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08-18-2012, 10:02 AM | #23 | |
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All I'm saying is that it makes for a great marketing advantage, as apparently so many people are impressed by it. I'm of the group that couldn't care less how the engine is built: by Martians, elves or Santa's helpers, or some guy named Jochen who has a nice beer belly. To my mind, the only time where a hand built engine makes sense is if you have a superstar builder who knows things that are not common knowledge and where this and his legendary attention to detail can make and extra 20 horses or whatever. At AMG everything is documented to the Nth degree, variances are actually eliminated whenever possible and like I said in a modern factory facility everything can be traced up to which station and even which spanner was used. The 6.2 is made in relatively large numbers because it goes into many models (or it did before they became emission obsessed like BMW and switched to a turbo engine lineup). At its production peak, it went into the E, M, C, SL, S and even G class cars. So not really hand built, but rather hand assembled. Big deal...
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08-18-2012, 10:17 AM | #24 | |
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Beyond the marketing of this it cannot be argued that the AMG Engines are pretty impressive. Can't knock it... our cars are just faster around a race track. lol EDIT: here is a thread on MBWorld discussing the Top Gear Episode. 20,000 engines per year from 50 Engine builders? http://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/1...d-crafted.html
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08-18-2012, 11:32 AM | #25 |
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If you remember, the original M1, M3 cabrio, M6, and first 2 generations of the M5 were all hand-made.. it may not make a difference either way. More of a prestige thing.
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08-18-2012, 12:08 PM | #27 |
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I am sure that to an extent the AMG engines are hand built. It probably comes down to the final assembly and inspection performed by one man, no engines can be completely built by machines, there are some tasks that have to be performed by humans. I am sure it is not just marketing, a big company like Mercedes would not falsely claim something like this.
The M156 really is an amazing engine, combining the attributes of a big displacement muscle car engine with that of an engine that likes to rev. No matter if the "one man one engine" is just marketing or not it really don't change how the engine works. Let the poor guy be proud of his car just like you are of yours! |
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08-18-2012, 01:06 PM | #28 | |
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Why would any manufacturer hand build (to whatever extent) an engine. For marketing bragadoccio? Hardly. It's about two things, the first of which is money. It simply costs more to build/assemble each individual engine by hand compared to an automated process - but, if you're talking about very low production numbers, it'll cost more per engine if you amortize the costs of designing and building the automated tooling necessary to keep Dieter or Guido (or whomever's) hands off the build process. Capiche? So, some Lambos, Ferraris, etc. get their engines hand built because it's more cost effective to do it that way - but so do some Chevrolets. Why on earth would that be? Because of the second reason you do this, which is that you can build a better engine through hand assemby. When you're machining various engine parts prior to final assembly, there will inevitably be variances in the final product. Take a cylinder block, for example. Boring each cylinder heats the block in that area, and depending on cylinder placement and the volume of adjacent material, the amount of heating will vary. Then, boring another cylinder starts with a hotter block, and so on. In addition, once you've bored your hundredth block with the same cutter(s), they have worn a bit. And so on. Let's say you call for five thousandths of an inch piston clearance, plus or minus a thousandth, in the build process. Hand assembly can result in an engine that has five thousandths of an inch clearance on every cylinder, plus or minus nothing, because pistons have tolerances as well, so "oversize" pistons can be mated to oversize cylinders, and so on. Such an engine will tend to make a bit more power, run more smoothly, and perhaps even get slightly better mileage. 50 years ago, an engine like this would've been termed "a freak" in the parlance of the day, resulting from the chance assembly of exactly the right piston for each cylinder, etc., creating more power, running more smoothy, and so on. Nowadays, overall tolerances are tighter, so there is less engine-to-engine variation. But there still are tolerances in the process, so if you take ten automatic M3s selected at random off the assembly line, you will still get ten different ETs and speeds over a quarter mile, even if each is using launch control. I'd venture to guess two to three tenths variation in ET, and perhaps as much as a two mph difference in trap speed. (Note that only some of this variation comes from differences in engine power. The rest can be attributed to overall build tolerances in the drivetrain with it's associated bearing clearances, etc.) If those M3s had hand-assembled engines, there would tend to be less variation, and the results would be clustered closer to the quick and fast end of the spectrum. So to recap, hand assembly will tend to result in an overall "better" engine. Bruce Edit: PS - To head off anyone fixating on something beside the point, my example of ten M3s wasn't designed to denigrate the car, but merely to illustrate that hand assembly of engines can result in better overall results. Last edited by bruce.augenstein@comcast.; 08-18-2012 at 02:36 PM.. |
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08-18-2012, 02:29 PM | #29 | |
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08-18-2012, 03:28 PM | #30 | |
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08-18-2012, 05:14 PM | #31 |
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Please! A civic can put a bus length on a viper or any other car if it was modded.
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08-18-2012, 05:52 PM | #32 |
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My original post was not to discredit AMG or the engine it builds. What I couldn't understand was the bragging behind a simple marketing hype.
Like it was pointed out repeated in this discussion, even the /// engines are hand built to a point. I am sure the guy in the attached video can easily put his signature claiming that he built this particular engine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYNBNRpKe_Q I am sure even AMG will have a similar individual involvement in the engine build process. I don't think some poor german worker is sitting there building a cylinder head by hand for weeks on. My point is someone who has the means to forkout for a such an expensive car is concentrating on a stupid plaque that has some guy's signature. There is a lot more in the C63 AMG he should be proud of.
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08-18-2012, 06:30 PM | #33 |
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I don't know about anybody, and I'm not going to sit here and lecture people.
I purchase a car based on: sportiness, power, braking, and handling. That sums it up to my E90 M3. |
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08-18-2012, 07:33 PM | #34 | |
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A heavily modded 335 will be faster than a stock M3 or C63... nothing new there nor does it prove anything. There are Civics that would embarrass a modded 335 too. Stock C63s have trapped 121mph in the 1/4 and a modded one has trapped >140mph in the 1/4. Let's compare a modded 335 to a modded C63 and see what the result is. Bottom line is we are discussing engines here... not what modded car is faster than a stock car. The AMG engine and the S65 are both MILES ahead of the engine in a 335 in every conceivable way other than how easily a turbo can be tuned.
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08-18-2012, 10:44 PM | #35 | |
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Based on the documentary I've seen, even the engine in a 320i is at some point hand-assembled. I don't know if that's that case with every manufacturer, but at BMW there are some steps still done by hand. So by your definition, your engine and my engine are hand built for sure. As for a labor of love, your skilled technician may have a terrible hangover when he has his hands I your engine, or perhaps his wife is cheating on him, so love for the work may or may not come into the equation. Even without extreme cases, for all you know it's just a boring job for him, and how would you know any different? So by all means, buy the mystique along with the brand.
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08-18-2012, 10:57 PM | #36 | |
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So to get to the point, do you really think all AMGs engines have no variation, or less variation than M engines? If you know that to be a fact, then it's not marketing. If you don't, then I guess it's marketing after all.
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08-19-2012, 12:24 AM | #37 | |
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Things built by machine are in general more accurate, more consistent and these issues contribute greatly to overall quality. One also should not confuse the machining and grinding accuracies and tolerances of individual components with the assembly of parts manufactured using these processes. In modern automotive engine machining and grinding tolerances can be measures in microns or even smaller. Higher quality engines will have improved tolerances. Modern statistical process control and 6 sigma manufacturing techniques along with 100% in process part inspection compensate very well for items like tool wear, heat, etc. These are nearly non-issues. Of course higher accuracy and smaller tolerances still cost more money to manufacture and higher end engine components will have better controls in place for this compared to those going into cheap engines. But then again the cheap engines of today have components more consistent and accurate than higher end engines of just a decade or two ago. Now again we must not confuse component accuracy with assembly quality. They are not all that related. Volume of production is the almost the sole factor that will determine how much of an engine is hand built (hand assembled to be clear since ALL parts are CNC machined). For low volumes the investment in very expensive and accurate robotics for assembly simply does not provide a return on investment. Just hire the skilled labor and even in small numbers they can meet the production requirements. Just about everything a human can do with his/her hands a robot and computer can do better. Now that being said it also requires a very ingenious machine designer and engineers to design the assembly machines In this endeavor as in any the consistency, speed and flexibility of these machines can vary widely. You pretty much will get what you pay for. The thing is that this field of manufacturing engineering is extremely mature. The things that assembly by such systems prevent are more of the gross human errors like banging and damaging precise parts, skipping assembly steps, skipping a small component, mistorqing a fastener, slightly damaging a seal, etc.. Modern machine assembly will generally exhibit many fewer of these types of problems than human assembly thus improving overall quality. I believe our misbeliefs about this human vs. machine thing come from some expired and romantic view of human superiority over machines. 40 or so years ago this may have still had some validity but today it just doesn't. Surely there still are (not much in the automotive world though) bad/crude assembly machinery and robots that can be outperformed by a carefully trained, managed and monitored group of humans. This just is not the norm at all.
And similarly machine assembly is generally superior to hand assembly. Can you even imagine what a totally hand assembled or hand built car would look like? I would not want to drive one. I completely agree that MB's claims about this engine are a huge stretch of any reasonable definition of "hand built" and in doing so they are simply continuing to promote a curmudgeonly/antiquated view of the superiority of robots and computers for the vast majority of high volume manufacturing.
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08-19-2012, 12:51 AM | #38 | |
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08-19-2012, 02:27 AM | #39 |
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Yes, I will take pride in what I own ... that's the ///3.
Yes, I will brag about the computers in the ///3 that can compute over 200 million calculation per second or the air intake ... the amount of air it can suck. But not brag about a stupid badge that might fade beyond recognition in may be 10 years time. Anyway, who cares whether the engine was built by Johnny or Dorothy. I didn't by the car because of that, I bought it because it's the best car BMW builds, that the ///3. I found it hilarious that this guy was trying to convince two guys it's important that one man builds the engine and puts his signature at the end. Bollocks. By the way, it has been a good and healthy discussion between some knowledgeable car owners. Thank you guys.
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08-19-2012, 11:33 AM | #40 | |
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No sense arguing with someone who is totally logical. You 335 guys sure do sip on that good stuff. When your new M3 comes in, make sure you run with "modded" c63's and get buried. Make sure your M3 is stock too, because that's of course a fair race. |
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08-19-2012, 02:59 PM | #41 |
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robot built > hand built in the perspective of quality control in mass production. There's no technical reason why a person has to build the M156/9. The marketing reason is def. behind this. But MB has industrial engineers and other business people who make this balanced decision.
If someone told me that my single prop aircraft engine was hand built instead of machine built, i'll be like ummm, not feeling too good. |
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08-19-2012, 05:20 PM | #42 | |
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I brought up displacement. So what a C63 makes 451 HP (481 with the PP). It has 6.2 litres it should make a lot of power. An engine that can make this much power with less than half the displacement is a far better engine in my opinion. Getting 30 MPG is just one of the benefits. But before getting off track comparing the n54 (which is a brilliant motor I don't care what you think) my original post was meant to compare the AMG motor with the M3 motor. It's amazing that BMW can compete on acceleration being down 2.2 litres.
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08-19-2012, 05:35 PM | #43 | |
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My M3 won't be stock for very long. Because its painfully slow compared to what I drive now. It will be "broken in" with the tune, meth and complete catless exhaust. And once broken in it will be getting a supercharger.
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08-19-2012, 06:14 PM | #44 | |
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I'm not dumping on the N54 but slap a turbo on almost any engine and it produces a lot of power. Tune the turbo for more boost and you get even more... that doesn't make an outstanding engine. The 335 isn't a fast car because it has an amazing engine with great gearing but rather because it has a very tunable turbo where cheap and easy gains are simple. P.S. If you really wanted a fast car, you could have done better than an M3 with mods. By the time you put the mods on and the supercharger you are close to GT-R territory in price... make a few simple mods to that car and you have a complete monster. You seem to be very preoccupied with power and speed so I would have thought you would have picked a different starting platform (or maybe a 2013 GT500). Just saying.
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