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grover posted:Well, it's still not all that economical to implement, but CAFE has forced the manufacturers' hand in the matter. I wouldn't call the making vehicles for the most absurdly horsepower-hungry market a forced hand at all. I find that I can't get a decent torquey engine in a small truck without having some sort of deficit, like being huge (tacoma), ancient and with no small engine (ranger), or being a Nissan. I don't get the BUY OLDER viewpoint when its what most people would buy who want a fleet truck, its gotta be the margins. You can't charge $3500 for a diesel which involves expensive emissions testing and applied costs on a $17,000 pickup truck. You could probably do it with a middle sized (realistic) truck with a v6 diesel, but it'd still be a limited market. There aren't many buyers for tiny cheap trucks with comparatively expensive engine, there aren't many buyers for a hardcore high-articulation high-ratio US-diesel offroad vehicle with miles of ground clearance for cheap (those just buy Jeeps which still are awful cars in every regard besides axle articulation and swaybar disconnect switches but now are a version of a 1997 Range Rover inside), nor anything that people seem to want. Its Americanisms as much as bad management, high emissions regulations play a lesser part, but all 3 point towards we not getting the other world market cars. It took the Internet to realize that GM/Ford made decent cars elsewhere, but we're not running a multi-national corporation in mom's basement so therefore we are a bit more adaptable.
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Jul 19, 2010 16:49
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InitialDave posted:Oh, spool means turbocharger, not differential replacement? I thought that sounded weird. Never heard it referred to that way, a spool is a non-differential differential displacemet. Anyway, I love turbochargers and such but a new 5.0 is a bit hard to say no to...
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Sep 29, 2010 19:07
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Russian Bear posted:Next they'll strap 800lb worth of stupid poo poo on it and make it FWD. You mean they'll make a real production car meeting safety regulations besides marketing-claim vaporware, and make it the Rav-4s awesome AWD. Maybe they'll be like old Subarus and have FWD standard and AWD optional! I have faith for Subaru to totally ignore the whole point of 25 years of their drivetrain engineering (and their claim to fame and marketing point for the same amount of time), I don't think Toyota will have a problem making a sporty car again, they've done well attacking Mercedes on most of its products( besides the F-line versus AMG). BMW doesn't make cheap little RWD sport dealies besides Mazda and Hyundai. DJ Commie fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Oct 13, 2010 |
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Oct 13, 2010 16:24
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A5H posted:Everyone should be making poo poo light and awesome. You can get through safety without weight. Safety, weight, price, functionality. Pick two, 2.5 ignoring price. Safety cannot be removed. I'd rather survive a crash in a track outing or on the street than being bothered about adding a bit of power to compensate for 100lbs of door beams. Muffinpox posted:People want convenience more than safety, a bit like how we don't have 4 points standard despite numerous advantages. Three points do pretty well, the twisting allowed by a single side shoulder belt doesn't really affect much but side crashes, the upper torso is pretty rigid and stays straight in most accidents. DJ Commie fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Oct 13, 2010 |
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Oct 13, 2010 17:16
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kimbo305 posted:bahahahahaha way to stick to the corporate design language: I saw that last night and I nearly died laughing.
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Oct 18, 2010 17:41
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Blocko posted:Wasn't this tried once before already? You mean the one that sold almost 120,000 cars in 7 years? The one that oustold the 911 every year it was made? The favorite of club racers and probably the best early 70s Porsche that you could actually drive?
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Nov 3, 2010 01:06
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Blocko posted:Yes, that one. Only 911 purists hate it. And the 912. And the 1976 912E.
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Nov 3, 2010 05:30
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I think its competitors are the A4, some Subaru, etc. If they made a Cadillac BLS-V or something similar, that'd be more of an S4-type competitor.
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Nov 19, 2010 04:37
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Throatwarbler posted:AWD is just a gimmick so Audi and Subaru can differentiate their higher end offerings while still making cheap FWD mass market cars off the same floor plan. Snow and bad weather, bad road surface, rallying, and as a driver aid AWD excels. Its a great way to put down monstrous power or get through a monstrous storm. The difference in price between a FWD audi and non-performance AWD Audi isn't that great, and even come in the same models. Subaru hasn't made a FWD from AWD car since 1996 or so, etc.
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Dec 9, 2010 06:58
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Seat Safety Switch posted:They need to make this loving car right now. Honda City Turbo II versus Daihatsu Charade GTti is my touge battle dream.
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Feb 23, 2011 19:12
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The turbo ECOtec is basically everything right that Mopar did wrong with with SRT-4 engine.
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Mar 4, 2011 17:39
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travisray2004 posted:wonder if the R will be AWD Audi TT?
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Apr 20, 2011 07:42
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ehnus posted:
Total classic.
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Jul 1, 2011 07:40
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The Escape/Tribute seems to sell pretty well, so its not really a bad bet to make a softer, more economical, easier to drive SUV.
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Jul 28, 2011 18:25
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That would be idiotic, why would the more eocnomical engine option get the performance designation? If I wanted my performance engine to rev to 5000RPM, I'd get something with an early SBC. VW diesel owners doon't pay the premium over the gasoline fuelled counterpart because someone makes a chip to make it faster.
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Aug 18, 2011 17:28
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Throatwarbler posted:Tha Aveo looks fine, and maybe some of us care more about go than sho. Pretty sure those are tumble generators, not 'restrictor plates'. They might function as the latter at over stock airflows, but were intented to tumble air into the chamber, aiding fuel/air mixing and cylinder swirl.
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Sep 8, 2011 04:37
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You can increase volumetric efficiency, but even on 20 year old engines they did CFD analyses, so losing power with whale dong intakes is the real probability.
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Sep 21, 2011 16:33
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They need to enter it in WRC. Its tiny, 1.6L Turbo DI, AWD enabled chassis. Homologation manual/AWD special?
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Sep 27, 2011 17:20
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rscott posted:10 and 2 you heathen Not in any racing ever.
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Sep 29, 2011 19:05
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Coredump posted:Are you sure about? Like 100% sure? I'm pretty sure if I take the time to go research I'm going to find someone that contradicts you. I suppose WRC changes to single hands on shifts like any other non-paddle shifter placement. F1 wheels are more like 9:30 and 2:30, they are more square than round, but their lock-to-lock steering ratio is less than a single revolution. The 9/3 placement of hands provides the most accuracy for turning, I suppose if you had really slow steering, lot of play, or needed serious leverage a 10/2 position might suit more. Knee driver supremacy.
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Sep 30, 2011 01:03
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PT6A posted:I've always wondered: if you're going to go to the trouble of making an AWD vehicle, why not offer a RWD version instead of a FWD version for people who don't want AWD? RWD vehicles feel so, so much better to drive than FWD, and if you're worried about winter/offroad driving, you should go with AWD anyway. Because the applied AWD design in that car doesnt mean that you can put 100% of power to the rear as the drivetrain or suspension might not be up to it. That and a front heavy transverse engine RWD car would handle like total crap.
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Oct 5, 2011 23:52
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Phone posted:Subaru likes to hang their engines as far forward as possible. The boxer and drivetrain packaging that Subaru uses is pretty entrenched, they didn't adopt a oilpan axle pass-through system like BMW or Nissan, so having a 2cylinder long engine was their solution. It'd be pretty hard anyway, given their crank throws would maybe interfere with the axle. Unforunately, the forward-mount boxer design's only benefit is a lower cG, polar moments go nuts, packaging gets complicated with modern VVT cylinder heads and maintenance, and you end up following a philosophy meant for a pushrod 4boxer and lever activated 4wd. You can solve the cG problem by raising the engine above the level of the monocoque's rails, but you lose the only benefit of the design.
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Nov 1, 2011 16:54
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Cat Terrist posted:Not often I disagree but mate, no. The Subie egnine's mass is even more compacted than a rotary and the apparent overhang is nothing more than the ancillaries - the main mass is quite a way back and centrallised, which is even more pronounced in the BRZ. The crank centerline of a normal transverse-mounted engine is not more than a few inches forward of the axle center-line (the ring gear diameter plus the drive gear off the output shaft plus the distance from the input shaft to output shaft), where in the Boxer the flywheel, clutch and entire crank length is forward of the axle, nearly a foot from the axles to the front of the heads, plus ancillaries. It somewhat related to why Subaru wasn't competitive in WRC. There were lot of reasons before their inability to meet the new requirements, but one was (I heard it from a prodrive article) that they were unable to move the engine backwards in any sort of reasonable regard, where Ford and Citroen WRC engines are canted back at like 50degrees to help the polar moment. The heads were basically over the axle centerlines. I suppose you could install an integral driveshaft in the oilpan like BMW/Nissan did with their longitudinal AWD cars, but I think the Subaru engine is placed too far down in the bay to make it workable, I've never seen it tried with a boxer. The boxer is a compromise of an old design decision (or legacy of design) to solve a problem that doesn't exist on this car, being the front axles. I haven't the slightest idea why Toyota went with such a silly design idea, though they don't have any current sporty engines at all and maybe the FB could tune up nicely, though Subaru isn't know for its N/A engines.
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Nov 2, 2011 08:09
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Un-l337-Pork posted:Check out my sweet new Mazdarati. My Mazdarati doesn't do 185
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Nov 12, 2011 20:23
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InitialDave posted:I'm always willing to stick up for torsion beams. They're simple, light, and a well-designed one is like having trailing arm IRS with an integrated anti-roll bar. Its not a torsion beam like a VW (which is okay despite having absurd unsprung weight and weird characteristics with bushing deflection), but this is a beam that doesn't twist, its basically a 4 link dead axle.
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Jun 25, 2012 02:55
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PeterWeller posted:Yeah, but a lot of RWD outright sports cars still come with open diffs. They're not standard on Miatas, Mustangs, Camaros, 350Zs, Genesis Coupes, or even Boxsters and Caymans. I'm always shocked by how many very sporty cars don't have LSDs when my chumpy little Civic Si does. Most of those can still have an acceptable driving experience with some fun, whereas an overpowered FWD car with an open diff (and unequal length drive axles combined with that) ends up being a torque steering shitpile.
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Jun 25, 2012 17:23
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kimbo305 posted:Corvette has never been saddled with the burden of it. SLA went away with the 4th gen Camaros/Firebirds. I am pretty sure the first generation Corvette had a solid rear axle, but it didn't have a V8 on launch either.
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Oct 24, 2012 16:51
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InitialDave posted:I believe rally driver Maurice Gatsonides (of speed camera fame) did this to his brake lights, so competitors couldn't gauge his braking points. A Baja desert racer told me he'd do this through sand traps, so people behind him would go too fast and crash out. Hell of a sportsman 
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Nov 20, 2012 23:24
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drgitlin posted:Ford actually only invested £100,000 in the Cosworth DFV. In money of that era from what I imagine, which was likely a whole years racing budget at the time. Not that it didn't have staying power, it made it in and out of the Turbo era...20 years later.
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Dec 19, 2012 18:16
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Powershift posted:You can really tell who hauls poo poo and who doesn't. There are more than one company that offers auxiliary tanks that would fit in addition to your large (single? dual?) tank setup, so having to drive out of the way is a bit silly. Hell, there are underbed tanks that would probably take you closer to 100 gallons if you replaced your factory tank(s) too.
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Jan 22, 2013 20:12
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Xguard86 posted:maaan why cant they make these things with rwd. I'm cool with it in small cars because of space/weight and I think the lighter weight lower hp makes it less apparent but if you've got midsize+ its just hard to swallow front wheel drive. Especially Mazda where they try to claim they're sport oriented. Because only enthusiasts care about RWD, FWD has so many plusses from a manufacturing and efficiency point, you'd have to make them more expensive to appeal to the people who wouldn't buy a white good family sedan anyway.
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Feb 1, 2013 19:17
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Until you drive something with half its curb weight, with a chassis not from 1974, or not designed for being treated like a whipping boy (that jumps curbs) by fleets of all kinds. I never thought they were any good at anything but being ironic with some fantasy durability no owner would ever dare test. They certainly are not comfortable if you'd had the pleasure of riding in one how most people do, in cuffs. I drove a well maintained Marauder once and it was like driving a slower shittier 96 Impala SS, which itself was a container for a marginal v8, bad handling, and poor brakes.
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Feb 3, 2013 03:32
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DoLittle posted:Official press release and images of the Alfa 4C are out: http://www.alfaromeopress.com/press/article/115460 Definitel low slung, but as long as my 99 Impreza Outback Sport. Not something I'd call tiny. Seat Safety Switch posted:It's a lot more than I thought it would be. I was expecting BRZ money, not Cayman. Alfa is marketed as a premium brand, doubly so for the US re-introduction.
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Feb 12, 2013 19:15
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bull3964 posted:I just think they're going to have trouble with finding the people that have Cayman money buying in this car segment that will divorce themselves from the Porsche badge. I don't know, Alfa Romeo is a pretty strong brand, and they can at least trundle along with brand mysticism for a long time.
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Feb 12, 2013 20:22
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MrChips posted:With that wheelbase and track, I'm going to hazard a guess that the handling of the 4C can be summed up as "tricky". Also, I'll bet it's going to ride like crap on our bad North Ameican roads. I mean, being a focused sports car means it's going to ride harshly no matter what; what I'm saying is that it's going to be almost intolerable. That is probably the wildest speculation you could possibly have. What basis do you have for that? The Fiat 600? Mk1 Toyota MR2? Modern cars with true dastardly handling barely exist anymore, besides the Elise which isn't even in production. The Elise was designed to be an uncompromisingly light near-race car, not a nice place to sit in traffic or drive sloppily in inclement weather. The 4C won't be an Elise, it will be more like a Cayman or a Z4.
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Feb 13, 2013 06:25
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Front and rear subframes do not mean its not a stock chassis, but neither does a seam-welded souble-skinned body in white.
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Mar 13, 2013 23:14
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Cat Terrist posted:Ummmm..... no. Tossing the front and rear for purpose built replacements is fundamentally changing the chassis to something a hell of a lot different. Yes in the way that the suspension geometry can be changed; pickup points moved, anti squat/dive set in but I wasn't saying that. I was saying that a cage and custom subframes don't completely make up for a bad unibody if said car had one.
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Mar 19, 2013 01:57
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Throatwarbler posted:Oh no, the new Bently SUV is literally just going to be a rebadged Touareg. They're becoming GM so fast.
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Mar 19, 2013 17:24
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Laserface posted:What about when fully electric cars are mainstream? Will we still see cars like the Tesla with a gearbox driving the wheels, or will we see AWD cars with a motor and gearbox at each corner? electric power at least makes delivering power to each wheel less of a hassle than with a drivetrain. If there were 20 million electric cars each pulling 1500W to charge at night, that's 30GW of load, which is a lot when you think the entire generating capacity of California is 92GW. Night is a low draw time, but you'd have to have a charger controller network able to understand the power grid's status and shift chargers on/off the grid when capacity was an issue. edit: If everyone had nothing change but their cars were electric (lots of big cars per person), there's not many other options than Nuclear for its huge generating capcity, and really that is a political minefield itself. DJ Commie fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Mar 22, 2013 |
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Mar 22, 2013 16:37
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Snowdens Secret posted:You can put small, clean generators on branches of the grid. Like every neighborhood would have a fuel cell or two at the entrance. Runs off NG, makes extra hydrogen for hydrogen cars, powers house A/C during the day and charges cars at night. Minimal infrastructure upgrades to the main grid needed. South Koreans are already starting to do this by putting cells in larger apartment buildings and the Japanese are doing a sort of microgrid variant as response to the widespread blackouts after Fukushima. Localizing generation has its own problems, though. You have issues with syncing, controlling which direction power flows in, and that generally small generation plants aren't as efficient as larger plants. However, local regional power does open up cogeneration, which is a huge benefit in colder areas of the world. Large nuclear facilities with cogeneration could knock out massive amounts of CO2 emissions in entire regions, you could run drat near everything off of steam and electricity in areas without need for long-range road transport. Designing that from the ground up is easy, making that work in an environment not designed like that in the first place would be much harder. Doing cogeneration and grid enhancements for electric cars would probably be easiest in cities like NYC, where there already is steam transmission networks and underground cabling infrastructure. The real problem is that personal transport sucks, its a massive waste of finite resources and is ingrained into how people go about their lives, it will probably never change.
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Mar 24, 2013 19:52
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