Monday Motor Madness # 170 - Old School Pickup

The engine is down nice and low in the chassis.

However in having become a genuine anti-fan of manufacturing stupidity - where LOW COMPRESSION SIDE VALVE petrol engines, use 2 to 2 and 1/2 the amount of fuel that overhead valve engines use, where the refusal to make a GOOD engine that costs 30% more, costs you a billion $ in fuel over a million Km, I cannot say I have any love of the side valve engine.

This comes from my own experience with 45 side valve harleys... and HD's refusal to change up to a DECENT OHV motor over some 60 or 70 years of manufacturing the same buckets of shit fuel guzzling motors.

The bog stock motor at 5:1 compression, and stock gear train gets 9Km a liter, mine got 11Km a liter (cause I did clever shit to it) and yet a decent modern motor of a similar displacement with a 9.5:1 compression ratio gets 18 - 23Km a liter.... (lets say 20 Km L)

Saying fuel is $2 a liter (Australian) to do 1000Km a week, that comes to $220 for the side valve motor, and the modern engine costs $100 in fuel for the same distance.

The weekly commute, multiplied by 42 weeks a year = $9200 Vs. $4,200

For 5 and 10 years = The side valve = $47,000 and $92,000, and the overhead valve = $21,000 and $42,000.

This is the fuel only running costs, of a 45 cubic inch or 750cc side valve harley vs. a high compression motor is not even a decent comparison, yet Harley Davidson continued to make these fuel guzzling side valve motors for DECADES - Nostalgia my arsehole.... if I am commuting 200 Km a day - that is a LOT of money being pissed away because I choose to go along with a cunt of a company that does stupid shit....