A serious suggestion. I guess you don't. The only improvements you could make would be to cool the engine and upgrade the controller and battery bank, the rest of the mods would be to aerodynamics and ducting of the entire bodywork and modifications to the suspension such as fully active suspension (ie, automatic computer controlled active camber and active suspension).
Such as is shown in this modern marvels episode with a mercedes benz prototype: YouTube
If you want more power there is always a jet engine and/or a solid rocket booster. That could be the next step in consumer drag racing. Electric cars do have their limits in regards to top speeds and 1/4 mile times, mainly that limit is the battery packs.
I wouldn't be surprised also that 3rd-rail-powered high power drag cars become a reality.
Just think about it, how do you improve a curry? You add more curry. Same deal with electric cars. If you want to improve an electric car you add more electricity. High voltage systems haven't yet make an apperance, and I'm talking about 1kV systems that run literally from a 3rd rail powerline running the entire length of the track with a remote safety cutoff if the car gets into trouble.
A 3rd rail drag strip might even be safer than regular petrol powered drag racing. Think about it, the driver is inside of a faraday cage. Not so sure about the people on the drag strip though especially if it begins to rain. but if proper safety precautions are made it should be possible.
I'm itching to add active camber and active suspension and AWD to my car but I know its a pipe dream at least for the foreseeable future, I'm hoping that retrofit kits will become commonplace enough that I can do it to just about any old rust bucket.
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I had one of those (different brand) on my FWD Charger for autocross racing. Think of it as a storage capacitor on the output of the (oil) power supply. You stiffen the oil supply for engine life as opposed to stiffening the electron supply for car rattling bass
Search Youtube for videos of modified Teslas racing some of those monsters like the Viper and Hellcat. In a 1/8 mile race the Tesla usually wins. Top speed limitations on the Tesla lets the V8 monsters rule the 1/4 mile.....for now.
It's good they can make it 300 miles on battery, but can't I leave half of that at home? The average UK car can last a week with that kind of charge. When I built my EV, I sized it 20% bigger than a days use. Based on the worst day, and the fact lithium cells are seen as useful until they can only attain 80% of the capacity seen when new. I do have another battery I can load up, but never have. Longer trips are for my petrol car.
haha. I think I've seen that before about oh 20 years ago I think, thanks for sharing it with me.
YouTube
Reckon that this guy uses his horn enough?
I have 3 horns on my car, in fact I'm going to have only one in a minute as I'm going to go down and take 2 of them off to save on some weight.
Not sure you need to hop up a Tesla but losing some weight helps.
Seems a standard but lightened P100 does the 1/4 mile in under 7 seconds.
YouTube
I hate the look of the back of Mazdas. Was waiting behind a Mazda CX 3 tonight and it was like looking at the love handles of a fat girl or the bags underneath the eyes that you get when you get older. What a dreary looking back end. I think the modern world has gone truly insane with all of this organically shaped cars.
And OMG THERE ARE SO MANY MAZDAS OUT THERE!@
And OMG THERE ARE SO MANY MAZDAS OUT THERE!@
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Finally got around to messing with my daily beater- rejetted my carbs down a smidge (they were jetted for the last engine, 1776cc, this one's a stock 1584cc) and swapped plugs since the last ones were fouled from being a tad rich. Adjusted my valves, and swapped over from a basic mechanical advance only distributor (the infamous "009") to a nice cast iron mechanical with adjustable vacuum advance (VJU4BR8) which is a way nicer rig.
Hopefully I'll find the time to do a little bodywork and paint this damn thing this summer.
Hopefully I'll find the time to do a little bodywork and paint this damn thing this summer.
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nice job. For painting I'm using nothing but White Knight RustGuard Epoxy Enamel.
Apparently here in Australia people will respray an entire car and get good results with Rustguard epoxy enamel. I can't argue with that as I've seen their results and also my own results with using the paint, it just sticks to everything and because its an enamel paint it won't ever let go even hitting it with a wire brush it just takes forever to get it back off. Not suprising considering that they put varnish in enamel paint to get it.
It takes a great deal of time with a wire wheel to get off though so if you have to get the paint off again then use paint stripper.
That is what I would do on your beetle, I would use paint stripper and strip all of the body panels off of it, then paint strip the frame/body and then spray it in epoxy enamel and then reassemble it.
I can also recommend products like White Knight RustGuard Rust Converter.
Basically if you want your paint to last a lifetime you've gotta use an Epoxy Enamel paint.
Apparently here in Australia people will respray an entire car and get good results with Rustguard epoxy enamel. I can't argue with that as I've seen their results and also my own results with using the paint, it just sticks to everything and because its an enamel paint it won't ever let go even hitting it with a wire brush it just takes forever to get it back off. Not suprising considering that they put varnish in enamel paint to get it.
It takes a great deal of time with a wire wheel to get off though so if you have to get the paint off again then use paint stripper.
That is what I would do on your beetle, I would use paint stripper and strip all of the body panels off of it, then paint strip the frame/body and then spray it in epoxy enamel and then reassemble it.
I can also recommend products like White Knight RustGuard Rust Converter.
Basically if you want your paint to last a lifetime you've gotta use an Epoxy Enamel paint.
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I spotted some BBS RS Alloy wheels on ebay after doing some hillbillie "maths" with this calculator:
Rim & Tire Size Calculator. Custom Offsets - Wheel-Size.com
The wheel-size.com calculator suggested some sizes and I settled on the one on the right in the first attached pic, 235 x 45 x 17 x 8.5 ET 35. If you are going to fiddle around with this calculator then just be sure that you want to be keeping on a negative scrub radius and not going positive, otherwise when you brake your car will want to move to the left or right instead of continuing to move straight ahead. More info on scrub radius is here: YouTube
Most if not all road going cars have a Macpherson Strut suspension system, as a result they work only with a negative scrub radius, you should only use a positive scrub radius with a Pushrod suspension system. Anyway the point is, when choosing rims keep your scrub radius negative and avoid going positive but don't go nuts and give it a massive amount of negative scrub radius, you want to stay as close as zero scrub radius as possible but not right on zero scrub radius otherwise it will feel twitchy.
Also used:
Wheel Size Calculator
I used this calculator to get my factory offset specifications, which is an ET of 45 and my rim width of 6.0 inches.
They would look good but I will have to do some measurements sometime on the car to see if they have even a snowballs chance in hell of fitting, assuming this pouring rain and ice cold winds will let up.
My main concern is the rim just plain not clearing the strut tower, on my car if I were to go over a 15 inch rim I'm fairly sure that I will end up just hitting the strut tower and there won't be anything I could do to clear it aside from possibly going with coilover springs.
The only other option would be to go with a 16x7 rim but I doubt I will want to bother as the tire width is only marginally larger, and the reason why I'm wanting to do this at all is so that I can have better grip levels, take braking at corners later, accelerate harder in the wet and have a better 0-60 time, better cornering feel, etc. Going with a 10-15% larger contact patch should drop 0-60 time by 0.5 second or less, from 8.2 (measured) down to maybe 7.5.
In other news the new/used 23250-62030 injectors that I've ordered from the US last week are going to the mechanics this week first thing monday to do a flow rate test and I'll get a report sometime Tuesday or same day. Then... finally I can start reassembling the engine. 2nd time lucky?
Rim & Tire Size Calculator. Custom Offsets - Wheel-Size.com
The wheel-size.com calculator suggested some sizes and I settled on the one on the right in the first attached pic, 235 x 45 x 17 x 8.5 ET 35. If you are going to fiddle around with this calculator then just be sure that you want to be keeping on a negative scrub radius and not going positive, otherwise when you brake your car will want to move to the left or right instead of continuing to move straight ahead. More info on scrub radius is here: YouTube
Most if not all road going cars have a Macpherson Strut suspension system, as a result they work only with a negative scrub radius, you should only use a positive scrub radius with a Pushrod suspension system. Anyway the point is, when choosing rims keep your scrub radius negative and avoid going positive but don't go nuts and give it a massive amount of negative scrub radius, you want to stay as close as zero scrub radius as possible but not right on zero scrub radius otherwise it will feel twitchy.
Also used:
Wheel Size Calculator
I used this calculator to get my factory offset specifications, which is an ET of 45 and my rim width of 6.0 inches.
They would look good but I will have to do some measurements sometime on the car to see if they have even a snowballs chance in hell of fitting, assuming this pouring rain and ice cold winds will let up.
My main concern is the rim just plain not clearing the strut tower, on my car if I were to go over a 15 inch rim I'm fairly sure that I will end up just hitting the strut tower and there won't be anything I could do to clear it aside from possibly going with coilover springs.
The only other option would be to go with a 16x7 rim but I doubt I will want to bother as the tire width is only marginally larger, and the reason why I'm wanting to do this at all is so that I can have better grip levels, take braking at corners later, accelerate harder in the wet and have a better 0-60 time, better cornering feel, etc. Going with a 10-15% larger contact patch should drop 0-60 time by 0.5 second or less, from 8.2 (measured) down to maybe 7.5.
In other news the new/used 23250-62030 injectors that I've ordered from the US last week are going to the mechanics this week first thing monday to do a flow rate test and I'll get a report sometime Tuesday or same day. Then... finally I can start reassembling the engine. 2nd time lucky?
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If you like modified vehicles, you should get along to motorex some time (unfortunately just finished for this year). Here are pictures I took at Motorex 2017. Motorex 2017 | Facebook
Tony.
Tony.
I would modify a car just for function not for showing off, showing off would be a side benefit of the modification. Those fiberglass mounted speakers are a bit ridiculous, I couldn't do it because my legs will be in the way.
Yeah maybe someday I'll go along to that once my car is finished and I've driven a few long distance trips in my car. I had a look at all of your photos, well done on the photography. I did notice a severe lack of japanese cars there.
I would love to someday get my leather seats reupholstered too man that would be nice.
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Thanks
It's quite the experience. That was my first time going. There were a reasonable number of Japanese cars, but I may have been biased towards the others. Datsun 1600's and Mazda rotaries (pre RX7) would have been the most common though. The cars being shown there have had serious money spent on them. Many would have been at least 200K, and a few are over $1 million!
Tony.
Sports cars usually have fully adjustable suspension. The 911 is often pointed at, as an exception that does use MacPherson struts. Which don't only work with negative scrub radius. That is just nannying, which is needed with abs as your not in control anyway. As a driver, I want the involvement of RWD and Positive scrub.
At 6"7' you may fit in my car. It depends where your height is. Legs or body.
Driving smaller lighter cars is ecologically sound. There is no need to drive a nissan micrap though. Not until your at least 70, and even then only as a sign to other road users that they should keep their distance. Lets keep this thread for people interested in cars lol
Same here.
I'm still learning tho. All I know is that I owned a Ford Falcon XF with a sport pack or "S-pack" and it was the best handling car I've ever owned and it felt great driving around with a 4 speed automatic transmission and a 4.1 Liter inline 6 engine carburetted with a Weber 34 ADM carb and manual gear steering.
If that car had positive scrub then kudos to it. I loved driving that car around with one arm hanging out the side of the car and knowing that had full control over the entire car and can blip the throttle and have it grip in the rear and go like nuts.
I've had a bad experience with a RWD Ford EF Falcon (4.0L Inline 6, 220hp, 350nM of torque from 1,000 rpm up to 6,000 rpm) with the Tickford engine, it has a "live rear axle" or solid rear axle and I fishtailed it (Through lift-off oversteer on a soaking wet stretch of road) at about 80km/h, it was scary enough to make me never want to own a large Ford ever again. But the problem is that is all that I can afford in the "performance" category.
So I've been just buying FWD cars since then trying to find a performance touring car that I'm happy enough sliding around corners and not scaring the **** out of me.
The question is could you drive that car for 500km in a single stint? If you love a car then you should be able to do that. I can't do that that is why I'm jealous. If a car isn't big enough my leg can't reach the pedals because my legs have to remain vertical and that is the case with most if not all large cars, the 20 series camry for instance has the dash just up against my knees enough to be annoying and uncomfortable but not enough to be undrivable, it results in me being unable to place my feet fully onto the accelerator pedal but instead I can only fit my toes and half of my foot onto the middle of the pedal.
I once owned (2005-2006) a Toyota Celica ST162 too and in that car I could only ever fit in it with the seat laid all the way back while holding onto the steering wheel like I was suspended from it and using the side mirrors as if I was laying down in bed.
In my VCV10 camry however I've found the perfect car, its not too big and the dash is vertical and small enough for me to fit my legs in where I'm comfortable doing 200km in one sitting, so now I can get back into driving after being out of it for a long time.
My problem is that any car that I can fit in AND afford is a huge massive car equivalent in size to a Bentley Continental. That is the size of cars that I usually buy.
I've tried fitting in a Fox Body mustang and couldn't do it. That is why I'm jealous, you can not only fit into a MX5 but you can also afford to own one.
Wrong, driving any car no matter what it is is polluting. But you can make things better for the environment, For example buying carbon offset credits for a car that is burning E85 ethanol or reclaimed vegetable oil which will be cleaner burning.
I agree a Nissan is a pretty poor choice of car just like a Kia. I actually got cut off by a Kia yesterday while driving and I locked up the front right tyre/brakes of my mums MCV20R V6 camry wagon in the wet, no ABS (I kinda prefer it that way) while trying to stop. It felt fun sliding forward a bit. The Kia driver didn't indicate at all, just came over, this happens often around here, often enough that I'm considering driving only at night time from now on.
Our town increased in population from 500,000 to 1 million people overnight a few years ago and since then its been impossible to enjoy driving during the day, you used to be able to go out during the middle of the day for a relaxing drive and not see a single car or cop on the roads but you can't anymore, now its 100% bumper to bumper traffic unless you go for a drive after midnight. Sucks.
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