Fuel Injection Systems - Viva's Revolution!

The muscle cars of yesteryear were and remain amazing cars. Pop the hood and most are equipped with rather larger carburetors. Do the same with a newer car and you wont see a carb because they are now fuel injected.

There is a lot of confusion about the difference between carburetors and fuel injection systems. Stepping back from the debate, we can see the difference comes down to how the systems put fuel into the engine cylinders. With carburetors, air and fuel is sucked in. With fuel injection systems, it is injected in. This may sound like two sides of the same coin, but it is a critical difference.

The issue is control. With carburetors, you had much less control over the fuel and air mixture because the sucking effect was difficult to control. In contrast, the fuel injection method allowed for the input of a precise amount of fuel to the cylinder. This is particularly true with electronic fuel injection systems where things can be controlled down to miniscule levels.

The control found with fuel injection resulted in two major advantages. The first was simply an improvement of gas mileage. With more precise control came more precise measurements of fuel that cut out waste. Put another way, the perfect amount of fuel was used, which meant there was little or no excessive waste.

The second thing that came from fuel injection was performance. The more the aspects of the combustion process could be controlled, the more the performance of the car could be changed. This is particularly true with modern cars and their central processing units. Whereas car lovers would jump under the hood in the past to tweak the performance of their cars in the past, these days they pop in a superchip program through a laptop and crank up the measurable factors to increase performance. It constitutes a major change in how things are done.

There are many different variations to fuel injection systems, but two basic differences can be broken down by the port approach. The first is a single port injection system. The fuel is injected through a main port and then sucked into the various cylinders much like would work with a carburetor. This is known as the "American approach" because most American manufacturers use it.

The secondary approach is to create fuel injection into multiple ports. As you can probably guess, this simply means there is an individual injector for each cylinder. The approach is generally considered the best because it provides greater control since the individual fuel input to cylinders can be manipulated and adjusted on the fly using electronic systems.

The evolution of combustion engines from carburetors to electronic fuel injection systems has been an important one. With more efficient running, the cars of today can get better gas mileage and still produce quality performance.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1975162

Viva vs Myvi

I know some of you who are thinking of buying the Perodua Myvi are now considering buying the top of the range Perodua Viva 1000cc Premium instead. So I’m going to do a little comparison here. If you have anything to add, please feel free to comment and contribute to the discussion.

Power

Interestingly, it seems that the same 1.0 liter DVVT EJ-VE engine in the Perodua Viva makes more torque than the Perodua Myvi’s 1.0 liter DVVT EJ-VE engine. The Viva claims to make 90Nm of torque at 3,600rpm, while the Myvi 1.0 liter only makes 88Nm at 3,600rpm – that’s a minor difference of only 2Nm though.

Since the Perodua Viva 1.0 liter would clearly beat the Myvi 1.0 in terms of power to weight ratio, so let’s compare the Myvi 1.3 to the Viva 1.0 Premium instead. The Myvi 1.3 weighs 955kg and puts out 86 horsepower. That’s a power to weight ratio of 0.09 horsepower per kg. As for the Perodua Viva 1000cc Premium, it weighs 800kg and puts out 60 horsepower – that gives it a power to weight ratio of 0.075 horsepower per kg.

So we can conclude that in a drag race, the Viva won’t be able to smoke it’s larger sibling in stock form. That doesn’t mean the Viva is terribly slow – in a previous supermini shootout done together with folks at NST Life & Times, I found that the Myvi effortlessly smoked other superminis with larger 1.5 liter engines.

Another thing to point out is the Perodua Myvi 1.3 liter uses a 4-cylinder engine, and 4-cylinder engines are alot smoother than 3-cylinder engines like the one found in the Perodua Viva. 3-cylinders have more vibration, which might end up being felt by you in the steering wheel and other points in the chassis.

Fuel Economy

According to Perodua’s own charts, the Perodua Viva 1000cc Premium can travel 17.5km per liter of petrol on a combined cycle which I suspect involves alot of light footed driving and highway cruising. This is for the manual transmission. The Myvi 1.3 manual is rated at 17.1km per liter of petrol. Very similar fuel consumption, however the people on the streets who actually own the Myvi 1.3 manual reports actual mileage of about 13 to 14 km per liter if driven frugally.

As for the auto transmission, Perodua says the Myvi 1.3 Auto can get 13.5 km per liter, however the average man on the street usually gets about 10 to 11 km per liter. Comparing it to the Viva 1.0 liter automatic, Perodua says it can get 15.1km per liter, so expect about 12km per liter in reality.

Thus we can assume the Viva automatic should be a little more frugal than the Perodua Myvi automatic, but for the manual transmission models actual fuel economy should prove to be about the same.

Space

The Perodua Viva is actually longer in the interior than the Perodua Myvi at 1845mm compared to the Perodua Myvis 1835mm, but a great margin narrower. Having a long interior is important, it ensures the rear passenger legroom is at comfortable levels, just like the Perodua Myvi’s. However, being narrower the downside is you can’t really fit 3 people in the rear bench comfortably, making the Perodua Viva more of a 4-seater than a 5-seater. The Viva’s boot is only 149 liters with the rear bench upright compared to the Myvi’s 255 liters, significantly smaller, however you can extend this size by dropping the rear passenger bench to create a 449 liter space.

Ride and Handling

Nothing much can be said about the Perodua Myvi’s handling abilities other than the fact that it’ll probably get you to work and back safely. From what I’ve heard from some journalists who’ve driven the car, I think I shouldn’t expect much of the Viva’s either. Which is a shame as the Kelisa was a somewhat fun drive. Many will miss the Kelisa’s zippy DNA which is reportedly missing in the new Viva. If you want a driver’s small car, go get the Proton Savvy.

Equipment levels

One thing I am concerned about is the lack of an integrated CD player head unit in the Perodua Viva, which means Viva owners will have to be careful about where they park their cars lest their mirrors get smashed and their head units stolen. However, this means the CD player can be easily swapped.

The equipment level of the Perodua Viva 1.0 liter standard is disappointing to be honest, not even proper alloy wheels are supplied, instead you are given steel wheels. This means a difference of roughly RM4k on average gets you airbags, ABS, proper alloy wheels, wing mirrors with signal lamps, roof spoiler, and etc. I’m really not sure if it’s worth it or not – I’ll leave it up to you.

The Perodua Myvi on the other hand has just about everything you need in the baseline 1.3 liter model. It also feels more premium because of an interior design that looks abit more higher grade, as well as Optitron-style meters which are self illuminating, unlike the backlit meter clusters of the Perodua Viva.

Safety

Both the Viva Premium and Myvi Premium have dual airbags, antilock brakes – the usual stuff. The Perodua Myvi’s Japanese cousin the 2005 Daihatsu Sirion scored a 4 star score in the Euro NCAP crash test for adult protection, while crash test results of the previous gen Daihatsu Mira that the Perodua Viva is based managed a 3 star rating.

Price

Perodua Viva 1000cc MT Solid: RM36,800
Perodua Viva 1000cc MT Metallic: RM37,200
Perodua Viva 1000cc AT Solid: RM39,800
Perodua Viva 1000cc AT Metallic: RM40,200
Perodua Viva 1000cc Premium MT Solid: RM40,800
Perodua Viva 1000cc Premium MT Metallic: RM41,200
Perodua Viva 1000cc Premium AT Solid: RM43,800
Perodua Viva 1000cc Premium AT Metallic: RM44,200

Perodua Myvi 1300cc MT Solid: RM43,007.60
Perodua Myvi 1300cc MT Metallic: RM43,530.80
Perodua Myvi 1300cc AT Solid: RM45,912.60
Perodua Myvi 1300cc AT Metallic: RM46,435.80
Perodua Myvi 1300cc Premium MT Solid: RM45,912.60
Perodua Myvi 1300cc Premium MT Metallic: RM46,435.80
Perodua Myvi 1300cc Premium AT Solid: RM48,792.60
Perodua Myvi 1300cc Premium AT Metallic: RM49,315.80

The differences between the non-Premium and Premium versions of the Perodua Viva is roughly about RM4,000, while in the Myvi it is only about RM2,900 or so.

So yeah, Perodua Viva 1000cc Premium Auto Metallic at RM44,200 or the Perodua Myvi 1300cc Premium AT Metallic at RM49,315.80? That’s a difference of about RM5,000 there for a bigger engine, slightly more performance, a minor decrease in fuel consumption frugalness, a wider interior space, and a bigger boot.

The boot space doesn’t matter to me – both boots are too small for serious usage unless you put the rear bench seats down.

Is that extra RM5,000 to go from A-segment to B-segment worth it, or would you rather save the money?

Perodua Viva Price List 2011

Car: Perodua Viva Price List

Perodua Viva 660BX (M) Solid	24,900.00
Perodua Viva 660BX (M) Metalic	25,300.00
Perodua Viva 660EX (M) Solid	28,500.00
Perodua Viva 660EX (M) Metalic	28,900.00
Perodua Viva 850 (M) Solid	32,500.00
Perodua Viva 850 (M) Metalic	32,900.00
Perodua Viva 1.0 Solid	36,500.00
Perodua Viva 1.0 Metalic	36,900.00
Perodua Viva ELITE 1.0 (M) Solid	37,500.00
Perodua Viva ELITE 1.0 (M) Metalic	37,900.00
Perodua Viva ELITE 1.0 (A) Solid	40,500.00
Perodua Viva ELITE 1.0 (A) Metalic	40,900.00
Perodua Viva ELITE EZL (Exclusive Edition) Solid	41,600.00
Perodua Viva ELITE EZL (Exclusive Edition) Metalic	42,000.00
Perodua Viva ELITE EZi 1.0 (A) Solid	44,500.00
Perodua Viva ELITE EZi 1.0 (A) Metalic	44,900.00