Yeah, I know what you mean about torque and useable power.  I drive my wife’s 09 Malibu quite a bit and it’s just awful having to wait for that car to do anything.  I know I’m wildly spoiled from driving sporty cars my whole life, but when I’m on an onramp and need to get up to speed to merge and I put my foot down…

I just have to chuckle every time I see a story about the BRZ needing more power while people think the Miata shouldn’t be touched and is fine with the power it has because it’s about how it handles and not about how fast it is.

This is interesting to me since Amazon has already been getting electric vans from Chanje in California.  Wonder if there’s something going on there between the two.

Right, I’m not saying that you should run your engine at stoichiometric all the time. I agree that you want to run rich during high load situations to control detonation.

Okay, that’s fine, but my point is still just that running lean doesn’t cause your engine to run hotter (assuming you are leaner than 14.7:1).  I should have made this clarification from the start as I think that might be what is hanging a lot of people up.  Once you are leaner than 14.7:1, there is no fuel left to…

Right, but that doesn’t have anything to do with your engine running hot.  It can create hotspots in the combustion chamber where you don’t want them (like on top of a piston), but running leaner than 14.7:1 in and of itself won’t necessarily make your engine run hotter.

But you aren’t.  If you are at 14.7:1 air fuel, you are burning all of the fuel in the chamber completely.  If you go leaner than that you aren’t burning any more fuel because there’s nothing left to burn.  If you are on the rich side of stoichiometric and lean it out toward 14.7 I agree with you, but once you go…

Once you pass 14.7 though there is no way to add more energy to the reaction. That’s my point. Fuel has a specific energy. If I take 1g of gasoline and combust it perfectly, that’s 46.4 kJ of energy that would go toward heating up the combustion chamber. If I now add more oxygen to that equation without adding fuel,…

Right, but I guess my point is more that running lean doesn’t necessarily mean that your engine is going to run hotter. They make engines that will run at 17:1 AFR just fine and they don’t burn to the ground. They manage spark timing and the flame front properly to get an even burn. Detonation will cause local…

How?  If you have more oxygen than is required for complete combustion, you aren’t magically burning more fuel.  If I’m stoichiometric and burn 100% of the fuel in the chamber, then I take that exact same setup but add more oxygen to it, it can’t burn any hotter because there is no fuel to react with the extra…

From what I’ve read about that though, it’s more due to detonation than straight up lean burning.  I believe detonation affects the combustion chamber heat because the fuel is burning in a somewhat different way compared to an even flame propagation.

From what I’ve read about it, that’s more due to detonation than it is just straight lean burning.  I believe detonation will cause different combustion temperatures due to how the fuel ignites.

Right, that’s more or less what I was getting at.  Air/Fuel ratio is less what is causing the heat compared to ignition timing.  That’s the nutshell version.

I’ll have to try to look up the numbers, but I still doubt that the heat of vaporization is more than the specific energy of the fuel. By that I mean if burn X grams less fuel, that’s Y joules less power I am putting in the reaction. If I add Z grams of extra fuel but evaporate it, I highly doubt I’m going to come out…

All those rolls and I bet they still didn’t get a YAHTZEE!

If you’re driving really hard, though, there’s a chance that your engine isn’t running at the proper air:fuel ratio and therefore is getting hot.

I’m not sure what they actually are to be honest. I think they were so no-name cheap ones, but they are the butterfly style that looks like a throttle blade. Something kinda like this https://www.amazon.com/BadlanzHPE-Electric-Exhaust-Cutout-WARRANTY/dp/B00HDKC56W/ref=sr_1_13?keywords=electronic+exhaust+cutout&qid=1568…

Didn’t realize it had valves to adjust the sound, that’s a nice touch.  I have electronic dumps on my 67 Dart and it takes some restraint to not just leave them open all the time.  I love the sound of it idling with the choppy cam I have and the headers open as it reminds me of standing in the pits at a drag race, but…

Yes, I agree that it’s the same thing, though I’m only paying for the other people using that company and can shop around and get coverage that’s appropriate to me.  If I don’t need hurricane insurance because I live in the middle of the US, why should I have to pay extra premium for it?  That’s the benefit of private…

Not really. The only difference I see in universal healthcare is that instead of private companies, all of that money is being given to one federal organization. They are just going to get that money via taxes instead of a monthly premium. With private insurance you’re still paying for other people because all of the…