ratdoggy Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 New stuff can go also pretty quick. Just got my wife a 2015 Chrysler 200C (V6) . From roadtest info it is the equal of a '68 Camaro in 0-60 and 1/4 mile performance and it's basically a family car.
chunkypeanutbutter Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 Why not get a Tesla Model S? About the same price of the new POS (*opinion!*) Hellcat.
Quick GMC Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 Agreed, but cutting weight would be more to the point across the board. The current Challenger, for example, is much heavier that its '70s namesake, in spite of all the ballyhooed implementation of high-strength steels, etc. Really tight engineering ought to be able to shave 1000 pounds out of it, or at LEAST a couple hundred less than the original. Less weight to drag around=less horsepower required to do it=less complexity needed to achieve power from a tiny engine=more robust product=longer lifespan=less cost to maintain. Have you seen a new car gutted of it's harnesses? They are reducing the weight of the car quite a bit, but the weight comes back in the wiring and electronics. They have to reduce the weight of the cars to compensate for this. This is also the reason why the cars are so much bigger than before, they have to fit all this stuff in there somewhere.
Quick GMC Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 (edited) Just saying we have never owned one that could or seen one around here that I know of....all the 4 or 6cyl ones we have owned or friends have were always needing something or worked on after they got a lot of miles on them. I once owned a 73 Chevy cargo van with a 350ci it was worked hard every day we owned it...when I sold it it had 479,000.miles on it and never asked for much of anything still ran great and fuel economy was not bad at all for a V-8....18 on the highway about 13 in town. I am just happy the manufactures are realizing that a vehicle with enough horsepower to pull it easily will get good mpg because it uses less fuel to move it rather than it working hard and consuming more fuel to do the same job. Most of todays engines make there horsepower from fuel injection,turbos,superchargers,etc....old ones made it with the engine itself....the combination of the old school power and new school together ads up. This is not accurate. MOST engines do not have forced induction. MOST engines these days make their horsepower from the engine itself as well. They had fuel injection in the mid-late 50's. It's just controlled by computers now. Fuel injection does not fit into the same category as supercharges and turbos. Fuel injection is only a delivery system, the other two are forced induction. How is anyone even complaining about aluminum frames? It's a comically bad argument. The manufacturers HAVE to meet certain fuel mileage requirements. This is their solution. Why not just reduce weight and use a V8? Well, when you start adding complex systems for fuel management, monitoring, etc. all these little boxes and wires start adding weight. Why have a heavy V8 when you can get the same power from a turbo V6 for less weight? Also, as far as maintenance goes, THEY DON"T WANT YOU WORKING ON YOUR OWN CAR. That's the whole point. They want people to look under the hood and go "F-this, I'm taking it to the dealer." I was factory-trained Jag tech. I'm no longer in the field, but I Was ASE certified and Jaguar certified tech at a top 10 ranked dealer. When I was in training, we got to play with the new 2004 XJ before it was for sale. it was huge compared to it's predecessor. There wasn't enough extra room inside the car to justify the size increase. it was all due to the new technology. New aluminum frame instead of steel. Air ride shocks that required more computers and more wiring to support it. New braking system that required more computers and more wires to support it. This system reduced the 60-0 braking distance by 90 feet. We ended up gutting one of these things at work a while later. The main cabin harness was about 30 feet long and weighed quite a bit. You couldn't fit all this stuff in an old muscle car without loosing a tremendous amount of space inside, like comically small interior afterwards. Edited January 15, 2015 by Quick GMC
johnbuzzed Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 (edited) "You couldn't fit all this stuff in an old musclecar..." I have seen more than one example in current Mopar magazines. One was a B-body, with a three-inch shorter Charger "chassis" and all the guts, another (in a currently available mag; maybe Mopar Action?) is a Dart. It can be done, and it can be made to look like it belongs there (seemingly) without too much drama. Edited January 15, 2015 by johnbuzzed
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 (edited) I was factory-trained Jag tech. I'm no longer in the field, but I Was ASE certified and Jaguar certified tech at a top 10 ranked dealer ... New braking system that required more computers and more wires to support it. This system reduced the 60-0 braking distance by 90 feet. We ended up gutting one of these things at work a while later. The main cabin harness was about 30 feet long and weighed quite a bit. You couldn't fit all this stuff in an old muscle car without loosing a tremendous amount of space inside, like comically small interior afterwards. Guess you missed post #63. (By the way...I was an A&P...aircraft airframe and powerplant...mechanic for several years, and years before that an ASE certified Master Mechanic, as well as having ASE ratings in body and paint). I quote myself: "A Cirrus SR 22 is a 200 MPH, 4-passenger airplane. It weighs about 2300 pounds. It has extremely sophisticated onboard electronics (much MORE capability than any car ever made) including 2 10" flat screen redundant multifunction displays, a backup electrical system, navigation equipment, anti-collision system, dual comm radios, GPS, storm-scope (plus, the aircraft autopilot can fly itself over a predetermined map course while you read or snooze...if you trust the system enough), a wing de-icing system, sat-com capability, AND A PARACHUTE TO LAND THE WHOLE AIRPLANE safely in a catastrophic emergency. Tell me why a car to take one probably overweight ass to work and back REALLY needs to weigh 3800 pounds (or more)." My point being: a lot of onboard electronics and wiring for sophisticated systems is not sufficient reason for bloated surface-vehicle weights. Edited January 15, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy
vairnut Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 The 6.2l LT1 in the 2014 vette is 450hp and runs at least 28mpg all day long. No problem with meeting fuel economy or emission standards. No EGR, no air injection, no fancy converters. Direct Injection has had little improvement in the fuel efficiency or emissions output. Not sure who or where the articles source came from, but EPA and CAFE are no legit reasons for dropping V8's in the near future.
freakshow12 Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 The 6.2l LT1 in the 2014 vette is 450hp and runs at least 28mpg all day long. No problem with meeting fuel economy or emission standards. No EGR, no air injection, no fancy converters. Direct Injection has had little improvement in the fuel efficiency or emissions output. Not sure who or where the articles source came from, but EPA and CAFE are no legit reasons for dropping V8's in the near future. Lol! You really think that vette engine has no egr, air injection or converters? My 14 gt500 is 662 hp stock and has egr,air injection which btw is part of the egr, full converters and it also knocks down high twenties as in 6th gear at 65 mph it's revving 1600rpm
Quick GMC Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 "You couldn't fit all this stuff in an old musclecar..." I have seen more than one example in current Mopar magazines. One was a B-body, with a three-inch shorter Charger "chassis" and all the guts, another (in a currently available mag; maybe Mopar Action?) is a Dart. It can be done, and it can be made to look like it belongs there (seemingly) without too much drama. and how much do you think that cost to do that?
Quick GMC Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 Guess you missed post #63. (By the way...I was an A&P...aircraft airframe and powerplant...mechanic for several years, and years before that an ASE certified Master Mechanic, as well as having ASE ratings in body and paint). I quote myself: "A Cirrus SR 22 is a 200 MPH, 4-passenger airplane. It weighs about 2300 pounds. It has extremely sophisticated onboard electronics (much MORE capability than any car ever made) including 2 10" flat screen redundant multifunction displays, a backup electrical system, navigation equipment, anti-collision system, dual comm radios, GPS, storm-scope (plus, the aircraft autopilot can fly itself over a predetermined map course while you read or snooze...if you trust the system enough), a wing de-icing system, sat-com capability, AND A PARACHUTE TO LAND THE WHOLE AIRPLANE safely in a catastrophic emergency. Tell me why a car to take one probably overweight ass to work and back REALLY needs to weigh 3800 pounds (or more)." My point being: a lot of onboard electronics and wiring for sophisticated systems is not sufficient reason for bloated surface-vehicle weights. At what cost though. Are you willing to pay for what it costs to get the cars that much lighter? There has to be a balance. Sure they can do what you're saying, but they won't sell many.
Matt Bacon Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 The 6.2l LT1 in the 2014 vette is 450hp and runs at least 28mpg all day long. No problem with meeting fuel economy or emission standards. No EGR, no air injection, no fancy converters. It also turns off half the cylinders when they aren't needed, has direct fuel injection to allow higher compression ratios, variable valve timing, and a combustion path and chamber design that took 6 MILLION HOURS of computational fluid dynamics analysis to fine tune. It's an amazing piece of engineering, but your dad's 'vette V8 it ain't... ..and besides which, all of that achieves EPA figures of 17/29 mpg. And you wonder why large-capacity V8s aren't the solution to 21st-century gas mileage requirements? bestest, M.
Quick GMC Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 It also turns off half the cylinders when they aren't needed, has direct fuel injection to allow higher compression ratios, variable valve timing, and a combustion path and chamber design that took 6 MILLION HOURS of computational fluid dynamics analysis to fine tune. It's an amazing piece of engineering, but your dad's 'vette V8 it ain't... ..and besides which, all of that achieves EPA figures of 17/29 mpg. And you wonder why large-capacity V8s aren't the solution to 21st-century gas mileage requirements? bestest, M. 29MPG isn't the future, that's the problem. EPA wants 50 MPG+. GM Has done amazing things with the pushrod engine, but there's only so far you can go. This is the whole thing, they are going for long term, not just right now.
SSNJim Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 This all sounds a lot like when the big block V8 died as a car option. A lot of the same arguments were made, and now we have standard run of the mill small block V8s putting out more rated HP than any big block performance option ever did. The performance automotive industry survived the loss of the big block, and it will survive the loss of the V8.
johnbuzzed Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 and how much do you think that cost to do that? Probably not as much as you think, and as more people do it, the cost goes down. I'm guessing that some of the more "conventional" street machines or rods (or whatever genre) can total up to just about as much, maybe even more. The point is, it has been and can be done.
Chuck Most Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 All this chatter is going to seem so silly in a thousand years when people are zipping around on beams of pure energy.
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 All this chatter is going to seem so silly in a thousand years when people are zipping around on beams of pure energy. And some grumpy old fossil will be complaining that the old-school electron beams were much better than the dang new-fangled neutrino beams...
Lownslow Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 The 6.2l LT1 in the 2014 vette is 450hp and runs at least 28mpg all day long. No problem with meeting fuel economy or emission standards. No EGR, no air injection, no fancy converters. Direct Injection has had little improvement in the fuel efficiency or emissions output. Not sure who or where the articles source came from, but EPA and CAFE are no legit reasons for dropping V8's in the near future. half that 28 is based on the weight of the vehicle.
dieseldawg142 Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 (edited) ..... Edited May 11, 2018 by dieseldawg142
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 beams of pure energy??? what happened to teleportation?..... Dude...teleportation went out with, like, V8 engines.
chunkypeanutbutter Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 beams of pure energy??? what happened to teleportation?..... Intergalactic hipsters won't want it. Too mainstream.
Tom Geiger Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 beams of pure energy??? what happened to teleportation?..... Teleportation was soooo 1960s!
drball Posted January 17, 2015 Posted January 17, 2015 Guess you missed post #63. (By the way...I was an A&P...aircraft airframe and powerplant...mechanic for several years, and years before that an ASE certified Master Mechanic, as well as having ASE ratings in body and paint). I quote myself: "A Cirrus SR 22 is a 200 MPH, 4-passenger airplane. It weighs about 2300 pounds. It has extremely sophisticated onboard electronics (much MORE capability than any car ever made) including 2 10" flat screen redundant multifunction displays, a backup electrical system, navigation equipment, anti-collision system, dual comm radios, GPS, storm-scope (plus, the aircraft autopilot can fly itself over a predetermined map course while you read or snooze...if you trust the system enough), a wing de-icing system, sat-com capability, AND A PARACHUTE TO LAND THE WHOLE AIRPLANE safely in a catastrophic emergency. Tell me why a car to take one probably overweight ass to work and back REALLY needs to weigh 3800 pounds (or more)." There is the issue of mass production. How many planes are made and what is there cost compared to producing a popular four door sedan. Automobile manufacturing systems do make compromises for cost, productility and quality. They all could manufacture a lighter car with all the do dads but not at a price point that the average car buyer could afford. My point being: a lot of onboard electronics and wiring for sophisticated systems is not sufficient reason for bloated surface-vehicle weights.
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 17, 2015 Posted January 17, 2015 (edited) drball's response to the post: There is the issue of mass production. How many planes are made and what is there cost compared to producing a popular four door sedan. Automobile manufacturing systems do make compromises for cost, productility and quality. They all could manufacture a lighter car with all the do dads but not at a price point that the average car buyer could afford. You missed the point. My response there was targeted to a remark made by another poster that the wiring and computers that support all the onboard bells and whistles in contemporary cars are in large part to blame for the excessive weights. My point was that the aircraft referenced has a lot more onboard capability, but the wiring somehow doesn't make it too heavy to fly. Cirrus doesn't use any magical helium-filled wires or titanium computers. The wiring, connectors and computers in the aircraft are no more expensive than the comparable bits in an automobile, other than the added cost of being FAA certified for flight applications. That certification would not be necessary for surface vehicle use, naturally. Lessons can be learned from looking at the way other industries deal with weight-saving, just as Cirrus could have built a better, cheaper airplane had they studied the way the Germans perfected fiberglass aircraft manufacturing many years ago (The Cirrus design requires many many hours of hand fitting and finishing, filling, fairing, painting and polishing. German sailplanes come out of the molds needing only very minor light sanding and polishing of the mold-seams. The German production methods could easily have been adapted to the Cirrus, shaving considerable cost from the aircraft. In the same way, looking at the way aircraft electrical systems save weight, car builders might find ways to cut weight without adding cost.) Edited January 17, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy
Matt Bacon Posted January 17, 2015 Posted January 17, 2015 True, but an SR22 does run $500K -- $800K ;-P GE Plastics, in particular, spent a lot of hours and dollars in the 90s looking at how large structural automotive components like spaceframes could be mass-produced out of three-dimensionally woven fibre reinforcement with plastic resin injected into and around it, and getting not very far. Nobody has really figured out how to mass produce reliable composite structures to the standards needed for today's cars. McLaren knows how to do it for supercars, but to get the cost down for THEIR new "entry-level" 911-beater at a mere £130K they've switched to aluminium body panels rather than the composite ones on a 650S. Lamborghini is supposedly the "testbed" for VAG, pioneering carbon fibre moulding techniques, but the Huracan isn't mass-market by some way. I think it's probably crash-testing rather than excess electronics that's really driving up the weight of cars (though, while the CIrrus may have the same level of electronics as a modern car, I bet it doesn't have six electric motors in each seat to move them in 3 axes, firm up or relax the lumbar support, and even give you a massage!). To get survivability to the current levels, you either need weight (simple momentum reduces acceleration) carefully deployed into collapsable crash structures, or if you have less weight (with aluminium or composites) you need even cleverer energy absorption methods built into the structure, which are harder to engineer, and harder to build (with composites, for example, you have to align the reinforcing fibres precisely through the structure, and build in zones that will absorb energy as the fibres come apart. It's amazing to see some of those modern Le Mans crashes where the driver walks away, but the reason why the car is flying apart around the driver in his tub is that those parts are sapping energy and carrying it away from the driver. If the car was so strong that it retained its structural integrity in a crash like that, you'd be able to pour the driver out of the tub afterwards... Weight, crash resistance and cost are three points of a triangle. You can get lighter weight and the same crash resistance, these days, using aluminium, and a lot of mainstream manufacturers are going that way. But to do it without massively increasing cost per vehicle is requiring miracles of production engineering, and a lot of investment in new manufacturing technology plant. Cars are by far the most complex mass produced (no airplane is made in the millions) thing that mankind makes. They are already amazingly cheap for what they are. To try and reduce weight, while keeping the crash resistance and cost the same is really, really hard... bestest, M.
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