When Honda Gave GM One Of History's Most Amazing Smackdown - 未名空间MITBBS历史存档

When Honda Gave GM One Of History's Most Amazing Smackdown# Automobile - 车轮上的传奇

o*n2015-09-25 07:09

1 楼

LOL

a*22015-09-25 07:09

2 楼

太精彩了！
This is a story of hubris, determination, emissions, an Impala, and, of
course, the amazing Soichiro Honda. It's a reminder that innovation can beat
strength, and that the most defining characteristic of any giant is not its
size, but it's susceptibility to cleverness.
I'm sort of amazed we've never officially talked about this here on Jalopnik
, because it's an amazing story. It's a story you may have heard before, but
it's absolutely worth repeating.
The most often cited version of the story is one retold by a former sales
rep of American Honda's motorcycle division, a man named G. Duncan. Here's
the background: it's 1973, and Honda is about to release their CVCC-engined
Civic.
CVCC stands for "Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion" and is, essentially
a design that uses prechambers with spark plugs to ignite a richer fuel
mixture, which then propagates to the leaner mixture in the combustion
chamber in the cylinder. That's a simplification, but the end result is that
Honda was able to build engines that met the strict new emissions
regulations in the US without the use of heavy, power-robbing, expensive
catalytic converters. This was a big deal.
It was such a big deal that Ford and Chrysler had both signed up to license
the technology. But not GM. In fact, here's what the CEO of GM, Richard
Gerstenberg, said of Honda's technology:
"Well, I have looked at this design, and while it might work on some little
toy motorcycle engine…I see no potential for it on one of our GM car
engines."
Eventually, this statement got back to the head of Honda, Soichiro Honda.
For those of you unfamiliar, Soichiro was an amazingly gifted engineer and a
very determined man, starting Honda in a wooden shack making add-on engines
for bicycles and eventually turning it into one of the biggest motorcycle
and automobile manufacturers in the world. The hidden message here is you
don't fucking call his engines "little toys."
Clearly interested in "one of our GM car engines," Soichiro bought a 1973
Chevy Impala with a big-ass 5.7L V8 and had it air-freighted to Japan. I
think you can see where this is heading. Honda instructed his engineers to
design and build a CVCC system for the GM V8, and that's exactly what they
did: they replaced the intake manifold, cylinder heads, and carburetor of
the engine so that it used Honda's CVCC technology. He then had it flown
back to Ann Arbor, where it was tested by the EPA.
And you know what? It worked. The system Gerstenberg had derided as only
suitable for "some little toy" engine allowed the big, thirsty V8 to pass
the new EPA emissions requirements without a catalytic converter. Horsepower
remained at 160 HP, and some tests even showed a slight fuel economy
improvement. You can see the whole test here, and just for fun, here's the
EPA's conclusions:
It wasn't 100% perfect, of course — NOx emissions were still higher than a
catalyst-equipped car, but even so, the CVCC V8 was still massively cleaner
than most other engines of the era and easily passed the EPA's requirements.
Here's the high-speed results, for example:
So, let's just recap: CEO of GM talks some shit about Honda's technology.
The man who founded Honda hears it, and instead of releasing some pissy
statement to the press, gets a car from GM themselves and makes it better
than they could do themselves. And he lets the EPA prove it.
Then, I imagine, he drops a mic and walks offstage.
Soichiro, you badass.
http://jalopnik.com/when-honda-gave-gm-one-of-historys-most-ama
"...Well, I have looked at this design, and while it might work on some
little toy motorcycle engine…I see no potential for it on one of our GM car
engines..."
...这种白垃圾的语气，被本版一位24小时不停上蹿下跳暴怒发帖，红脖子的黄皮猴子
学到了。