1998 Griffa Sirion
Shhh, I know there’s a Daihatsu model of that name. This is a recreation of an old idea (back from the Kee era), and back then I gave it that name without remembering that little Daihatsu. Anyway, back on track. This time, something extremely tech focused, so there aren’t many photos.
Last time @Restomod asked about engine lineups and ideas for that, so well, this car fits the topic perfectly. It exists only because of its engine lineup, it’s basically just a container for this idea. The idea that irks me every now and then, as I like it, but have no good way of using it, at least yet. So, it gets into the throwaway car, just to silence the mental imp. Does it look shit? Possibly. But that’s not the point of this car, so I don’t really care 
Also now that I look at it it seems that the grille got bugged.
The point is this:
Yes, I have made all those (main) variants. I didn’t make the optional transmission ones though. And by the way, they’re all RWD. They’re mostly the same except for the drivetrain, wheels, and whatever the game complained about (mostly brakes I think). My idea is a lineup of a somewhat large, normal car (think between Opel Omega and Volvo S80 maybe?), that consists of many various engines, in general pretty ordinary, and with most of them being I6s. Well, half of them in this case, to be precise. Basically every engine here serves my idea, none is just filling some gap.
The 8-valve is supposed to represent a simple, cheap and pretty basic engine, maybe a bit outdated and weak, but still offered for those, who just want a big car for cheap and don’t care about performance. The 16-valve is the normal, modern (for '98) baseline, with adequate performance, but nothing more. The T4… I’ll explain at the end with the T6. The 2.8 is probably my favourite of them all - it’s the “cheap cruiser” option, offering excellent smoothness and nice torque of an I6, but without any bells and whistles, with its somewhat dated and cheaper design. What I like about it is that it’s a pretty reasonable solution that… didn’t happen much IRL, I can only think of the OHV V6 in the late Scorpios. And that it’s an engine just meant to make the drive pleasant, nothing more. It isn’t the most advanced, efficient or powerful, but it would probably be really nice to drive.
Anyway, next! The 3.3 is what could be the top of the offer in a real car of a similar type. Modern, somewhat powerful six. However, here it has one step above it, with two real performance engines. One is a turbo sibling of the 3.3, with lower bore for better durability, and advanced tech inside. The other is a North America special, a V8 taken from some muscle car I guess, a classic PUSHROD VEE EIGHT. Unfortunately due do it being an old and really simple family I wasn’t able to make it less thirsty while still equally powerful.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are the “diesels”. I’m somewhat disappointed with the I6 one, as it’s really just a smellier and noisier alternative to the 16-valve, with very similar performance and efficiency. But well, that might be due to it being a pretty simple, non-CR engine. And what it really is in the game? A 2.3 (I think) I6 with MPI, burning LPG. This is my typical way of emulating pre-CR diesels. The displacement is reduced, as without turbo the torque is way too high for those fake diesels, like 10-20% higher than real life equivalents. I keep it for the turbocharged ones too for consistency, it tends to give more realistic numbers for low boost too. As for the injection, I treat MPI as direct injection in fake diesels because it unlocks just a little bit earlier than real life DI diesels appeared in cars, and because it is both an upgrade over some older solutions, and leaves room for further upgrade emulating common rail. Ok, so why LPG? It improves the economy numbers, while not adding as much torque as LNG. Overall the whole design is optimised for getting roughly realistic numbers in a consistent and easy manner. And the I5 is the same story, just a cylinder shorter (really, it’s a clone with a cylinder cut off and some minor things adjusted to the smaller engine).
So, what about the T4 and T6? Why are they there, and why are there two different 2.0 turbo engines, one I4 and one I6? The answer is taxes on different markets. By 1998 this was slowly disappearing, but many countries, particularly in Europe (but not only - for example, Japan too) had various taxes with brackets set on 2.0 engines. Anything above, and you pay extra. It also used to happen that diesels had a higher bracket - for example, in Italy it was 2.0 for petrol, and 2.5 for diesel. Above that you had to pay doubled tax. So, manufacturers often made special versions for such markets, with tax-optimised capacities, and sometimes turbocharged to regain the missing power. The T4 and T6 are such variants - T4 is an alternative for the 2.8, and T6 - for the 3.3. The former is an I4 to keep the cost lower, while the latter is meant to squeeze six cylinders into the lower tax bracket. Also, the T4 can replace the 2.8 in the markets that require WES 9 emissions, since the old-fashioned I6 meets at most WES 8 standards.
Having explained that, here you can see how the engine lineup would look like depending on the market conditions (USA got WES 8 assigned because of Gasmea requiring just that at the time):
And the last bit are the engine codes. TBH I didn’t use them in the game, as I came up with them later, when making the first table. I thought it would be cooler if there were some, not just basic “Griffa I6 18v” that I used in-game 
I think they are pretty straightforward, so there isn’t all that much to explain. The first letter is the family series (the overall design of the block, dimensions, layout etc.), the second is the cylinder count (and maybe some other info too, IDK), but only for petrols. Diesels have “D” + the cyl. count in a number, so they are easily distinguishable. Then, there are two different systems used, depending on the fuel. For petrols it goes like this:
- MB - family as explained above
- 4 - this is optional, number of valves, indicated only if it changed since the introduction of the family
- 20 - capacity
- NV/NW/SM - the first letter denotes tuning (economy, normal, sport etc.), the second the main defining tech of that engine variant; V means single VVT, W means dual VVT, M means MPI
- LT/HT/HTL - turbos always get denoted, with L for low boost, H for high boost; the second L is the special tech letter as before, meaning VVL
- 1 - sequential revision number (no, I didn’t make earlier revisions of those engines, just imagined how many of that config could exist)
Diesels differ slightly, but the general idea is similar:
- RD5 - family as explained above
- 12 - power/10 rounded to the nearest integer; diesels rarely differ in capacity between variants, even if they differ by power, so this tells more
- T - turbo, without boost level, as that’s dealt with by the power designation
- D - direct injection, I guess common rail could be C and indirect injection would just have no letter
- 2 - sequential revision number
Oh, and as you might have guessed, the I6 diesel is basically a dieselified clone of the 2.8, despite nothing in the code suggesting it.
That’s all, let me know if you went through all this wall of text and what you think about such posts
As usual, here you can download the stuff, if you want (IDK why would you, but whatever ) - they all look the same except for wheels and arches, I didn’t even bother choosing rims for them, only the 3.3 has sth chosen for the photos:
Griffa_Sirion_-_2_0_T6.car (25.6 KB)
Griffa_Sirion_-_2_3_TD.car (25.5 KB)
Griffa_Sirion_-_2_0_8v.car (25.5 KB)
Griffa_Sirion_-_2_0_16v.car (25.5 KB)
Griffa_Sirion_-_2_0_T4.car (25.6 KB)
Griffa_Sirion_-_V8.car (25.5 KB)
Griffa_Sirion_-_2_8.car (25.5 KB)
Griffa_Sirion_-_2_8_TD.car (25.5 KB)
Griffa_Sirion_-_3_0_turbo.car (25.6 KB)
Griffa_Sirion_-_3_3.car (25.6 KB)
PS Don’t worry, I have sth more exciting and prettier in store for you, but it would require much more photos, and those take me a lot of time.
That’s the Carbonite variant pictured, just in a different paintjob. I don’t have that specific one anymore, but I have all the remaining 3, which you can download:
), 2800Ci some regular nice coupe with an injected I6 (based on the same chassis as the 2000 sedan), and then there’s the 3500CSi.
