I never said you did. The discussion started with a not terribly well thought out suggestion that buying an expensive head unit would allow Jakg to have an input jack.
You're missing the point, the suggestion was to get a new head unit and keep the standard speakers, which is even more pointless than trying to get decent audio in a car.
Two problems. Firstly it looks chavvy and secondly it is worth as much as the car and would significantly increase the chance of some chav taking an interest in the car.
Chance of an after market radio not looking naff is pretty low given that they are mainly designed to attract boy racer chavs. The few that are stylish would look silly in a Proton and are probably worth more than the car itself. It is a pretty stupid suggestion, if the replacement does not fit as a straight replacement then putting it into the dashboard subtly would at the very least require a good blank to be machined to fit it (assuming he doesn't want to go the chavved up Corsa route).
That isn't the case, autocross layouts (shorter than track) also set PBs. To run a league with mods it is probably best to choose obscure tracks and slow them down a bit with autocross objects to stop messing up peoples' PBs.
Fuel consumption in LFS is already far too simple. Real racing cars normally have no idea how much fuel they have in them, those that have a capacity to refuel mid race will often only have a low fuel warning light and when a guage of some sort is fitted it usually acts in a bizare non-linear way and normally only on the lower fuel cell. When real racing cars run out of fuel there is often no warning, proper fuel systems always hold about a litre in an anti-surge tank meaning unlike road cars they just stop dead without warning.
At the moment in LFS we know exact fuel consumption and never have an excuse to run out, which takes a lot of the guessing out. If we had to rely on a warning light and conventional guage it would be much more challenging and people wouldn't be able to cut it so fine.
All European/Japanese full size cars or super duper compacts for the US market. The fact that an Astra is now so heavy is a rather sad reflection on how car design has gone backwards, in just two model updates it has managed to add 50% onto its weight, imagine building a mark 3 Astra with todays manufacturing techniques and materials and a modern engine, it would absolutely fly and be far more economical and relevant to the whole environmental front.
When I went to the US last Summer we hired a Ford Taurus X, a car just shy of two tonnes, 4WD, soft and automatic. This seemed to be pretty typical and in no way a big car for the US roads after a few hours on US roads it felt perfectly normal to be driving around in such a big car and nice and spacious and we couldn't believe how little it cost to fill up. A fortnight later the roof lining had fallen off, interior lights didn't work and it had some strange rattles (this was a brand new car that we had to wait to be driven off the transporter when we picked it up). In short the build quality was appalling, the ride was so soft it was bouncy, fuel economy was non-existent (because it was dragging around 2 tons and needlessly powering two wheels), driving experience was totally detached (what you expect in an automatic American car really). The only good bits were the perception of luxury, the amount of metal you can buy in the US for a not very hot hatch here and the engine, which was fantastic though you'd be forgiven for not realising it had 263bhp when you opened the taps and the thing just bogged down like you might expect an underpowered hatchback to.
A 1.6 isn't small, it is still the top of the range model on a lot of small cars over here, the Fiesta 1.6 can do 0-60 in under 10 seconds and it is just an everyday cheap hatchback that, like all new cars, is hugely overweight (but not in American proportions). How many cars and pick ups on a US highway can actually keep up with with a small hatchback in a straight line, let alone round a corner?
A modern 1.6 litre engine is perfectly capable of running at motorway speeds and is more than you need for a good thrash on road or track. If there isn't enough power the car is too heavy.
Any sports car with more than 250bhp that can't get 60 in under 5 seconds has a major issue and it isn't lack of power, more lack of lightness.
I can't see the camera in that photo. IIRC they used to have to carry either a roll bar camera of a blank of the same weight in its place. Now though I'd be suprised if they haven't made all the cameras compulsary all the time, it's not as if there is a cost worry.
TBH I say so what? The risk of injuring yourself let alone somebody else on a straight piece dual carriageway with clear visibility in the middle of no where is so remote not to worry about, you're far more likely to hit someone or something as you drive innocently around town minding your own business. I don't think you appreciate how remote large parts of the 'states are, we simply don't have areas south of the remotest reaches of Scotland where you genuinely can drive for 40 miles without passing anything of any note. After all who here would be so opposed to legally driving down the Autobahn at this speed in the middle of the night?
The only two somewhat dodgey things done in this video are coming to a stop/meging from a standing start onto the highway (but I'm sure if visibility was good this wouldn't really be an issue) and the fact it was filmed, which is always a bit contentious and whilst I'll happily do stupid things in cars I'd rather there wasn't any quite so incriminating evidence, and definately wouldn't post it publically.
You might be horrified to hear of a sport called 'road rallying' which does produce cheap laughs and the odd spill, certainly far more dangerous than driving down an empty motorway at speeds which would be legal in certain parts of the world, still no body has banned it yet
EDIT - apparently something in this post is hugely offensive to the OP any ideas?
If you didn't notice it was tipping it down with rain and the car very nearly stayed in control, I think it is safe to assume that had that happened in dry conditions with a competent driver the car would not have lost control. That aside the fact the driver was alert meant the actual collision was reduced to far less than what an inattentive driver would have had at half the speed.
Diddums, you're not a working man are you? Don't pay any bills and the low wage is because you're choosing to do a job that is interesting/your being trained in and are not very good at instead of doing something that pays well because your parents still pay for everything but the odd luxury? Consider yourself lucky and stop making up bullshit about things you don't know about just because you're jealous.
I think the danger traveling a well bellow the natural flow speed of a road is far greater than driving above it, driving fast the chances are you will be much more alert concentrate a lot better, naturally be in control of the car rather than bimbling along and will be much more attentive to any other traffic on the road. Of course the consequences are much greater should something go wrong without warning, but the chances of that are pretty remote.
I think it is perfectly safe to do that kind of speed down empty country roads, the majority of accidents are caused by overtaking attempts and poor concentration, not from driving at high speed, anybody who uses the speed limit to give any kind of indication as to what is a safe speed shouldn't be allowed near a car, they really are a waste of time and shouldn't be necessary. A frighteningly large number of people seem to think that driving at 60 down an B road without question, reading the road or conditions is 'safe' because it is the speed limit. These are also the kind of people who tell you that driving at double the speed limit on a clear stretch of road with few hazards will result in instant death.
If your wheels fall off your car then you've got a serious issue, but it isn't excessive speed.
Run flat tyres will be of very little use in a violent deformation of the tyre, particularly if it is caused by something ripping through it. The car will still be unstabled, if the car is traveling in a straight line the effect of a blow out should be pretty minimal so long as the car can keep within the confines of the road and not crash into anything. When I had a blow out at 60mph nothing much happened, there was no real difficulty in keeping the car from traveling into oncoming traffic, of course the in attentive driver who is traveling dangerously slowly will still get a blow out from hitting an object and if they take there time to wake up in a panic are probably more likely to drive head on into another car.
106, 306, 307, VW Transporter, Polo, Corsa, Focus, Fiesta, Bedford CF to name a few. So what diesels have you driven that are completely unlike any of the above?
F1 is not a spec series, it is meant to be the pinnacle of motorsport. There is a fixed amount of money that car manufacturers and sponsors have to spend on F1 the more you reduce the basic costs of designing and building cars the more will be spent on the precious little room left for design and development. A completely open series would only increase budgets if more money was poured in because the importance of F1 as a marketing tool had increased. If you leave the wing mirrors as the only free component on the car teams will manage to spend a £500 million budget designing them...
Turbo charged petrol cars now routinely produce power figures the far side of 300bhp in cars that are reliable and reasonably economical. If you start tuning them power figures can easily go into 4 figures, completely irrelevant, so why turbocharged diesel engines producing a reasonable amount of power is anything special is beyond me. In a correctly geared car where the power is produced is irrelevant, so long as the powerband is reasonably large, typically it is a lot smaller in diesels, hence why they need to change gear more often and drivers of 'sports' diesels finding they are not in the powerband when trying to overtake makes them dangerous and impractical when you sell them to idiots thinking they're sports cars.
No they wanted to win out right and put a huge amount into developing a DIESEL car to take on the Audi. What I said was nobody was giving full scale backing to petrol cars with the intention of winning outright. I don't think Acura have any intention of winning out right, it doesn't seem to have full Honda backing that would be needed to take the front two on. Having said that there are quite a few contenders for the first petrol car home now the biggest team has gone off to play with tractors, and even better got a playmate to make it a bit less dull.