. The once revolutionary sedan in the 80's, was brought back by Ford CEO Alan Mulally for the 2008 model year to replace the Five Hundred full-size sedan has seen its sales slump. Automotive News reports that full-size sedans like the Taurus have seen their sales tank. Through July, full-size sedan sales are down 28 percent. But the Taurus is one of the worst off. The blue oval has sold 29,867 Taurus sedans through July. That puts it on track to 2009, which was the worst year for Taurus sales with 45,617 models sold. Not helping matters is the Ford Fusion, which not only offers more passenger space than the Taurus, it also looks better. In July, Ford moved 25,105 Fusions. There was hope for the Taurus when Ford introduced a redesigned model for the Chinese market earlier this year. Despite Ford saying the model was going to be built and sold only in China, there was some hope that something like that could happen for the North American version. But Ford has been quiet on what the future holds for the Taurus. "Taurus continues to play an important role in our North America vehicle lineup," Ford spokesman Said Deep told Automotive News. Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required) View full article
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13 Little-Known Punctuation Marks We Should Be Using Adrienne Crezo Because sometimes periods, commas, colons, semi-colons, dashes, hyphens, apostrophes, question marks, exclamation points, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces, and ellipses won't do. 1. Interrobang You probably already know the interrobang, thanks to its excellent moniker and increasing popularity. Though the combination exclamation point and question mark can be replaced by using one of each (You did what!? or You don't read mental_floss?!), it's fun to see the single glyph getting a little more love lately. 2. Percontation Point or Rhetorical Question Mark The backward question mark was proposed by Henry Denham in 1580 as an end to a rhetorical question, and was used until the early 1600s. 3. Irony Mark It looks a lot like the percontation point, but the irony mark's location is a bit different, as it is smaller, elevated, and precedes a statement to indicate its intent before it is read. Alcanter de Brahm introduced the idea in the 19th century, and in 1966 French author Hervé Bazin proposed a similar glyph in his book, Plumons l’Oiseau, along with 5 other innovative marks. 4. Love Point Among Bazin's proposed new punctuation was the love point, made of two question marks, one mirrored, that share a point. The intended use, of course, was to denote a statement of affection or love, as in "Happy anniversary [love point]" or "I have warm fuzzies [love point]" If it were easier to type, I think this one might really take off. 5. Acclamation Point Bazin described this mark as "the stylistic representation of those two little flags that float above the tour bus when a president comes to town." Acclamation is a "demonstration of goodwill or welcome," so you could use it to say "I'm so happy to see you [acclamationpoint]" or "Viva Las Vegas [acclamationpoint]" 6. Certitude Point Need to say something with unwavering conviction? End your declaration with the certitude point, another of Bazin's designs. 7. Doubt Point This is the opposite of the certitude point, and thus is used to end a sentence with a note of skepticism. 8. Authority Point Bazin's authority point "shades your sentence" with a note of expertise, "like a parasol over a sultan." (Well, I was there and that's what happened.) Likewise, it's also used to indicate an order or advice that should be taken seriously, as it comes from a voice of authority. 9. SarcMark The SarcMark (short for "sarcasm mark") was invented, copyrighted and trademarked by Paul Sak, and while it hasn't seen widespread use, Sak markets it as "The official, easy-to-use punctuation mark to emphasize a sarcastic phrase, sentence or message." Because half the fun of sarcasm is pointing it out [sarcMark]. 10. Snark Mark This, like the copyrighted SarcMark, is used to indicate that a sentence should be understood beyond the literal meaning. Unlike the SarcMark, this one is copyright free and easy to type: it's just a period followed by a tilde. 11. Asterism This cool-looking but little-used piece of punctuation used to be the divider between subchapters in books or to indicate minor breaks in a long text. It's almost obsolete, since books typically now use three asterisks in a row to break within chapters (***) or simply skip an extra line. It seems a shame to waste such a great little mark, though. Maybe we should bring this one back. 12 & 13. Exclamation Comma & Question Comma Now you can be excited or inquisitive without having to end a sentence! A Canadian patent was filed for these in 1992, but it lapsed in 1995, so use them freely, but not too often. Read the full text here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/12710/13-little-known-punctuation-marks-we-should-be-using#ixzz2KcZWRhyi --brought to you by mental_floss! In 1928, the federal government overhauled its system of printing bank notes. It shaved about an inch of length and just under a half-inch of width off the bills and issued the new, smaller bills in the $1 to $100 denominations with which we're familiar. However, the Treasury also issued larger denominations. Fun facts about big, big bank notes Can you guess who is on the front of the following bills also available at the bank: $500 - ???????? $1000 - ??????? $5000 - ??????? $10000 - ?????? Give up who is on the front ????????? scroll down. They featured William McKinley ($500), Grover Cleveland ($1,000), James Madison ($5,000) and Salmon P. Chase ($10,000).
