I would stay away from the car with 8 owners. There was a reason why each of them sold it on and I doubt it was because each of them came hard up on cash all of the sudden, thats almost one a year?!
Being an revvy engine has nothing to do with it, it's purely how it's driven and how well the manufacturer designed the engine, IE tolerances ect. Civic engines last a long time if they are driven properly and they are extermely revvy, where my engine, mostly because of the increase in cumbustion chamber pressures from the turbo I am looking at a lot smaller of a fuse, but even then at the end of the day it was how it was driven and how well it was maintained. A revvy engine is not an indicator at all.
Thanks! Yours had more character though! It is an imposter, but I can't complain, it's the best I could afford =) I got 30MPG on the way down, even with me booting it like I was!
I have to say that I didn't connect you to the car following me until we wanted to get off on the same exit, otherwise I would have slowed down for you instead of going like a banshee on slip roads. I didn't speed, honest =)
I had great fun, it's been a year since I have touched the racing wheel really and it took some time to get back into it and build my confidence back up. I did manage to squeek in the fastest lap of the day in the last race... on the last lap! Great fun, thanks Tristan for giving us the opportunity. So who's going to the Whales gokart meet? I am in need of a team!
It was nice meeting up with everyone, I see you on the forums here but now I can at least put faces to the names finally.
Well Tristan I just used my socks the last time, you won't feel much with shoes on. The Speed7 pedals are fairly stiff, especially the brake, he put a spring kit in them to bring the stiffness of the brake up and changed the calibration on them so it's closer to how a real pedal would work.
IE the first 1/4 throw is easy where the brake pressure doesn't change much, then you hit pressure and the brakes really start changing a lot with very little pedal movement. But because there is rubber insert riding inside the spring it takes considerable force to work that last bit of brake. It's not the same as having a piezoelectric sensor, or a hydraulic brake setup but it works. It still uses a change in the axis to do brake force, but the sensitivity is offset so the something like the last 1/4 throw is 3/4 of the brake force.
Whimp! I thought you worked in an auto shop, albeit a fancy one =) You don't need gloves =) The wheels are worn and sloppy, you may want gloves though to keep the rubber from going on yours hands. My hands got gritty after racing.
Problem is if he went with a 2.0 chances are the weight dist. would be thrown off, changing the handling of the car.
The focus's have good handling. They all come with multilink rear suspension, while most FWD's come with torsion beam. They are by far not the best, but nimble enough to have good fun in.
Dan the Mondeo and Focus are two completely different chassis... I donno what the difference in trim levels are though. I didn't think you could get suspension upgrades unless you with the RS package. The ST package only gives a HP increase and a change to the powersteering rack. Different wheels, which would help with cornering, but geometry and stiffness remained the same.
It is a buyers market ATM, but thats only because nobody has any huge amounts to cash to spend! On that note WTS 2005 Dodge SRT-4 ACR =) It's probably one of the few cars in the states that hasn't lost it's value...
I really need to lean my car out. It runs way too rich on the top end. It saves detonations, but cuts the power down, by as much as 30HP! And I 'should' get better fuel economy.
Fuel economy is only had by going slow, and in a faster car you will not be going as slow as you would in the slower car (figure that one out eh? =)
Economy is really had by keeping the engine stoich, but I think there is a wasteage factor when accelerating that gets worse the faster you accelerate, otherwise we would get the same gas millage regardless on how fast or slow we accelerate. I understand that different engines performe better/worse blah blah blah, but you hopefully get my point.
What I am getting at is even if they do post XXX for gas milage they don't mean didly unless you are driving like a grandma, and then whats the need for a faster car then? Other than burning more fuel and get less economy than you do now.