Not For Him
The review for the Holden SRi Turbo coupe you
said in your review 'not for us' Experts have tested this car and I did
not see any of the problems your team found in their reviews. I guess
your team love the ugly looking Mazda 3 MPS with insane 190Kw FWD
with kidney busting noisy suspension; a Ford XR5 with no foot rest
or cruise, noisy ride and massive weight at the front. Your team sound
like amateurs. Your web site is not for me.
Bob
Australia
Hydrogen Generators
Hello guys at
Autospeed. After a bit of searching and reading of various articles I failed to
find material specifically relating to the effectiveness of hydrogen genorators
as aftermarket add on's to standard petrol engines. for example: http://www.hydrogenfuelsaver.com.au/home_hydrogen_fuel.htm
I
was just calculating that the large generator (H2= 20L/hr) produces around
half a mL per second... but how would such an amount change fuel economy by up
to 30% as claimed? Has autospeed done any research into such items?
or are there any proven figures of what such a generator will actually
achieve? How much H2 may be needed to really attain such fuel
savings?
Colin Bainbridge
Australia
If it sounds too good to be true, it almost
always is.
RWD Towing
I asked a flippant
question the other week which Julian did not answer but I thought the answer
obvious. “How much weight did you have on your Ford tow bar?”
If the rear
wheels spin easily when towing, this usually occurs when not enough weight is on
the tow ball especially with a tandem trailer. You need roughly 10% of
total loaded trailer weight. John Lambert figures of 70kg on tow bar gives
+100kg on rear axle are probably close to the money. I really can’t see how
that Falcon (with a sane driver) can spin its wheels with that load on the
rear axle unless brake fluid is poured on the tyres.
If you take a
good size boat with a heavy outboard on a single axle, you find little weight on
the tow ball so you have to load as much in the bow as possible to achieve your
10% on tow ball. Otherwise you get “push steer” from the trailer’s harmonics in
some situations which creates a type of over steer, jack knifing! Another
device I have found very useful for towing your OWN heavy trailer is load
leveler bars and of course trailer brakes (not over ride) to stop jack knifing.
OK Julian your off the hook, you only hired the trailer with over rider
brakes<g>
Robert may
Australia
As described, in the rain the Falcon will
easily spin its wheels when towing a car trailer. We’d estimate over 100kg was
on the towbar – the towbar could barely be lifted to have the coupling placed on
the ball.
Flying Frank?
Are you planning to do any aero testing,
undertrays, etc on Frank the Falcon? I saw today that you are re-running the
original aero testing series. I really like all the aero testing, and
undertray building articles and would like to see a re-run on them, but
using different vehicle(s) (like you did for the negative boost series), and
Frank would seem like a good choice.
Lindsay Young
New
Zealand
A good idea.
Or Maybe Twin Turbo Frank?
Enjoying the ‘new’ Autospeed, bearing in mind
the reality that motorcars are a finite topic. There are only so many
fresh articles that can be produced in a ten year period, however enough of
the small talk - When are the Supra turbos being bolted onto Frank??! I realise
the world doesn’t need yet another big HP turbo motor with no
finesse, so perhaps it could be encompassed in the bigger
overall challenge of regaining the world caravan speed towing
record. Rightfully returning it to the hands of an Aussie in an old
home built Falcon? - that’s gotta be a project worth doing? –
it could even attract sponsors to foot the bills.Matt
King
Australia
Hmm. Not only do we have the twin Supra turbos,
we also have an XR6 Turbo intercooler and its associated plumbing, an XR6 turbo
exhaust and XR6 Turbo injectors!
Alloy Wheel Repairs
In regards to
the article "Damage Control" (Issue 414/technicalfeatures). I worked in one of
America's best wheel re manufacturers. I've learned quite alot about alloy
wheels and painting/ cnc work.
-when a wheel is dented it does not just
dent inward, it pushes two "bumps" outward on each side. You want to target
these after hitting the dent outwards.
-Under .010 along the inside of the rim is
perfectly fine - most other shops went up to .030
-normal cuts with a lathe are .001-.005,
Carbide or CBN tooling is usually used.
-Polished faced wheels were always a pain - we
had one worker dedicated to polishing. clearcoat was always sprayed - alumn.
oxidizes
-We used a unique cleaning process before
powercoating, developed from german wheel manufacturers (I dare not go much
farther into it, it's a
"trade secret"
Kevin Unger
United
States
Tailshafts 1
Re: tail wag - My
japanese RWD also suffers from the centre bearing failure and I have been
tossing up simply replacing the centre bearing, or upgrading to a single piece
driveshaft. There is significant debate about which is superior in
performance terms, but of more interest to me was the safety issue. I
understood that one of the reasons for having a 2 piece was that in the
event of a crash, it provided a breaking point and the engine was more
likely to angle downwards and slide under the car, rather than directly
into the cabin.
Andrew
Australia
Tailshafts 2
I was pleased to see your article "Tail Wag",
addressing prop shafts. In in Front engined, RWD or AWD cars, a modified prop
shaft can have some advantages. You mentioned that if you fit a lightweight
prop shaft, the effect is to increase 'revvability' in much the same way as
if you fitted a lightweight flywheel. However, it might be useful to note
that if you fit a lightweight prop shaft, when driving at speed you
also risk making your revs drop as the road rises. I suspect that
this would be especally true of small capacity, high-powered, low-torque
engines, or in racing.
Michael
Adamantidis
Australia
Fuel Consumption
If you are reading a magazine about
performance up grades on a car why on earth would you give a damn about fuel
consumption? I certainly dont.Two of my cars have engines in
excess of 6 liters, a third one is 4.6 liters and the fun per k factor is
a lot higher than the boredom per K factor of a so called
economy car. But i also have an old mate who decided that he couldn't afford to
finish building his '32 Ford hot rod and decided to hot his Suzuki
hatch...:-). the result? a 3 cylinder Suzuki which holds a world FIA record at
129 Mph.so i suppose you can have your performance cake and
an equitable consumption figure too....and hey! ,he drove it from
Brisbane to South Australia, set his records and drove home again! have a
look here.. www.dlra.org.au/profiles
Ron
Bunting
Australia
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