Lets talk about cars/motorsports

Electric cars! They're an unstandardized clusterfuck! Short range! Dangerous batteries! That you can't push too hard! So much room for improvement! God, I love them so much!

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Here's what the DB10's engine revving sounds like.

Ten affordable exotic cars... in America. Jalopnik's Car Buying sub-blog is both informative and delightfully insane.

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot

anybody seen the Chaparral 2x Vision GT

Bumbleby is best ship. busy spending time on r/RWBY and r/anime. Unapologetic Socialist

Sound to me like a cross between a Harley Davidson and a vaccum cleaner.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Doin a bit of car shopping at the moment. I drive a 1998 Maxima. Great car, wonderful everything. But its age is starting to show in its performance (and it has 230,000 miles on it from many years of interstate driving).

I'm down between a new Max, an Accord, and a Mazda 6. I love the 6, except that its engine gets only the same power (albeit for better mpg) as my 98 Max whereas the new Max, which I also love, gets a hella lot more power for the same mpg as the 98 Max.

The Accord is my middle ground option, in just about every way, but it also doesn't look as nice as either the 6 or the new Max.

Spyker don't own Saab anymore, NEVS do. Although NEVS also appears to have gone bankrupt.

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

I have some hypothetical car design questions:

1. If a car was designed so that it combines the comfort and space of a full-sized ultra-luxury 4-door sedan, the performance and stylishness of a high-end supercar, a convertible roof and a 4-wheel drive system, what do you suppose it would be called as a comprhensive classification? An ultra-luxury convertible 4-wheel-drive grand touring supercar?

2. What do you suppose would be a believable price range for such a car, by current USD values?

3. What general layout, engine position and configuration do you believe would be plausible for use in such a design? (I'm assuming it uses an internal combustion engine, of course.)

edited 1st Jan '15 9:19:45 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

1.) Not sure about this one. It's a mouthful.

2.) About $350,000 - $450,000 sticker price.

3.) Probably a 5.7 to 6.8 liter longitudinal 12-cylinder powerplant, naturally aspirated with a 7-speed semi-automatic shiftronic gearbox and a 2-way limited slip differential with launch control. You could go with a V12 engine to get more room and make it more compact and aerodynamically sound, but a straight 12 might be better for luxury sedan purposes since longitudinal engines have a smoother idle and tend to be more comfortable as a result. If it's a straight 12, it'll need to be front-mounted, which probably means a front-mid-engine RWD layout used for many roadsters. Or you could go with a mid-ship V12 setup for better handling, but you'll have to redesign your back passenger seats around that layout, which is tricky if you want to retain the handling of an AWD supercar.

edited 1st Jan '15 9:52:33 AM by Aprilla

As a production car, right? What if it's a one-off custom-built design that, say, a filthy-rich celebrity ordered for his/her personal use?

... I need to brush up on my automotive terminology.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Hmm...

If somebody like, say, Jay Leno had his way, it might be closer to three-quarter million with mods and all the fixins'

If you want to geek out on car stuff, read the Car Bible website until your eyeballs fall out.

EDIT: I made a mistake about the 5.7 liter. 12 cylinders won't fit such a small displacement. Maybe 8 cylinders, but you're not going to get the power you're looking for.

edited 1st Jan '15 10:15:21 AM by Aprilla

Why does the displacement have to be small?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Well, it doesn't have to be small, but if you're looking for a good power-to-weight ratio, you need to account for things like the displacement, bore, stroke and torque band of the engine. There's a muscle car saying that there is no replacement for displacement, and that's partly true. Large-displacement engines can generate power more easily than smaller displacement engines. It's a simple matter of scale.

Of course, I'm simplifying things, but there are ways to circumvent the power usage of an engine despite its size. Case in point, economical Japanese motors respond very well to forced induction systems like turbo chargers. Many American muscle cars with mid-displacement motors do well with twin-screw superchargers, but you have to be careful with a forced induction setup because it can become parasitic and rob the engine of torque at the lower RPM range.

It's very much possible for a Honda Civic with a tuned VTEC motor, a Stage 1 Turbonetics turbine kit, a SAFC (super airflow converter), oversized fuel injectors and an onboard wideband to outpace a Chevy Camaro with a naturally aspirated factory-tuned 5.7 V8. However, there's a certain point where you'll need to go bigger if you want to get more power out of the car. That 1.6 inline 4 cylinder VTEC in the Honda can only do so much, and having a larger displacement gives you more power to work with because there is physically more engine to handle the job.

It's not all that different from custom tower computers with advanced heat sinks. You can get a gaming laptop with an i5 processor that will play most games currently available, and you can tune it to hold up to some tower PC designs with the right modular modifications. However, after a certain point it will be more effective to get a tower PC with an i7 processor because it will be more cost-effective in the long run while giving you more physical space for a better heat sink and a bigger cooling fan. It's basic thermodynamics. It's also the reason why you see a lot of Japanese gearheads going for domestic big block swaps. One of the most popular engine swaps right now is putting an LS 1 motor in a Nissan 240 SX.

I wish pvtnum11 was around. He can explain this better than I can.

edited 1st Jan '15 12:57:21 PM by Aprilla

That's all well and good, but you didn't explain why you didn't simply suggest a larger-displacement engine, and instead focused on a smaller one as if it's the only viable option.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

No, I think you're getting it backwards. I suggested the 6.8 liter over the 5.7 because there is going to be a noticeable power gain with the 6.8 V12. The 5.7 V8 probably isn't going to put your hypothetical car into the supercar performance range you're looking for. Maybe with a twin turbo, the 5.7 could do it, but I'd rather look at this from an all-motor standpoint.

There are exceptions to this. Power-displacement dynamics are not written in stone. Take a look at the Lamborghini Estoque

EDIT: Just so we're clear, engine displacement does not automatically correlate with cylinder quantity, as the link demonstrates. That 5.2 V10 is likely a lot more powerful than a Chevy small block 5.7 V8, but the general well-duh understanding is that you're going to see an increase in cylinder count after you make an engine a certain size. When you get past 2.6 liter motors, you'll start seeing fewer inline 4 cylinders and more V6 layouts. When you get past 4.0 liter motors, you'll start seeing fewer V6 layouts and more V8 layouts.

However, we also have to account for what the engine is going in and what it's designed to do. The Ram 3500 pickup for 2015 comes with a HEMI 6.4 liter, but it will likely be outpaced by a 370 Z with a 3.7 V6 because one is obviously designed for towing while the other is designed for track racing.

edited 3rd Jan '15 11:18:34 AM by Aprilla

The Bloodhound SSC is on IndieGogo.

Re: Convertible 4-seater sedan 4-wheel-drive supercar: It's RWD, but the Savage Rivale GTS seems to be quite close to what you have in mind. Fifth Gear doesn't appear to think all that much of the more hardcore GTR, though. Oh, and might as well skip to the designation that attracts the most people - "supercar".

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot

Ah, so I appear to have misunderstood your post. My apologies.

... Savage Rivale seriously needs to be given a world-class award for inventing that car. Wait, where do the roof components go? I saw a video for the GTS showing that they go into the trunk, but... Where in the trunk does it get stored? I mean, how does it avoid messing with whatever luggage you may have stored in it?

---

On another note, could a backup camera completely substitute for a rear-view mirror, and thus possibly eliminate the need for a rear window? That would help immensely in creating convertible designs.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I suppose but personally I don't trust cameras on my car

Oh really when?

I'm sure some exist already, especially in high-end vans and commercial vehicles that don't have a rear window...

Keep Rolling On

I don't have much experience with those cameras, but the ones I have seen in action all use fisheye lenses in order to show a wider field of view, which distorts the image shown to the driver.

(Personally, I also find them somewhat of a distraction, given they're kinda bright when the sun isn't up.)

On a more practical level, cameras and the wires leading to them are much more vulnerable than a rear view mirror mounted on the windshield. If the camera goes down and there's no rear view otherwise, you're in a bit of trouble when it comes to things like backing out of parking spaces.

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I'm guessing it doesn't. Plenty of convertibles, folding hardtops especially, have greatly reduced bootspace with the roof down. That's probably the case here too.

A different shape every step I take A different mind every step of the line

There are other kinds currently in use, actually.

Good point, but a rear-view mirror is itself dependent on the rear window being fully transparent and in good condition, which necessiates it being made of hard glass, as opposed to the plastic used in many convertibles to facilitate the design. And it can be rendered useless if the window is cracked so severely that you can't see anything reliably through it, or if you simply splash it with hard-to-remove paint or something similar.

I dunno, it seems its advertisements tout it as "saving trunk space" somehow.

edited 3rd Jan '15 10:04:03 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

If you can't see out the rear window just kick it out. It's what my friend did with his Camaro.

Oh really when?

As far as I know the main draw for folding hardtops is a smaller loss in torsional rigidity, less worrying about the roof getting slashed and less wind noise.

The only convertible configurations that don't compromise trunk space are those that retract into the rear seat area. In any event, something is always compromised - the question is whether the engineers can minimise it.

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot

Guys, have you seen the new Subare WRX STI?

Yes. So, it no longer shares a chassis with the regular Impreza, and probably won't have much around to keep it and its sucessors on their toes once the Evo X goes out of production sometime in June this year (unless yet another final edition is announced). And it still isn't back in any major FIA rallying series either.

But every time I see a TV ad for the XV, I tell myself that I'd have a WRX STi over that any day. Preferably one fettled by Prodrive or Cosworth. Because having a big, tall car isn't everything...

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot