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?

[saleeka]

First things First- AMEN KWANZA... Nice to see people who think with their brains and not with their imagination... Anyways, people seem to be forgetting the 2 main resons why all those fast powerful imports were never brought into the states, or even considered so- Emmissions and the strong yen in the mid 90's... Yes there were plenty of performance models overseas, and some were fourtunate enough to be sold in the states like the supra and RX7. problem was, it was very difficult to pass emissions with these cars while still maintaining their power. perfect example of this were the supra and MR2 turbos. Yes you could get them in the US, but not california toward the end of their lifespans- they couldent meet the emmissions requirements as they aged and the rules became more strict. Rumor has it subaru wanted to bring the wrx over here before the new generation debuted, but they just couldent make it pass emmissions testing. So even if the car was lucky enough to pass the emissions, the yen was very strong compared to the us dollar, making ALL japanese cars more expensive than most competiotors. Thats partially why the 6th gen gt-4 did not make it over here, it would have cost in the low 30 thousand range, and thats 10 yeras ago. If you look at the price of a 93 RX7- base list was 32,500... 2 years later in 95 that cost had risen to 37,000 even... 93 300GT VR-4 was 37,200. In 99 it departed at $44,600- a $7400 increase. basically, the economy of the time was a big factor in these types of cars loosing popularity, they just ended up being outpriced due to unfavorable exchange rates.