If there was ever a negative crash test star rating given to a car... this would be it. Of course this isn't real!

Weapon of win.

Again, thanks for the answers! I think I'm going to get Milliken's or Staniforth's books (although I'll probably go for the more complex one). I was going to go with Carroll Smith but it turns out that my local bookstore does not have it! (arrrgghh!)

Milliken's books are a little bit scary because "Race Car Vehicle Dynamics" is a textbook and it's $134.94... used! I'm pretty sure that's the book I'm going to get. There's also "Chassis Design: Principles and Analysis" and "Race Car Vehicle Dynamics: Problems, Answers, and Experiments"

Then there is Staniforth and I don't know how simplified it is nor do I know if it is better than Carroll Smith's book. All that I know is that it's cheaper.

I'm hoping to get Millliken but chances are really slim with prices that steep. Is Carroll Smith or Allan Staniforth the better choice? They're around the same price but it's the content I'm more worried about.

I'm back again and this time I do not have a question, rather, I want something to read (and possibly source for my science project). For example:This was a very good read. Although it took me a while, I was able to understand the majority of it. However, he did not go into too much detail about suspension geometry. His guide was a very clear and concise guide that helped me understand how weight transfer works in detail. I've tried Google but ended up with some very vague guides and I do not have the time to search for good ones since I have a research report to write up.

So if anyone has any book or website concerning vehicle dynamics and covering it in great detail (like the link above), please post them here. Websites are recommended since I can access them much easier (and probably without money involved).

Edit: If someone can explain why we feel like we were being thrown towards the outside of the corner is still centripetal force instead of centrifugal force, then I will be really happy because I don't know how you call being thrown towards the outside centripetal when it fits in better with centrifugal...

Last edited by Scatter, Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:26.

Ah, I just read up about that. Yes, it is O.K. to clean your motherboard with water as long as you aren't doing it wrong. By the way, I think he's doing it a bit wrong because I don't think tap water is distilled water... but I'll give him some credit for pulling the battery out.

I don't totally see the point of cleaning out the mobo with a liquid as long as I spray it with compressed air once a month but if there is a lot of fine and resillient dirt and dust then sure, I'll try it with alcohol.

THIS is doing it wrong:


And so is this:

:scared:

Why hasn't anybody thought about this before!?
It's almost perfect!

Means keep the pedal closer to the metal. Or just keeping the gas pedal pressed down while downshifting. You want to blip the throttle just to bring up the RPMs, not jam it down there so that it bounces off the redline a lot.
I wouldn't really flatshift but I would lift the throttle to about halfway or less or twitch my leg up and back down again very quickly to shift fast.

I wonder if you can make a transparent hood to see the engine. Oh wait...
Very nice work Luathas. Is there a way you can reduce the jaggies in it?

O/T: Does anyone know where you can get the windshields with the tint at the top like this:

End O/T

Quote :

Kubica is a hero. He's silent but deadly. A bit like my farts.

Are you implying that he smells unpleasant too?

I really haven't the time to watch F1 anymore but when Jeremy Clarkson was presented an award for his video performances, Hamilton presented it and when he came out, there was a roar of cheers and they kept cheering for him for a long time so I felt that he was capitalizing on his popularity.

He's a talented and fast driver. I'll give him that, but I'm not too sure about his ego.

Blackhole turns out to be a wormhole to somewhere.

Very interesting concept! All it needs is some tint and those black seals that seal the glass to the roof to make it look real.

This would be sad news for drag racers...
Sex is probably the one thing they DON'T want to finish first and in record time.

Good morning (it's midnight here). I have a little bit of info I want to confirm. Regarding passenger cars, people say that it is better to have the gas tank filled up all the way to full all the time. However, some people don't think so. My cousin filled his Honda Prelude up to halfway and let it run until the needle hit a little past empty. My father filled his Toyota 4Runner up to halfway as well, but my mother fills her Toyota Sienna until it is full.

Let's say that you are currently using your car to get from home to work and back. The pros I know so far that using partially filled tanks make the car lighter, and this depends on how much fuel it holds maximum. This can probably improve economy by a bit. The cons could be more trips to the gas station and if you're unlucky enough, you would be stranded somewhere on empty. Also, according to a hypermiling forum someone said that the fuel pump will not last as long since an emptier tank cannot cool the fuel pump enough to prolong its life.

Is the last sentence true? How do you fill up your own car (if you have one)? Finally, are there other advantages or disadvantages to running partially full?

Ghillied sniper has the awesomest color called camouflage:

Quote from Shadowww :

My fire burns out this station.

4Chan defies your physics.

Quote from Nekpap :

Hello fellows!
New pilot here! I like this forum ,so I decided to be participated in.
I like F1 sims best, but I'm interested on others like GTR, Race07, LFS etc.
Nektarios

If you buy the S2 license, you get the BMW F1 car from 2006. How one can manage to ride that crazy beast, I do not know.

Quote from L33TZOR :

Snip.

Nice to meet you too. We really don't have pictures in signatures. There are small tags that have something like CTRA on them or others. You can use emoticons and words too but that's about it.
By the way, nice Z. Very clean and sporty looking whilst not being over the top .

Dajmin: Good idea. I added a little disclamer on the 5th line of the 1st post.

Tristan: Thank you so much. I can finally sleep at night! But the part about the complexity of adding chassis movement, CoG, and other variables does dishearten me a little bit. Oh well, I can tackle that later, I hope.

I just remembered... Is there any way to increase torque in a car? I think forced induction could increase torque but are there other ways? I began to fall in love with lightweight roadsters, especially the Honda S2000 but I heard that it's low amount of torque was a fairly big downside for it.

Last edited by Scatter, Tue, 7 Oct 2008 23:06.

Quote from Exile R :

i want to know something. how does smoke come off the tires when spun?

Well, when there's smoke, there's probably fire (not really). I think the friction caused from spinning the tires causes it to heat up so much that it starts a chemical reaction, thus, you get smoke. I also heard that it is bad for the tire because once the tire cools down, it hardens and loses its grip because of the chemical reaction. That's only a guess though so I could be very wrong.

Quote from Klutch :

Same with softer springs in the front, turn in and brake and it'll all dip down to the front, and will understeer.

I thought it was the other way around? Softer springs in the front causes the chassis to dive toward the front, giving them more grip? That's how I thought of it in LFS.

I just realized that I forgot about weight transfer! Maybe that's what causes the phenomenon of oversteer/understeer with the spring settings. Can someone clarify weight transfer for me? Or whatever else causes understeer/oversteer with a different front to back ratio of spring stiffness?

Thanks Tristan. That helped clear some things up.

Quote from tristancliffe :

All the above assume that the ratio of front:rear stiffness remains the same. If not you will cause an over/understeer situation in the chassis.

That part caught my eye. What causes this oversteer/understeer to happen when you change the stiffness ratio between the front and rear and how does it work?

To make a long story medium-sized, I've created this thread from the question that I and my auto shop teacher tried to find the answer to. That question happened to be about the existence of the EGR valve in a Nissan 350z. After combing the Internet (for too long), I found that its CVTCS (their kind of variable valve timing) was responsible for taking enough of the exhaust gasses back into the cylinder, reducing emissions like nitrogen oxides and blah blah blah... Since I took too long to find and comprehend that answer, I didn't finish the rest of my homework in time for piano practice and my mother freaked out on me, like most stereotypical Asian parents. It was interesting to know that bit of info though.

This thread is meant to educate anyone who has a question reguarding cars, motorcycles, their engines, and so on. If someone asks a question and you know the answer, then answer it as best as you can. If you think someone's answer is wrong, do the people who really want to learn a favor and don't flame, praise the answerer's stupidity sarcastically, moan, or be an asshat. It is a complete waste of space, time, knowledge, brain matter, physical energy, and mental effort to flame person after person because he/she answered the question wrong or make himself/herself look like the most educated person about everything. More importantly, it's a waste of knowledge because I would hate to see this thread go if someone decides to bring along lighter fluid and some lighters to watch this thread die. I might even have to kill it myself (with the help of a mod of course).

That doesn't mean that everyone will follow the above so answerers, be careful about your answer to prevent this from happening. Make them as complete and precise as you possibly can. Most importantly, put a good amount of effort into it and you'll be fine.

I do not care if you're a tuner who wants to find how how to modify your car in any way, a racer looking for serious advice, a hybrid of both, or some crazy inventor. If a person wants to learn, teach him/her, not douse him/her in alcohol and throw a cake with a candle on it. If you do not like the question or the person who is asking it, don't post your negativity here, not even sarcastically or in such a clever way that the answerer can't decipher it's meaning.

I do care if the answer you are looking for is life-threatening or dangerous, like dealing with battery acid so answerers, refrain from answering, offer an alternative, or suggest safety precautions. Suggestions that could possibly cause damage to property (either belonging to you or someone else), physical harm, and law breaking (because we all live in different places) are to be followed at your own risk. You have all the responsibility to make the decision on whether or not to follow the suggestion, so you are also responsible for the outcome of following the suggestion.

Try not to stray off topic, this will make answers hard to find. Remember, this is for automotives, not nescesarily for computers or advanced quantum physics (whatever that is).

If you have an answer, try to quote or mention the name of the person you are giving the answer to. That makes it much easier to find.

Lastly, don't be afraid to ask. We all started learning from basic ideas and it's ok if you don't remember or know them, just as long as you know them by heart later on. Sure the answer may be in Google but maybe the answer is incomplete, far too complex to comprehend, or you're fresh out of time and want to find the answer as soon as you come back (hopefully).


I'll start off first: I do know that a stiffer set of springs and dampeners means less grip when taking on bumps since the tires can go airborne. But what if you had a flat surface and decided to take a turn? Given that everything is the same except for spring stiffness, dampener setting, or both, would the car have less traction on the wheels where these settings have been applied? I was thinking that it would have more since the tyres are forced into the ground but sims as well as engineers say no. Why? (remember, I'm in 10th grade so don't go into extremely complex math or similar things)

Last edited by Scatter, Tue, 7 Oct 2008 22:49.

I've got 1440x900 on one monitor and 1080p on my HDTV. I only use the HDTV for LFS, movies, hi-def gaming, and showboating .

You're gonna start playing too much LFS if you bought a Volkswagen Scirocco, stuck a PC in it with a G25, and have a projector in your garage.