The turbo is the great absentee under the hood of the new one Subaru BRZ. Which, to remedy the power deficit of the old model complained by so many customers, seemed to have to focus on a nice turbocharger. At least this was expected by the majority of enthusiasts and professionals, now accustomed to ever smaller, more powerful and efficient engines thanks to the miracles of supercharging. But to get there” extra power (+ 23 hp) and maximum torque (+ 38 Nm) enough to make the car more gritty and faster Subaru’s Japanese have preferred not to take the road that is popular, namely that of downsizing. Indeed, the engineers did the exact opposite, mounting an engine with a larger displacement than the previous one (2.4 versus 2 liters).
The reason? Preserving the most appreciated feature of the old model, that is the manageability. But how can the turbo affect the driving dynamics of a car? The explanation, obviously limited to the specific case, came at the conclusion of the presentation of the new car from Dominick Infante, Subaru’s head of public relations. The manager went into details, and from his clarifications it emerged that the choice not to turbo the BRZ was dictated by technical reasons related to the use of an existing engine, that of the SUV. Ascent. Which has the turbocharger, but in a position such that in the transplant under the hood of the BRZ it would have forced the designers to place the engine higher, consequently increasing thecenter of gravity heightor and thus penalizing the dynamic performance of the car.
(The 4-cylinder boxer engine with two camshafts per bank of the Subaru Ascent, which was transplanted to the new BRZ without the turbocharger. Identified by the initials FA24, has a displacement of 2387 cc and a compression ratio of 10.6: 1. . Cylinder block and heads are made of aluminum)
The turbo, added Infante, would also have involved higher costs and an increase in engine weight, an aspect on which particular attention was paid in the design and development of the new BRZ. The increase in power is actually quite modest: the horses used to be 205 and now they are 228. But if we analyze the value and, above all, the usability of the maximum torque, then it is easy to understand the logic that guided the designers of the Japanese house. The old two-liter engine peaked at 6,400 rpm, which meant driving close to the red zone whenever you wanted to take full advantage of it. The Ascent-derived 2.4, on the other hand, not only boasts a higher maximum torque (249 versus 211 Nm), but it reaches it much earlier, at just 3,700 rpm. The effect of these numbers, the Subaru engineers explain, is evident: the torque curve is now flatter and smoother, because the “vacuum” between 3000 and 5000 rpm that the old engine showed has been canceled. The driving pleasure is what gains. That remains old school and, this time, does not bow to the rules of downsizing.
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