Expounding on what I’ve already posted in terms of reasoning for rules.
1)Large amounts of Techpool are need to even come close to simulating engines of this era.
an engine with a reasonable, over-square profile that should be able to rev out to like 5000 rpm implodes when run with tech available at base +5 techpool.
to even have a chance at functioning, you need to use forged conrods, something that the game doesn’t allow in 1946 unless you have +10 techpool. even then you barely have any leeway in rpm after that.
And remember, this is a decently over-square engine, something that was less common in the era. If i was to replicate something like a Bentley 4 Liter’s engine, which has and 85 mm bore and 115 mm stroke, It implodes even
with forged internals.
This is an engine that makes it’s power irl at 4000 rpm. To achieve that in automation, you have to not only use forged internals, but also +15 quality.
Even making as close to a replica as above, you need forged internals to make it even close to function. Which brings me to my second point.
2)Negative techpool makes no sense for this class of car and era.
I understand the initial jump to negative techpool, given the age of the cars. However, take into account how old the companies used in the inspirations are. Most of of them formed in the 1910s and the more established of them formed in the 1900s or right before. By 1937, they would have between 20-30 years of producing cars under their belt at that point. Not only that, but they’re funded by the largess of the ruling class at the time, so would have plenty of funds to use for R&D. The companies most of us would be using for this challenge will probably have similar origins and at least close to that level of backing from sales. Mandating negative techpool does not make sense in this. We are also dealing with luxury cars here, stuff that would be in the $200k range today if not even more expensive. You’d expect cars of that caliber to have the best tech or at minimum heavily refined versions of slightly older tech. Regardless of any of that, automation itself locks things out that were easily obtainable in the late 30s behind even small amounts of techpool. 2 barrel carbs require +2 techpool, for instance. Unless we want a round that is purely determined by where quality is used and suspension tuning, we need a reasonably large techpool budget to get any sort of engineering diversity even close to what they had in period. In support of this, to get the +10 needed for forged internals already puts total techpool costs over 30M, even with 0 aspiration techpool, which is a common efficiency in most CSR builds.
To achieve anything close to what cars of this class were doing in this era, we’ll need both a generous techpool and overall budget. Luxury cars like this aren’t cheap or simple, so we should stop assuming that they are, even when they’re older.
