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10 Best Engines

Closing in on a decade of Ward's 10 Best Engines competitions, 2003 represents the ninth installment of the auto industry's first awards program to annually recognize outstanding engine performance.

Since its inception in 1995, Ward's 10 Best Engines has evolved into an influential gauge of powertrain engineering and development prowess. Auto makers — and the suppliers who furnish often substantial engineering and production resources to major engine programs — each year seem to more vigorously pursue 10 Best Engines' honors.

A glance at the 10 Best list reveals another matter that's no coincidence: None of the winning engines is fitted in a vehicle that's selling poorly or is otherwise ill-regarded. In fact, most of this year's 10 Best Engines power some of the market's best-performing vehicles — on the road and on the sales charts. Chalk up one for the camp that says great vehicles don't happen without great engines.

When you slobber over an engine that makes 225 hp and 214 lb.-ft. of torque, what do you do for an upgrade that adds an incredible 108 hp?

You see our superlative-deficit dilemma, then, with BMW AG's mighty M3 engine. Like its lesser-powered 3L brother, it enjoys all the straight-6 attributes that have over the years turned our judges into veritable BMW engine groupies, yet increases horsepower to such an intoxicating level that we can't even pretend impartiality.

Because of the BMW's Motorsports Div.-tuned 3.2L DOHC I-6, the 10 Best Engines process has mutated into this: Nominate 30 or so engines. Test for six weeks. Then select nine of the best, because a win for the M-modified 3.2L is as automatic as blinking your eye.

There's more power than most V-8s that have 50% more displacement. The 262 lb.-ft. (355 Nm) of torque — much of it available throughout the rev range thanks to the double-VANOS variable valve timing — balances the high-strung ponies with the authentic shove for which power-producing revs just can't substitute.

The company with “Motoren” as its middle name continues the second longest-running streak of Ward's 10 Best Engines awards with its always awesome 3L inline 6-cyl.

In some form or another, a BMW straight-6 has been a 10 Best winner each year since the competition began in 1995.

If the bombastic Motorsports division-tuned 3.2L variant — another longtime squatter on the 10 Best Engines list — is a stun grenade wearing an Armani suit, this “everyday” iteration of BMW AG's hallmark engine is a bit less volatile, slightly more approachable.

See, beneath that anywhere-on-the-tach refinement, BMW's 3L inline 6-cyl. always is ready to spin its heart out, slashing for the (too low) redline and taunting you to grab the next gear. At lower speeds, throttle tip-in is superb and direct, while the gearing, regardless of whether it's automatic or manual, simply seems a natural extension of this engine's intensely broad and satisfying powerband.

At higher speeds, one begins to appreciate the unassailable balance of the inline-6 design: this engine feels as if it could hum along at 5,000 rpm for decades, so vibration-free that one is convinced BMW engineers finally have perfected the magnetically levitated crankshaft.

MINI - A Hoot After Not Expecting Much 1.6L SUPERCHARGED SOHC I-4

After the way some of the European press disparaged the all-new Mini Cooper's naturally aspirated “Pentagon” 1.6L SOHC I-4 — the spawn of the now-controversial joint venture between DaimlerChrysler AG and BMW AG (Mini's owner) — we didn't expect much from the supercharged variant.

Yow, were we wrong. Whatever the supposed deficiencies of the naturally aspirated Pentagon (we suspect most critics believe they don't need to look any deeper than the scrawny 115 hp listed in the press kit), the Eaton Corp. supercharger apparently camouflages, because almost every Best Engines judge proclaimed this engine a genuine hoot.

The supercharger delivers a modest 11.6 psi (0.8 bar), and from a standstill, not much happens for the first 50 ft. (15 m). But once past that anxious moment it takes to hit about 2,500, the engine finds the cam, the supercharger begins earnest compression and the Cooper S launches to 60 mph (97 km/h) in a coltish 7 seconds.

by Bill Visnic
Ward's Dealer Business
February 1, 2003
courtesy WardsAuto.com