Is the GM Ecotech any darn good?

The trick would be to find a Saturn Ion or Cobalt SS which gets you an Ecotec with supercharger. Then you can up the boost. That seems to be about as far as you can go without big money, but 240 HP should run fine.

 

Are you for real??? I got one in my opel.. With a 5 speed auto. Man it´s slow. 136 bhp it says. My guess is 80hp. But its cheap on gas. Where can i buy some hopup camshafts for this cutie? They cost a fortune in europe!

 

Re: ecotec 4 cylinder...

It's an interesting motor.

Engine architecture is very good - I've spent a fair amount of time looking at the various pieces/parts as they're made. Block and head are both aluminum alloy, which eliminates the differentials in coefficients of thermal expansion that caused the Quad 4 to spit head gaskets out. Complete assembly is cast via the lost foam process up in Massena NY; a lost foam motor exhibits high dimensional stability during the pour, which allows the engineers to build in strength without sacrificing weight.

Bottom end on these little guys is stout as hell - it's a deep skirt block. I don't recall if the bearing caps are crossbolted or not - I think they are, but then again, most alloy motors these days have crossbolted mains. The basic design of the bottom end lends itself to high rev, forced induction apps with minimal modification.

Top end looks like someone lifted a page from the Universal Japanese Motorcyle handbook - 4v head with good breathing characteristics designed in right off the bat.

Bone stock normally aspirated Solstices and the soon-to-be-released Saturn Sky's come with 177 HP, which is pretty much what you'd expect these days. The supercharged eco's are at 205 HP with *very* mild boost; the turbo'd units (scheduled for release late this year, BTW) are rated at 270 HP as someone mentioned earlier.

Do keep in mind that speedparts follow an inverse curve when it comes to pricing. First few years they're really expensive...when there's enough demand for the parts, the cost comes down. First sets of alloy V8 heads were shockingly expensive (if y'all recall) and now a nice set of alloy SBC heads can be bought new for about $1200.

Rate limiting event on Eco's when it comes to HP is gonna be forced induction - if you wanna go fast with one, it's gonna hafta have a blower or a turbo. The hot setups will be judged on how much boost they make - the goal most guys will try to break the 30 PSI mark on the street. If you figure the motor makes 200HP lightly modded, a 30 PSI motor will make *about* 600 HP.

 

Uhhh.....yeah.

 

Anyone got some piccies of one of these little buggers because the GM Ecotec lump over here isn't held in high regard at all, what is the stock spec of these things?

 

I drive one of these (2.4L in an HHR) to work every day. It has decent power, we haven't seen one in the shop for a mechanical problem yet. My shop does about $100,000 a month in GM warranty.......and none of that has been on Ecotech motors. I'd put one in a roadster in a hot second.......as long as I didn't have to buy it.

 

I was thinking about using a Quad 4 in my A . but now I am going with the Ford 2.3 liter. You can get one out of the Thunderbird Turbo coupe with about 200 horse. And guys are going 300 hp, not a problem

 

A few pics of the Ecotec in our roadster. 32psi for 5 miles at B'ville. After the 700 mile trip.

 

btt

 

It made enough power to kill John Lingenfelter a couple years ago while running 6 second 1/4 miles at 200MPH in his NHRA Sport Compact Cavalier.

I'd say thats plenty of power.

-Bigchief.

 

I see some cars (Solstice) have it with a 5 speed. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2-4L...goryZ33615QQitemZ8033255287QQtcZphotoSolstice is supposed to get a turbo next year.

 

As soon as I read this I said to myself "Sounds like Chuck is an engineer", then I checked out your profile, and sure enough.

Very intelligent post Chuck. Thanks for the info.

 

thanks!

I went to school for this sorta thing; spent a good part of my free time reading up on powertrain development in the early years of the auto industry down in the basement of the library of the school. Later - I'd take long lunch breaks and read up on stuff in the Automotive History wing of Detroit Main - before they made it off-limits to the average guy.

It's a disease. I lay in bed at night envisioning different engine mods and different powertrain combos the way some folks count sheep.

 

Does anyone know what company it is that offers vintage-style parts for the newer 4 cylinder motors? Stuff like carb manifolds, valve covers, that sort of thing. Thanks
-Jason

 

I was reading this thread and a couple of questions popped in my mind after scanning the gm web site

For use in a hot rod... what would be the best motor to start with to build up per the performance manual? the 2.0 supercharged, the 2.2, or the 2.4?

And does any one smarter than me have any info on converting them to rwd?

 

http://kitcarmag.com/techarticles/general/142_0505_ecocat/

 

Both Vauxhall and Opel have these engines in the RWD Omega. Guess that they only sell them in europe, but we buy hard to get stuff in U.s and ship it to here, so why not the other way? Iwould be glad to help out if you dont have rwd cars in U.s with this engine.

 

Converting to rwd will become a non-issue shortly.

The Solstice and the SKY are rear drivers with the Ecotec motor. They're mated to an Aisin manual trans - or a GM of France automatic.

This means the bosses for RWD engine mounts should be cast into current ('06) Ecotecs, and as folks wipe out these new little sports cars (duh - that's what people do) the drivetrains will become available.

Wait about 8 months; they'll start popping up on evilbay.

 

Thank you for all the great help, guys.

Phil, that KitCar link in particular was great, as are Chuck's comments.

From what little I do know, the 2.0 supercharged engine has a forged steel crankshaft, sodium-filled exhaust valves, and other stuff that the base engines don't and should be able to handle more power.

 

Spent over 6 years of my engineering career involved in the development of 2.2lt NA and 2.0lt turbo versions of this engine. I'm totally blown away that an engine designed and developed as 'cheap fit everything' power unit for all world markets is being modified to produce such incredible levels of performance!