Quote from danowat :

The phrase "you can't polish a turd" springs to mind, whatever you do it will still only be a Suzuki Swift.

Save your money and get something decent, I can never see the point chucking loads of ££££'s at a car like a Swift etc.

Gran Turismo and to a lesser extent, LFS, has a lot to answer for .

Dan,

NICE POST@THE AFRO
@danowat what have the polish and turds got in common???lol'

Quote from wheel4hummer :

If you want to have a fast Swift, you are probaly better off getting a turbo 'busa motor....

Yeah, because that will be easy to do illepall

Dan,

OMG MY BELLY HURTS ROFL

You can buy aftermarket suspensions that are for street/track use, and they are perfectly drivable. My car doesn't have adjustable ride height, but you can adjust the shock rates from 1-5 stiffness setting, this is a beginner adjustable shock, but it works great for daily driving and the occasional trackday. Couple this in with Camber plates and Adjustable ARB's The car would be pefectly streetable as long as you can get the cambers set right again after adjusting them.

With the proper struts and suspension components you can get a car thats fairly racable that can be a daily driver without punishing yourself when your driving to work, do your homework and I bet there is components that are designed and tested for your car.

There is nothing wrong with using a Suzuki swift =P it's an exteremly light car that doesn't need a bazillion HP to go fast, there is nothing wrong with FWD either =P I thought there was racing leagues out there that ran the Swift?

I wouldn't mess with the gear ratio's too much unless you want to rev your engine all the time driving to and from work and pay more for fuel because of that, not to mention increased engine wear, but with that car I don't think it would particuarly matter.

Seeing as we are on a topic about mad impractical idea's here's one....
Is it possible to change fuel/air mixture , engine timing etc. in real time while driving with a laptop running some pretty looking software like in the movies,
I had a look and the diagnostic leeds are available for about £70 , finding trustworthy software seems to be the problem.....???

Technically you could do this via any programmable ECU (say Motec), but why I have no idea. You'd have no idea if it was better.

The only time to adjust air/fuel ratio/mapping/timing etc is on a dyno or rolling road, where you can measure the effects, and optimise everything. If you've done your job correctly, and the ECU is sufficiently clever, then it will be right in all conditions. Changing on the move might look 'cool', but you wouldn't only manage to make your car perform worse.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Technically you could do this via any programmable ECU (say Motec), but why I have no idea. You'd have no idea if it was better.

The only time to adjust air/fuel ratio/mapping/timing etc is on a dyno or rolling road, where you can measure the effects, and optimise everything. If you've done your job correctly, and the ECU is sufficiently clever, then it will be right in all conditions. Changing on the move might look 'cool', but you wouldn't only manage to make your car perform worse.

Yeah imagine you get into your car, turn the key you laptop pops out of the dash with every little bit of info from your engine on there...as you said would just look cool...like that supra in that movie omg I cant think this morning damn that vodka

Fuel injection?
http://www.megasquirt.info/

I think it's quite hard to setup but may give few cheap horses (improves fuel economy too) when done right

There isnt a massive amount of POWER to be gained from this type of "tuning", although it will change the overall driveability of the car.

Similarly, I recently brough a Power Commander (http://www.powercommander.com/) for my bike, which allows you to alter the fuel mapping over the whole rev range, while this probably only gained about 6bhp overall, the whole bikes drivablilty and power delivery has changed completely, its a great deal smoother and allot nicer to ride.

I am sure you can get something similiar for a car.

Dan,

ha megasquirt sounds dirty

Quote from danowat :

There isnt a massive amount of POWER to be gained from this type of "tuning", although it will change the overall driveability of the car.

Similarly, I recently brough a Power Commander (http://www.powercommander.com/) for my bike, which allows you to alter the fuel mapping over the whole rev range, while this probably only gained about 6bhp overall, the whole bikes drivablilty and power delivery has changed completely, its a great deal smoother and allot nicer to ride.

I am sure you can get something similiar for a car.

Dan,

Ya a cold winters morning with pleanty of mist set her up and feel the POWER baby

Really you need to talk to a bloke called Julian at Balance Motorsport. www.balancemotorsport.co.uk.

I have a car that I have prepared for the track which I have kept road legal. I changed the final drive to reduce the gearing and it has awesome accereration however, it has also resulted in a problem. If I were to do the same thing again I would buy a Quaife gearbox with custom ratios. If you change only the final drive you end up with a first gear that is too low to be of any use. It's a real struggle to get the thing off the line without massive wheelspin.

As for suspension, although my track car is road going it is not great for spririted driving on the road. Bumpy roads cause it to skip and jump. My Alfa on the other hand is a bit more of a compromise. I used Eibach progressive rated springs. These are ideal for road use. They are quite soft at the top but once they are loaded become firmer. Best of both worlds. However, these are not coilovers so are fixed height.

My trackcar has adjustable height, damping and rear ARB. I know a little bit about suspension setup as does my good friend Julian at BM and we have managed to create a car that handles pretty well. The project started last Feb and the car still needs loads of testing and setup time. Hope this gives you an idea of the complexity of the task. Problem is, you simply cannot test on the road. It is completely different to when you are on a big wide track and you have got the thing at the limit. Tracktime is expensive.

I have to say: Not all aftermarket parts you can byu are actually bad for your car. In fact you can get patrs that make your car more efficent, especially if have an older one. They built ECUs back then which were no where as good as current ECUs. By replacing it with an optimized version you can get more power out of your car with lower fuel consumpion. The only drawback is, you'll lose the warranty of your car, and you can easily confuse them with the so-called "tuning chips" (or "resistor tuning"), which simply makes your car putting more fuel in the engine. Poor spark-plugs

Quote from Gentlefoot :

Really you need to talk to a bloke called Julian at Balance Motorsport. www.balancemotorsport.co.uk.

Yeah, I've heard lots of good things about Jules!

Quote from tristancliffe :

Yeah, I've heard lots of good things about Jules!

That's good to hear. He knows his stuff. He's also played a bit of LFS in his time so I'll point him towards this thread. Should make his day!

Quote from herki :

I have to say: Not all aftermarket parts you can byu are actually bad for your car. In fact you can get patrs that make your car more efficent, especially if have an older one. They built ECUs back then which were no where as good as current ECUs. By replacing it with an optimized version you can get more power out of your car with lower fuel consumpion. The only drawback is, you'll lose the warranty of your car, and you can easily confuse them with the so-called "tuning chips" (or "resistor tuning"), which simply makes your car putting more fuel in the engine. Poor spark-plugs

A common misconception that people have is that ECUs, in themselves, add power. This is not the case. Any ECU is simply a bit of memory to store fuel and spark mapping. It's only as good as the map contained within it. As every engine is different (even two identical engines from the same car) the only way you get the benefit from chaning the ECU is if you get the map spot on. This takes time on a rolling road which costs money.

I have an Emerald ECU on my Golf. I was forced to fit it because as standard the Golf has a mechanical fuel injection and an ECU that ONLY controls spark advance. This system was no longer suiting the engine once I had increased capacity, flowed head and changed cams. This meant I was forced to change. I have mapped the ECU from scratch myself (well, Big Ju did) and it's close but it now needs an hour or two on an RR to get full power/driveability.