Brake-O-Rama shows the world’s best engines are smaller than ever!

Why the world’s best engines are smaller than ever!

Every year for the past 18, the tech gang at Ward’s Automotive compile their list of the ten best engines in the world. This year’s list sports the smallest lineup ever, with the average engine roughly half as big as it was a decade ago. Here’s why the size of your block may not matter anymore.

First, the official list and the vehicles they’re most often found in:

• 3.0L TFSI Supercharged DOHC V-6 (Audi A6)
• 2.0L N20 Turbocharged DOHC I-4 (BMW Z4/528i)
• 3.0L N55 Turbocharged DOHC I-6 (BMW 335i coupe)
• 3.6L Pentastar DOHC V-6 (Chrysler 300/Jeep Wrangler)
• 2.0L EcoBoost DOHC I-4 (Ford Edge)
• 5.0L DOHC V-8 (Ford Mustang Boss 302)
• 2.0L Turbocharged DOHC I-4 (Buick Regal GS)
• 1.6L DOHC I-4 (Hyundai Accent/Kia Soul)
• 2.0L Skyactiv DOHC I-4 (Mazda3)

Instead of size, automakers have been pushing toward tinier engines to save fuel, while using tech bits like direct injection, super- & turbocharging and other tricks to keep power steady. Yet there’s only one hybrid on the list — a reflection that many hybrids push for fuel economy at the expense of good driving — and no diesels, a slight the oil-burning community will not appreciate.

Also missing: Any engines from Toyota, Honda or  Mercedes, three companies that have suffered their share of misfortune as of late, some of it self-inflicted. And all the vehicles powered by this list are quite popular. Having a top engine won’t redeem a terrible car — but it’s a requirement for building a great vehicle.

via http://brakeorama.info/brake-o-rama-shows-the-world%E2%80%99s-best-engines-are-smaller-than-ever/ and http://brake-o-rama.com

BusinessMoneyManagement.com

zalmansilber.com, zalmansilber

Managing finances is the heart of any business - just ask serial entrepreneur Zalman Silber. From an already successful career as an agent for New York Life, he has parlayed an inspiration, the Skyride, into several more businesses that at first merely replicated his initial success but then explored other fields as his interests diversified - including money management for high-worth individuals (like himself!).

Which is an interesting thing to consider, money management in business terms and in personal terms, where there are differences and where the similarities. And there are also differences and similarities between money management for those with a lot of money and those of more modest means. For someone to advise another on high finance, as Zalman Silber has recently taken to doing in his latest entrepreneurial venture, requires great expertise - we're not talking about common-sensical notions of household budgeting here, but tax shelters, tax write-offs, and other arcane matters on which only a fellow multi-millionaire could properly advise!

American Heritage Holdings, LLC is the businesses Zalman Silber founded in just that regard, and it's currently operating at maximum capacity managing money for a large group of institutional clients as well as with high net-worth individuals. The firm specializes in unique, highly segmented financial instruments, including insurance and reinsurance, along with more traditional interests in acquiring bankrupt companies and turning them around into profit-making businesses. One of the most critical elements of American Heritage Holdings' success is the emphasis on team effort. All decisions, from asset allocation to stock selection, are made by committee to avoid succumbing to the emotional swings of fear and greed that affect the behavior of an individual who makes investment decisions alone.

Instead, a team of individuals implements a proprietary management process. Unlike a "star" manager system, Zalman Silber’s clientele benefits from a time-tested model run by industry insiders and veterans whose goal is to help protect client assets on the downside while achieving better than market returns on the upside. And in addition to managing funds for institutional clients, American Heritage Holdings offers tailored investment management services to private clients a variety of investment options like cash management, total return fixed income asset management, insurance asset management, liability driven investing, and stable value asset management. It's a winning strategy that has produced growth and success ever since the company's founding in 2004!

Driven NewYork

silber

They say if you can make it here you can make it anywhere, and the serial success story that is Zalman Silber proves that old adage many times over, all over the world. DrivenNewYork.com is dedicated to learning from those who've made it in this town, and it's a fantastic opportunity to learn from someone who's also helped make this town, too. For visitors associate our city with the Empire State Building, and Zalman Silber has associated himself with the iconic landmark through his inspired Skyride, a virtual helicopter fly-over of New York located on the second floor of the structure.

The list of New York success stories is long and varied. Besides Zalman Silber, there are any number of businessmen who happened to have been in the city when inspiration struck. Maybe it's something in the air. Municipal boosters like to point out that the diversity of people from so many backgrounds can only make for intellectual foment. Historians will point out any number of socio-economic factors, no doubt. But one thing few people realize is the sheer anonymity of the place - terrifying for sheltered souls, pre-requisite for a makeover.

New York embodies America in its scale of vastness. But this is not the vastness of the open plains but a non-physical intellectual space. For in a city of crammed tenements, there is nowhere to retreat but within, into the private life, the life of the mind. And the sheer numbers of humanity that make such retreat necessary also makes it possible, and makes of it a pleasure, for in a town of millions on multiple millions no one cares who are you or what you believe. And so you can start over and proclaim anything.

And so it is that the anonymity which frightens tourists is welcomed by our citizens like fire to a chef. The tragedy of the commons? Yes, it's a rough-and-tumble kind of place where anonymity is a close cousin of apathy and even recklessness. But such otherwise unfortunate conditions also afford movers and shakers the freedom they need to create and succeed. And so they make this town even as they make it here. These princes of the city often know well its hard-scrabble streets and by virtue of their familiarity often see no need for improvement: If they can do it, why not everyone else?

Such is the heartless abandon of many a self-made tycoon. But this toughest of towns is also brimming with philanthropic largesse - the truest measure of success of all: Not he who has much, but he who gives much is rich.