cossie1600

NASCAR engines can go 600 miles (Coca Cola 600) running between 8000-9000RPM for virtually the whole race. Current F1 has 19 races with a 10 engine cap, each race is roughly 200 miles long. You don't have to like it, these are just facts. I personally can't stand the smell of leaded gas or the noise of the pushrod V8s, but I respect them for being great machines.

Prius is behind on technology? The last time I checked, Ford Escape's hybrid system and Altima's hybrid system are licensed through Toyota. Toyota also holds 2100+ patents on its synergy drive where Honda has half of that on their system. There is a reason why Prius is selling so much better than the Insight and the other hybrids. Also technology cost money, how do you expect to compete when you priced yourself out of the market. It's one of the reasons why Japanese sports cars died in the 90s. Supra/3000GT/NSX were over 50K, RX-7 TT/300ZX were approaching that level. It's not that Toyota doesn't have the technology, they are just smart enough not to price themselves out of the market (which I think you could say they did with the LFA). Lithium battery is great, but it cost nearly $4K more than the current setup. The current setup is also so reliable that people are getting 10+ years on them and they have offered 150K miles warranty on the CARBs cars for the batteries. It all comes down to cost and benefit. In the case of the LS motors, there is no benefit for GM to spend millions of dollars on a new motor when the current one is still competitive.

Also just for your reference, here is a dyno from a 350Z and a non Z06 C6. There is a big power difference between the two, that's the reason why you can bypass two gears driving in the city. 350's torque is basically the same as the 370 down low, the non Z06 C6 is a lot less than the Z06....



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If you think the LS engine is old, you might want to check with the Germans on their 911s........

Sorry OP for taking this way out of context.