>There is more religion and snake oil in this topic - exhausting (pun
>intended). For years people have been promulgating the BS of higher
>technology Japanese engines over German, American, British and Korean. Now, I
>do understand that fact probably has no place in this discussion, but tough.
>A B&W comparison can be made readily for any engine, so long as the same
>numbers are used in the comparison. The best comparison of any set of engines
>comes from a comparison of the Brake Mean Effective Pressure  (BMEP) for the
>engine. This is in essence the peak torque normalized by the displacement
>with a few constants thrown in for good measure. This is largely established
>by combustion chamber design and the efficiency of hot air generation
>(combustion and heat transfer to the compressed air charge). Now the very
>best comparison can be made with the torque curve  (torque vs. rpm) but the
>Japanese are too ashamed of their engine performance to publish these
>figures, they only release (Subarea) the peak torque and HP numbers.

What c**p. Also, Subaru certainly does publish torque/power graphs. I
have a copy somewhere on my Mac of the Impreza WRX STi Type RA graph
(280ps) ...