Don't care what my IQ is, but I know its more than the woman that drove onto the traintracks at the command of her GPS ...

ok, put it this way, a stock auto will have a 1K TC and very low line pressure. A stock auto is a very lossy system thats made for comfort - how many racecars use OEM clutches and stock gearsets? Take a Chrysler 727 Torqueflite auto (as found in the likes of Aston Martins, Bristols, Jensens etc etc), add a performance drum setup, up the line pressure, aftermarket trans cooler, performance 2800rpm stall convertor, and you have something that will come off the line like a screaming banshee, shift positively, and take the Lion's share of 1000hp.

Most cars up to Super Stock use autos, go above that and you're likely to see Lencos (which bare little relation to a regular manual trans - they have a transbrake and everything). A Super Stock car needs to come off the line reliably to hit the bracket ET right - doing that with a regular manual trans is very difficult, especially when you need a Swartznegger sized leg to control a clutch that can take the power they're putting out.

Torque convertor wouldn't be hard to model unless you factored in overheating. Old autos can be fitted with a manual shift body too, so you shift up and down similar to a sequential but its a very different driving experience

Quote from Woz :

An auto tranny is far more complex than you think. You have to model the power takeup through the slush box how it eats the power, the delays in response, changing gear when you don't want it to, the down change on kickdown only to change back again with a jolt 2 seconds later.

Auto gearboxes are not good for the track. If the time was taken to do them right it would be a waste. People would drive it once and say "yep, autos are crap" and switch back to manual.

And yet LFS has a drag strip.

Sounds like you really don't like Autos ... I've had a few, did grasstracking with one and it was cracking (Renault 5 Turbo I); not had any issues with slow response, kickdown working then changing back again, or unhealthy power consumption. If those are the problems you've had with a car you owned then the box probably beeded a rebuild or adjusting properly :rolleyes: Of course BMC autos were crap, so if it was an Auto Mini thats understandable!

Quote from thisnameistaken :

That's about the only exception though.

Not really, when I was using the old Shelby as a daily driver I hit 120 on the way to work, and 140 on the way back on any day it was dry - quiet straight-ish B roads with nothing either side, no problem I don't like doing that kinda speed on the motorway unless its 3am with no other vehicles in sight!

As for the Veryon - its ugly and not the fastest, most powerful, quickest or most luxurious production car; it's a compromise, a very very expensive compromise. For what it costs you could get cars that beat it in each of it's strengths.

Yeah, in LFS having an auto should enable you to choose the convertor stall speed, and be limited to less gears in total ... perhaps that would make it unfair on the manuals though, 'cause if you fit a 5K convertor most any car would fly off the line (players with clutch pedals notwithstanding ).

ok, I think I've found the coolest car ever ... so cool in fact, nobody could argue that it shouldn't be in LFS ...

Thats good to know, it saves me flogging a dead horse on the 1b server on certain circuits

Take a camera

Quote from ajp71 :

Lovely car, again I would say no to a quick spin but it can't touch the Eagle in my books.

For me it would be a toss-up between the two

Now back to road cars, where my interests lie, the ultimate Cobra has to be the 260 - fantastic ballance and more elegant than the brutish 427 (which was a 428 from the factory - big difference!). And thats coming from someone that likes brutish cars

Mini Se7en rocks! (also Mini Miglia, if they still do that for the budget racers ).

(nice skin BTW)

Quote from Becky Rose :

You score points completely independantly for a number of reasons. It may be at the track the other day you scored points for your lap time - but on this track you may be too far off the server record to score points for it. In both cases you'd unlikely gets points for position based on your description.

Thanks for clearing that up, got it into my head that there was a small amount of points for taking part, lol.

Time to be more aggressive then! If I quit letting people pass I can probably squeeze the odd podium finish

Quote from ajp71 :

^^I think the W154 is even more beautiful and a greater feat of engineering, not too picky though if you have any pre-war Merc GP cars kicking about

What about the shark-nose Ferrari?

While there's a little Q&A going on ... has the reprogramming the other day cut off mid-fielders completely? Going in when there was 5 or so other racers saw my license jump several points per race, today after about an hour of finishing mid-field in a full server I hadn't got any further; before, I used to be able to crawl up with a point or two each race.

Quote from JTbo :

Corvette is crap when talking about performance and handling, so we can forget those, they won't affect at all how car looks and C3 looks much better than C2 that is like sketch of C3, still was looking it's style.

So you prefer the one that looks like a wang on wheels to the one that looks like it rolled off a sci-fi B-movie set?

The Corvette is great when talking about performance and handling, if you could master driving a big block C2 around Riverside (with the cross ply tyres and drum brakes all round) then you could handle anything!

Nobodies said anything like a Westfield, Radical or Ariel Atom, which is surprising since they're the epitome of cars worth driving.

For those wanting a car that'll put hair on their chest - Hennesey Twin Turbo Viper, '85 Porsche 911 Turbo, '69 Plymouth Roadrunner 6-pack (400hp with drum brakes), Shelby Super Snake (or Daytona or 427 GT500 (none officially made)), '68 427 Chevrolet Corvette (or LT-1 Camaro), '69 Plymouth Hemi Barracuda, Aston Martin V8 Vantage ... and so on. Now those cars have balls.

(edit: Jensen Interceptor FF can go on the list too )

I'd love to get some of the peeps at Front-Runners.net or MoparUK.com to have a bash but they're usually too busy working on their cars, lol.

Considering how popular it is overseas, I'd go for the latter of the two Gotta be getting hard to come up with new ideas now though!

I liked the old series when they did taboggan vs. rallycar and rock climber vs. V8 Audi - I'd like to see more of that kind of racing

ah right, I was going by the 'Formula D' that I've seen on TV

I thought real drifters only used the front brakes (?)

Of course anyone who's got ntl/Virgin can watch Top Gear on on-demand for nout ... I caught up with the rest of the series on Saturday

Yes, Top Gear is turning into Blue Peter with bigger toys. Its entertaining but not informative any more ...

I've been on the gantry when this one's gone underneath - your feet get warm, so its definately one of the hottest cars out there ...



On an easy run it'll do the quarter mile in 5 seconds with a terminal speed of 280mph, so the performance is pretty good too Off the line the gantry sways about 6" back, from the blast of air ...

^ Has cracked 1000 miles on LFS
< Is working on two cars for competition
v Lives on planet Earth

(yeah, this is much better )

Thats a very simple skin, I'm sure you could do it yourself if you put your mind to it

Quote from March Hare :

A track done just for hill climb sounds stupid.

Yeah, good point, why am I even bothering to build a car to compete in hillclimb competitions, it wouldn't be fun or competitive to take part in that form of motorsport at all :chairs: