Shifting gears

You may have been driving for more than 10 years with a stick shift but probably you may have still not heard of these 2 techniques..
1] Synchro rev match :
2] Power shifting : ..no use for non turbo engine..

whats more fun ?

driving a light car with no driver aid - no Abs, no Anti lock , no power steering..
direct steering to the wheels..
open pipe, no cat, straight through muffler ... hear the pop and crackle of the unburnt fuel..
small hi revving 4 valve simple single cam fuel injected engine .. ? no turbo no super charger just direct instant throttle response...
awesome grippy tyres on wrapped around "smaller than stock" wheels.
no stereo
no AC ...

It's more fun to drive a smaller slightly underpowered raw car on the edge..
I'd need a veyron to hit 250 mph to get same thrills..
Either u get it or u don't

Interesting crazy cars

1] JCW mini cooper clubman turbo
2] BMW 135 twin turbo
3] Dodge Challenger - god knows what happens when some fucker puts a twin turbo to its 6400 cc lazy ass and wakes up the beast
4] Mazdaspeed  Protege turbo - awesome attempt.. should have beeen a hit
5] Jeep Sahara - awesome purpose built  no nonsense brute
6] Subaru Wrx STI wagon ..

Most pointless/boring/sloppy/stupid cars

1] Honda Accord - Most boring
2] Mazda Rx8 - Stupid
3] BMW x6 - LOL, stupid
4] Mustang Boss 302 - Pointless
5] chevy Impala - sloppy boring
6] Hummer H2 - hahahaha fuckers still drive it.. stupid posers.

ideal car for the true petrol head...with translation for the non petrol head

Petrolead- No power steering, none of that hydraulic/electric power steering ..I need to feel the road thru the tyres, steering rack. No thanks I dont need any artificial assistance..
Non petrol head- I need power steering, it makes it easier to park my car.
--> What it means:

No power brakes, should know exactly how much bite I can get from my brakes.
I will control how much braking I need

Cable driven clutch - no hydraulic crap.

Manual 6 speed/dog type sequential with straight cut gears

Low slung -

Boring NASCAR

Wheel selection ..

Wheels can make a lot of difference tot he handling if they are selected correctly and matched to your suspension and tyres and driving style.
1] Wheel diameter
A lot of people think going bigger in size is a good thing; you can put bigger tyres with lower profiles giving you more contact patch and lesser flex in the side walls etc. These things are just a few very minor "pros" as compared to the cons.
 Firstly the gains made by stiffer low profile tyres will not be felt unless the suspension is also upgraded and "setup" accordingly( will cover the setup part in diff post)
Stock suspensions are designed for comfort, reliability, ease of maintenance and cost effective for selling the car at a particular price...
(A) Loss of ride comfort
Most of the times the big wheel-low profile tyre combo only introduces a bumpy ride, puts extra load on the shocks since we have now lost the cushioning provided by the slightly higher profile stock tyres.
(B) Final drive ratio (drive ratios details will be taken up in diff post as it will need a bigger explanation)
Another most overlooked con is - loss of accearation, bigger wheels alter the effective final drive ratio. The engines are designed to make torque at a particular rpm, the gearboxes are designed and ratios selected for each gear based on this effective powerband and the size of the wheel. If you use bigger diameter wheel the gear ratios for each gear become taller.
E.g. if your car was designed to have T1 Nm of torque @ n1  RPM and travelled  at X1 MPH in 3rd gear
Now since the drive ratio is changed the car will now be doing X1 MPH at a lower RPM. This means now your engine is turning at an RPM which is lower than what was originally designed by the factory, which again means you are not in the power band and will be accelarating slower. Max accelaration happens when the engine is making the max torque within a paticular range of RPM and is able to transmit it via gearbox for a specific size of wheels.
Overall the car will be slower in doing 0-60mph,0-100 kmh etc
(C)Contact patch
This will increase with bigger dia wheels if the tyres are also bigger, which means if you select lower profile the effective circimfrence of  the tyre will remain closer to stock... but if you try to go for bigger tyre with biger wheels you will get a bigger contact patch which means more rubber touching the road.
This could even reduce braking distance by 1-2 feet, which is good.
(D)Unsprung wieght
Anything not heldup by the suspension and shocksis unsprung wieight - like axles, differentials  and wheels.
The unsprung weight can increase slightly with bigger wheels and tyres., this increases decreases the responsiveness of the suspension over bad roads.. suspension is not able to react as fast as possible to this extra weight of wheel and tyre.
 Apart from comfort factor the car will not feel responsive to quick steering changes
(E)Rotational inertia
Bigger wheels and tyres are heavier and add to the rotational mass, it makes the engine work harder to spin that extra weight of the wheels.; this is in case of ricers putting oversized bling rims on crappy underpowered FR cars.
(F) Cornering
People may argue that bigger wheels and tyres may corner better due to rigidity of the sidewall (lower profile) and more contact patch they can get more grip.
 More grip means they can go harder into corners and carry more speed while turning...You will get more "G" during the cornering.
Ok - how about this argument - since you are now suddenly having so much extra grip can ur suspension handle this ? during cornering the outer tyre is now having so much traction it will cause the entire weight to transfer to this side which will cause the inner wheel to not have any weight or even be lifted off the surface of the road..slightly reducing the contatc patch or even lifting off completely.
  This will now reduce the overall grip as the inner is now not being effectively used wjhile going atound corners.. can the suspension handle this exyta grip is my question..

2]Offset/ET
Let's start this simple and later add the more technical calcuilations..I'l be going slowly here as it get's complicated pretty soon.
There are 4  things involved in order to understand this:
(a) Hub face :This is the mounting surface on which the actual wheel is bolted on with lug nuts; hub us what u see when u remove the wheels.
(b)Centre line of the wheel : The centre of the wheel when seen from top of the car .. the centre line will be parallel to the hub face.
(c)Plane on which the the lug nuts are located on the wheel: The nuts are not always on the centreline line of the wheel. this plane is determined by the shape/design of the wheels. This will also play a role in   moving the distance between the hub surface and the wheel centreline
(d)Distance between the (a)hub face and (b)centre line : This will become your offset.

Imagine looking at the car from the top , we are considering the front right wheel
The hub face is on the left side, the wheel centre line is on the right side.
Consider the wheel as a sleeve which mounts on the hub.
How deep the sleeve/wheel covers the hub is determined by where the mounting surface of hub meets the inner face of the wheels mounting surface.

After mounting if the wheel has more +ve offset(more gap between the centreline and hub face) the wheel wil sit deeper into the wheel arch i.e. closer to the body.
Visualise it like this - more the offset. more the gap between mounting surface of hub and wheel mounting surface, therfore in oder to make them touch we will have to push the wheel further towards the hub to make them meet, this means towards the body of the car
Worst case : It will touch the inner part of the suspensing/steering mechanism and begin to rub.

After mounting if the wheel has -ve offset(less gap between the centreline and hub face) the wheel wil sit outwards in the wheel arch i.e. away from the body.
Worst case : It will poke outside of the wheel arch and put extra load on the suspensing/steering mechanism

This means on stock rims we can use widest tyre we can want till the point will have sufficient gap between inner surface of tyre and the suspensing/steering mechanism.
If we still want to go wider we will need to replace the stock wheels with a diff wheel which increases the gap between the body and tyre..ths is where ur ET comes in.

3] Suspension and steering geometry
Camber, toe in toe out, steering axis inclination, scrub radius.. <to be continued>

4] Gear ratio (Final drive accounting for effective circumfrence)
<to be continued>

SOHC : stuff u can do with fixed intake and exhuast timings

<to be continued..>

WTF were they thinking : Mazda Rx8 - why it's such a flop ?

<to be continued>

All in the name of controlling pollution, cleaner air and greener environment..

So lets pass engine oil spray, exhaust fumes, unburnt airfuel mix, carbon and anything else which sludges up and carbonises the engine in your throttle body.
In short lets just make the engine eat its own shit ..
Hell of a way of recycling the crap coming out of the engine and keeping the environment clean.

Think I'm joking guys ? Why would manufacturers do this ?don't they know whats good for their engines ? you dont think Honda/Toyota/Nissan/BMW/Mercedes etc dont know how to make cars ?
Of course they know how to make engines.. but to meet pollution/emission standards they need to do all this.

..Aanything and everything which is bad for the engine is being done, it is being passed back into your throttle body for a second pass to ensure nothing escapes into the clean green fresh environment.
Apart from the fumes and exhaust gasses its the engine oil and blow back which is also a major contributor to the crap we feed into our throttle bodies.

  Let me explain in more detail.. I'm sure at the end of this every petrol head is going to open his throttlebody and clean it, or atleast put his finger behind the throttle plate to see how much crap is being recycled..
probably the more insane/extreme petrolheads  will reroute the breathers/pcv's/egr's etc ..

Lets get into the details..
Starting with the basics -Whatever is fed into the intake or the throttlebody will find its way into the injectors and coat the inner parts of the intake plenum and the runners.
[I should include a diagram here..I'll do it later..]
This is what is found in ur typical stock intake system in this order, this is how the path of air flows through your system, the red highlighted ones are the entry points from where the crap is fed into your system.
Anything downstream of these entruy points gets a decent dose of the oily gunk..
(a)resonator(commonlyfound)/airbox
(b)intake pipe with IAT(intake air temp sensor) 
(c)throttlbody inlet
(d)throttle plate conected to TPS(throttle position sensor)
(e)map sensor
(f)throttle body(main barrel)
(g)intake runners
(h)injectors
(i)intake valves

-Now, what is actualy being recirculated ?
Cocktail of the following :
(a) Blowback directly into the TB
(b) Exhaust fumes courtesy of the EGR directly into the TB
(c) Oil splashes courtesy of the PCV directly into the TB
(d) Oil splashes courtesy of the breather directly into the TB or upstream into the intake pipe


<to be continued..>

Approach to tuning/types of tuning

I'm trying to categorize the types/levels of tuning into categories..
If you are in a hurry ..skip to any step u feel like, but for others who would want to build their machines one step at a time, understand how their machines behave after each upgrade..and really want to experience the actual process of tuning ..try the following steps
1st get the stock machine to factory specs, make sure the base on which we are going to build our car is worthy of the upgrades ?
This includes :
a) Checking the  engine - how much life it has left in it, do a compression test
b) Chasis
c) Body
d) Suspension and steering

<to be continued..>

best road trips so far ..only pix

Wisconsin deserted freeways..

bear mountain , New york

thanksgiving time, drive thru griffith park in LA

La Jolla, on the way to San Diego

LA to Vegas through the Mojave desert..

Snow in Minnesotta, try driving with a FR layout with summer tyres :-)

Driving around Times square, get to see some awesome exotic sports cars

beautiful old bridge on the way from Pasadena to LA

San Diego

Solvang..really worth the drive from SantaBarbara

awesome senic drive to St Croix from Minneapolis..

F1 - is it really such a big deal ?

Don't know why everyone makes such a big deal out of F1 racing ?
I find it pretty boring ..
It's not that I dont understand it so I'm calling it boring .. I gave it a fair amount of time to really understand it.
I even tried to understand what other saw in it in case I was still missing the point; I gave it my best effort to understand what makes it so exciting ..
I spoke to some hardcore F1 fans..and asked what's in ths sport that makes it so exciting ? I'd like to join the F1 party ..what part of F1 am I not getting.
    I was told - stuff like Driver skill, Race strategy, Pit stops, challenging tracks, the beauty of a F1 car and the way it sounds etc, the danger involved etc
To all of these points

US Diesel Nationals - September 18 2010

couldn't tell if they were drag racing or hauling load ..?



after a few runs ..I stopped clicking, it was too boring




jet engined dragsters starting up..more interesting then the diesels..



one of the monsters warming up..

monster trucks doing their thing.

another round of the dragsters..

a beautiful long nose peterbilt specimen..

behind the scenes, big tyres are replaced with smaller ones to help move the trucks around in the pit area

smaller tyres, note the suspension..

closeup of the jet dragster

its just a basic chasis with a jet engine bolted on and a 1 peice body on top..so simple..



that torpedo shaped thingy is the fuel tank, just enough for 400 metres..



Stock Airbox vs Short ram intake vs Cold air intake

Not joking ..but the smell from your car can tell a lot..

For people who have sensitive/sharp sense of smell thsi could be helpfull:
1] Smell of burnt cardboard/paper : Your clutch is burning
2] Smell of engine oil : Either some seal/gasket is gone and spraying on the hot engine bay
3] Burnt oil : Either u have not changed your oil and its buning up or there is some issue with your engine and oil has managed to reach the hot exhaust (this will also show as white smoke)
4] Sweet toxic smell : Coolant has spilled onto something hot, probably your coolant hose is leaking or something has damaged the radator.
5] Burnt rubber : :-) You have been having fun..

Building a fast street car .. otherway around

I see a lot .. or actually 99% of people trying to make fast street car in a very haphazard unorganised manner.There is no planning/calculation done by these people..just bolton any crap in any order as per availability in random order in favourite color which sounds cool...something like that.
Sounds like a very vague description but then a vague behaviour/pattern cannot be described in a more precise and technical manner.
  The title of the post says ..otherway around ..this is exactly opposite of what the people do.
What does a typical tuner/ricer/newbie enthusiast do ?

<..more to come >

deciding which car to buy

Deciding on a car can be quite a tough decision..
I'd begin by asking what are you really looking for ? Do you love cars or just the status of owning a particular type/brand of car
Where I'm getting to ? Do you want to show you have made it and need a status symbol to show to the world you have arrived and can afford a premium priced expensive car ? IF so you dont need to do read further -simply buy the most expensive one in your price range.
    If you are looking for something specific and need some help in deciding what you need from a set of different options..this maybe helpful for you.
The most important of all - Intial impression without knowing any specs, just the gut feel and what it means to you:
  What  thoughts does that brand name bring to you ? E.g the name brings images of luxurious leather ineriors, comfortable suspension, etc etc Or antilag systems, rev match downshifts, exhaust burble etc etc..
This is most important as you will be investing a major chunk of your paycheck and will be living with it for the next few years -its got to feel right from inside, its got to mean something to you.
   Think - are you buying it due to peer pressure or some friends reccomending it to you etc.
If you are blank and are not inclined towards any particular model then its a matter of time you will realise what you want and will be stuck with something which does not suit you.Tust me on this..
  Spend some time asking yourself what really matters to you ?
If you know for sure and have an image of what you need exactly then the 1st hurdle is past we will go ahead and analyse if that image in your mind would really translate into the same real world performance..
If not - take some test drives, read some reviews, look at some images/vids of the cars and see which way you wold prefer..
Advertised specs and statistics:Higher bhp numbers mean nothing, you can read about it here in more detail.
Its the weight,gearing, final drive, tyre size and vehicle dynamics is what determines a faster car.
If you are looking for bragging rights on hi horsepower figures - then I'd say go ahead but then my next question would be what you thinking of doing with that kind of power ? Can you even use it on the road/track/dragstrip and how would you feel if a car with a lower bhp figure beat you in all aspects ?
Would you still feel proud with a car/engine with hi bhp stats but not particularly fast anywhere else ?
   As a general thumb rule -
(I) More torque and wider power band at lower rpms at around 1500 to 3500 is what everyone needs 99% of the time not peak horsepower at a particular spike of engine rpm.
(II)Less wt is better
Keeping this in mind ..and analyse the advertised specs.
Also at this stage instead of just declaring the winner here based on the specs I will ask you "what kind of a driver are you ?"
(a)You usually have the music system on and love to cruise at moderate speeds in city traffic
(b)You do mostly city driving but love to race around
(c)You do mostly city driving and keep an eye on the mileage
(d)Not much of city driving but mostly expressways/highways etc in a realxed way
(e) You dont drive and will be in the back seat.
(f)Not much of city driving but mostly expressways/highways etc as if trying to set a land speed record.
(g)You are a petrol head , or an enthusiast who has just started into the world of cars..

Based on your driving style and profile see where the engine makes the most torque ? does it match with your driving style ? forget the concept of more hp is better it doesnt work that way always.
Also remember even if a heavier car has more power and torque than a lighter one the lighter one will feel much better in terms of handling and braking as the vehicle dynamics matter the most when you are pushing it.
A better handling car is more fun as you can actually use the entire power of that engine as compared to a bulky heavier more powerful car.
E.g you maybe able to lay down only 70% of the power down on the road with a heavy car as compared to a lighter well handling car which could lay down 100% of the power on the road with confidence and some more to spare.

<to be continued ..wife is going to kick my ass>

Old school or outdated ? are modern engines with new technology taking the fun out of being a petrolhead ?

What would you really prefer ?
A new modern engine or an old school or as some may call it "outdated" engine ?
Being a petrol head sometimes means not being so modern also..
I'd love engines which are not so "cutting edge"..  by now probably u must be assuming this guy is too old to even blog here..
Some of the modern engines take the fun out of owning and mantaining a car.
E.g the igition systems of the older vehicles which came with a mechanical/vacum advance .. it is probably more fun for the petrohead to tune it and get it with right dwell angle, maybe tweak the distributor with diff aftermarket parts to alter the advance curve etc
It was probably more work, less accurate, lower performance but probably more DIY thingies for the "car nut"
   More modern engines came with the distributor and the  ECU based advance curve control..
Not much to tweak unless we have a laptop or a aftermarket programmable ignition system.. fine  - still fun but not so analog or "get your hands dirty" type of fun.
This stil leaves some room for some teweaks to the base/static ignition  via distributor.. this is still ok.
Fast forward to newer engines with a coil on plug - no distributor, direct ECU trigger for the right spark timing, no mechanical tolerances in the picture - efficient , reliable but fully digital.
Works well but there is no longer the "hands on" feel to this..
Moving on to tappets/valve clearances ..Love the tweaks/mods which and the regular tappets
Self compensating hydraulic tappets ... will definately miss the feeler gauge and the guesswork how much clearance will work best ..of course within the range specified by the manufacturer
Fueling : tweaking the A/F ratio via the carb instead of the fuelling maps via the ECU.. this is very efficient and I love this more than the carb.
Here its ok to be a bit modern, but for the more hardcore older gen tuners probably this is more fun - and I have respect for these guys - its much tougher getting it right with  the carbs.
I like the ease in and accuracy with which we can tune the curves ..probably Im leaning towards modern engines here.
    Coming to garboxes - what the hell is going on ??? is this a joke ?
Hardcore , purpose built cars not having manual gearboxes.. look at the silly 6 speed twin clutch Evox, what u guys upto? New gen GTR comes with only an autobox.
Higher up the food chain the mightt Astons/Ferraris going all paddle shifters ?
Future doesn't look good.

Horsepower means nothing, dont buy a car just because it has a higher Bhp/PS number

Car 1 has 20 BHP more than car2 .. simple, car1 has more power definately its faster.
They weigh approximately the same etc.
 if you are an enthusiast that just about sounds like the right recipie.
I too used to compare the BHP figures and think that more power is better.
This not just applies to buying cars but also  aftermarket modifications and tuning.
       If you are the techie types - you may even look at the manufacturer's or tuner's dyno chart to confirm which car has more power.
      Guys there is more to it -much more.
Lets start with the basics :
1] Engines dont make BHP. Period. Engines make torque.
2] The pistons convert the Air/Fuel explosion into downward motion, the crank converts this "kick" into rotational motion. This rotational motion turns your fly wheel, the gearbox connects to flywheel via the clutch and transfers power to the wheels which then rotate.
3] The important point in the above point is rotational force generated by the engine. This is torque in a simplified description.
4] What about BHP ? oh ya forgot about that - its calculated off the torque..
 hp = [torque x rpm ] / 5252
The combination of torque and rpm results in power..
5]Simply put - going faster means accelarating harder and quickly. It's this rate of change of speed gives us accelaration = faster car.
6]BHP advertised is always the max power that can be generated by an engine, the question we should be asking is at what rpm ? i.e at what speed the engine must be running at to actually use this power ?
Remember point no 4 , Hp= resultant of rpm and torque.
   We could be getting 300 bhp at  say 6800 rpm from car1 Vs 240 bhp @ 5500 rpm from car2
Here we need to ask 3 questions:
(a) How long does it take to reach this 6800 rpm as its way up in the rpm range ?
It takes time to build up this rpm, you could end up spending more time waiting to reach this high engine speed only after which you would experience this power..Also during every gear change the engine rpm would drop and again you would spend time building up the speed to reach that range.
Its like climbing a mountain for 8hrs, reaching the peak and spending 2 minutes at the peak before sliding off..  and again having to restart from teh base of he mountain.
HP figures dont give the whole picture.
(b) Even if we manage to reach it , how long can we use this power ?
This means once you manage to reach this engine speed/rpm what next? You have spent some time reaching this rpm how long will it last? For how long can you mantain that rpm to harness this power ?
On road/track is it practical ? You may have to brake, take corners etc causing the rpm to drop again below the number at which we get peak power.
Also if you give too much throttle you may exceed the rpm the engine makes the most power and engine will be only making noise not power therfore not accelarating.
The width of the power band also matters combined with your gearing and final drive. This is what determines how long will you be riding that wave of torque and accelarating hard.
This advertised power is peak power, it doesn't tell us the whole story
Gearing/Final drive/Tyre size +Power/Wt ratio :
Many aftermarket tuners enthusiasts look at dyno numbers and get impressed if they see a  10-20 bhp bump in power. This is not an indicator of how much performance will be realised on the road.
It depends on your gearing ratio/final drive/tyre size combination to lay down that "power(actually is torque)" of engine on the road...

Let me explain this with an example - Car C1 with same engine but with diff gearing and tyres makes hell of a difference. E.g if the power band is near 4000 rpm, having torque of 150 Nm at 4000 rpm and engine makes 130 bhp at say 5500 rpm, the gearing and stock tyre size allows the car to travel at 80Kmh/50Mph at say 3000 rpm. With a smaller tyre size and a lower gear ratio the same car at 4000 rpm now travels at 80Kmh/50 mph. See now the engine is in the power band and will respond to quick blip of the throttle.

Now taking the same car and comparing it to another car say C2 with power of 200 bhp @ 6000 rpm, torque of 180NM at 5000 rpm.
The difference in power is 70 BHP - based on BHP specs we have a winner, car C2 wins on paper
The difference in torque is 30 NM - based on torque specs we have a winner,car C2 wins.on paper
But based on gearing and overall wt of the car C2 is a loser against C1.
C1's gearing and torque has been optimised to make max use of the engines torque and does not lay stress on the peak hp figures.. its just a marketting gimmick.
99.99 % of the people look at the HP and pay extra 10 to 20K$ for this.

Dont beleive me - look at a real world example.
BMW M1 vs BMW M3
M1= 335 BHP, 6 cylinder, 3000 cc, price :46K $
M3= 414 BHP,8 cylinders, 4000 cc, price :58K $
Price of M3 justified : 79 more bhp, extra 1000 cc, extra 2 cylinders..therefore extra 12k $
Track tested by BBC Top gear : results M1 is much faster, track is designed to test the real world accelaration, handling, braking.. a bit of brute force power also.
How did it manage to do that -->
M1 makes 332 NM of torque from 1500 rpm to 4500 rpm, supposedly bigger, powerful, more expensive M3 makes 295 NM of torque at 3900 rpm
The M1 can pull; anytime anywhere.. people just dont get it.

Along same lines no one belives If I said a slightly modified 50 BHP 3 cylinder, 800 cc, 4 valve SOHC, 600 Kg hatchback can mess with 70 to 90 bhp , 4 cylinder, 1100 cc to 1300 cc engines.. :-) or even 2600 cc diesel SUVs :-)