What makes our engines so underpowered?, Compaired to JDM's and other countries? Options

[Rjb23]

What is it that causes our engines to be so under powered? Is it the ECU's, or what?

[sinner96ST]

I love the look of my car, but honestly, i'm paying sports car insurance for a car with not even 110 @ the crank. It seems to me if I were to buy a newer (insert model here) that it would come with almost double the horsepower right out of the factory. I hear a lot of people ask why toyota decided to put a 7afe or a 5sfe in to a celica shell. It just seems like a lawnmower engine in a lambo, it makes absolutely no sense.

A lot of those cars you mentioned were highly tuneable, it just seems that given the release of toyota's previous sports cars, (mr-2, alltrac, supra, celica) you would've think they would have carried them all the way up until 2000, if not further. Hence the reason why I throw out the demand reasoning out there.

I should do more reading to find out exactly why they just quit selling MR-2's and Supra's in the states. They just didn't sell? If the demand was always there, why not stick with a highly tuneable 3sgte or 2jz until this very day? Seems they did it everywhere else but the United States. I've seen crazy numbers come out of 3s / 2jz dynos with stock blocks. It's about money too but really, having a 'sport' divison of your car company would logically make sense to appeal to the gearheads & speedfreaks that are on this planet..

This post has been edited by sinner96ST: Apr 24, 2004 - 9:49 PM