Historical or useless car facts.
Discussion
the reason for the buttresses at the back of the XJS was that the origional design was for the car to be Mid engined, and they were to provide extra rigidity etc to the engine compartment...
The flying buttresses are an aerodynamic aid, they create a vortex pattern which assists with flow separation.
In 1973 Triumph dropped the power of the TR6 to 125Bhp in an effort to stop the TR6 being faster than the more expensive Stag.
The power drop was due to the need to meet US emission regulations.
The Messerschmitt 2 seater bubble car had the seats in tandem and a separate forward/reverse lever so it would go frighteningly fast in reverse.
The "reverse" function was implemented by providing the facility to stop the engine and start it back up running backwards, which being a two-stroke it was quite happy to do.
The 1558cc Lotus twin cam, based on the Ford 105E engine, actually has three cams not two... The origional ford cam was left in, to drive the dibby and oil pump.
Volvo OHC redblocks were "twin cam" on the same basis.
the A series engine pre-exsisted and was put in the Mini in a transverse layout. The problem was that this put the carb, inlet and exhaust manifolds at the front of the car which would have caused the carb to ice up and apparently also would have made it difficult to route the exhaust.
Instead of re-engineering the head to get round this problem, they turned the engine 180 degrees.
This of course meant the engine rotated the wrong way which would effectively meant 4 reverse gears and one forward gear.
What they did was to put in a power sapping idler gear between the crank and the gearbox so the engine ran the right direction.
Surely this has to be one of the most ungainly engineering solutions ever.
"Re-engineering the head" would not have been straightforward as it is a pushrod engine. It would have been necessary to put the camshaft on the other side of the block in order to avoid having the pushrods in the way of the ports. So it would need a new block as well. Given that there is in any case a need to drop the drive from the level of the crank to the gearbox in the sump, the idler gear is the logical way to do it.
Citroen 2CV torsion bars (all 4 axles are thus suspended) are mounted along the chassis and not across it as on almost every other car.
2CV suspension comprises a pair of double-ended spring/damper units that work in tension, operated by bell cranks off the wheel arms. They are mounted longitudinally and provide some degree of front/rear interconnection, similar to what Hydrolastic provided hydraulically.
You can take the wheel arms off the back of a 2CV, leave one of them off and put the other one on backwards; this puts the rear wheel on the centre line of the car, so it is really easy to make a 2CV into a tadpole trike.
The Commer van used by the GPO many years ago used a three cylinder two stroke supercharged diesel engine...
...Single piston two stroke engines, by virtue of the fact that the charge is induced from the crankcase of the engine and thus compressed slightly by the piston on it's downward sweep, are actually naturally supercharged!
However, once you introduce more than one piston, the compression effect is lost, ('cos when one piston's going up the other's going down and there's no, or little, change in the volume of the crankcase.), and the then have to be supercharged in order to induce the charge to the cylinder.
Single piston crankcase-compression two-strokes are not "naturally supercharged", the swept volume of the crankcase pump is the same as that of the cylinder (of course) so it does not induct more charge than is necessary to fill the cylinder at atmospheric pressure.
Multiple-cylinder two-strokes built on the same principle divide the crankcase into compartments for each main bearing to retain the crankcase compression effect.
Multiple-cylinder two-strokes have also been built with stepped pistons/cylinders and a conventional car-type crank arrangement. The upper part of the piston/cylinder works as normal, the lower annular part takes the place of the crankcase pump. The area of the annulus can be made larger than the area of the piston crown so this arrangement can be made to provide some supercharge.
This is only practical with direct-into-cylinder fuel injection, though, as with the standard piston-ported arrangement there is nothing to prevent charge loss apart from exhaust tuning. On the power stroke the exhaust port must open before the transfers in order to drop the cylinder pressure before the transfers open. Therefore as the piston rises again the transfers close before the exhaust, and it is only possible to build up excess pressure in the cylinder by arranging for the exhaust system to reflect a positive pressure pulse back to the cylinder which arrives at the right time to "block" the exhaust port. This of course only works at certain rpm.
Two-stroke diesels are more fussy about requiring good scavenging than petrols and the conventional crankcase pump method isn't really up to the job. It also limits your options for crankcase lubrication. The oil-mist-in-intake-charge total-loss method which works well for a light petrol engine isn't suitable for a big heavy diesel with its greater bearing loads. Two-stroke diesels therefore use a conventional four-stroke-type crankcase lubrication system with a sump and pressure-fed bearings, and use an external blower to provide the scavenge air.
Scavenging can be improved by the use of a uniflow cylinder arrangement where the inlet and exhaust take place at opposite ends of the pot - this also improves thermal efficiency by reducing the heating/cooling of the cylinder walls. It may be achieved by having a piston-ported inlet and the exhaust through conventional valves in the cylinder head, or by having two pistons in the same cylinder one controlling the inlet ports and one the exhaust, as in the Commer TS3, the Deltic, and various others. This also allows the port events to be asymmetrically timed so the exhaust can close before the inlet, which means that this layout can be supercharged in the conventional manner.
The theoretical maximum torque possible from a 4-valve/cyl engine is 98lbft/litre. If there's any truth in that theoretical maximum...
There isn't.
The Alfasuds were also built using some sort of foam on the inside of the shell which retained water.
Mk 3 Escorts were built with a chunk of sponge stuffed up inside the A-pillar to retain water and ensure that the base of the windscreen pillars would rot out shortly after the corrosion warranty expired, rot in this area being an absolute b
d to fix and more or less guaranteeing that you have to buy a new car instead. I have watched someone cut open the box section with an angle grinder, stick a hook up inside and pull this bloody chunk of sponge out.
The Rover 420SDi has greater steering lock in one direction than the other.
Not uncommon, if you can actually find the figure for the degrees of lock available left and right on a car they are often a degree or two different.
The 80's Austin Maestro could talk, but so could the Nissan Laurel and it said more.
The one I drove didn't talk
What it did do was corrode/crack through both inner wings between the front axle and the bulkhead, so the front crossmember was only held on by the steering linkages...
Volvo started out making ball bearings. Volvo means "I roll" in Latin.
And the ball bearing business is now SKF.
The flying buttresses are an aerodynamic aid, they create a vortex pattern which assists with flow separation.
In 1973 Triumph dropped the power of the TR6 to 125Bhp in an effort to stop the TR6 being faster than the more expensive Stag.
The power drop was due to the need to meet US emission regulations.
The Messerschmitt 2 seater bubble car had the seats in tandem and a separate forward/reverse lever so it would go frighteningly fast in reverse.
The "reverse" function was implemented by providing the facility to stop the engine and start it back up running backwards, which being a two-stroke it was quite happy to do.
The 1558cc Lotus twin cam, based on the Ford 105E engine, actually has three cams not two... The origional ford cam was left in, to drive the dibby and oil pump.
Volvo OHC redblocks were "twin cam" on the same basis.
the A series engine pre-exsisted and was put in the Mini in a transverse layout. The problem was that this put the carb, inlet and exhaust manifolds at the front of the car which would have caused the carb to ice up and apparently also would have made it difficult to route the exhaust.
Instead of re-engineering the head to get round this problem, they turned the engine 180 degrees.
This of course meant the engine rotated the wrong way which would effectively meant 4 reverse gears and one forward gear.
What they did was to put in a power sapping idler gear between the crank and the gearbox so the engine ran the right direction.
Surely this has to be one of the most ungainly engineering solutions ever.
"Re-engineering the head" would not have been straightforward as it is a pushrod engine. It would have been necessary to put the camshaft on the other side of the block in order to avoid having the pushrods in the way of the ports. So it would need a new block as well. Given that there is in any case a need to drop the drive from the level of the crank to the gearbox in the sump, the idler gear is the logical way to do it.
Citroen 2CV torsion bars (all 4 axles are thus suspended) are mounted along the chassis and not across it as on almost every other car.
2CV suspension comprises a pair of double-ended spring/damper units that work in tension, operated by bell cranks off the wheel arms. They are mounted longitudinally and provide some degree of front/rear interconnection, similar to what Hydrolastic provided hydraulically.
You can take the wheel arms off the back of a 2CV, leave one of them off and put the other one on backwards; this puts the rear wheel on the centre line of the car, so it is really easy to make a 2CV into a tadpole trike.
The Commer van used by the GPO many years ago used a three cylinder two stroke supercharged diesel engine...
...Single piston two stroke engines, by virtue of the fact that the charge is induced from the crankcase of the engine and thus compressed slightly by the piston on it's downward sweep, are actually naturally supercharged!
However, once you introduce more than one piston, the compression effect is lost, ('cos when one piston's going up the other's going down and there's no, or little, change in the volume of the crankcase.), and the then have to be supercharged in order to induce the charge to the cylinder.
Single piston crankcase-compression two-strokes are not "naturally supercharged", the swept volume of the crankcase pump is the same as that of the cylinder (of course) so it does not induct more charge than is necessary to fill the cylinder at atmospheric pressure.
Multiple-cylinder two-strokes built on the same principle divide the crankcase into compartments for each main bearing to retain the crankcase compression effect.
Multiple-cylinder two-strokes have also been built with stepped pistons/cylinders and a conventional car-type crank arrangement. The upper part of the piston/cylinder works as normal, the lower annular part takes the place of the crankcase pump. The area of the annulus can be made larger than the area of the piston crown so this arrangement can be made to provide some supercharge.
This is only practical with direct-into-cylinder fuel injection, though, as with the standard piston-ported arrangement there is nothing to prevent charge loss apart from exhaust tuning. On the power stroke the exhaust port must open before the transfers in order to drop the cylinder pressure before the transfers open. Therefore as the piston rises again the transfers close before the exhaust, and it is only possible to build up excess pressure in the cylinder by arranging for the exhaust system to reflect a positive pressure pulse back to the cylinder which arrives at the right time to "block" the exhaust port. This of course only works at certain rpm.
Two-stroke diesels are more fussy about requiring good scavenging than petrols and the conventional crankcase pump method isn't really up to the job. It also limits your options for crankcase lubrication. The oil-mist-in-intake-charge total-loss method which works well for a light petrol engine isn't suitable for a big heavy diesel with its greater bearing loads. Two-stroke diesels therefore use a conventional four-stroke-type crankcase lubrication system with a sump and pressure-fed bearings, and use an external blower to provide the scavenge air.
Scavenging can be improved by the use of a uniflow cylinder arrangement where the inlet and exhaust take place at opposite ends of the pot - this also improves thermal efficiency by reducing the heating/cooling of the cylinder walls. It may be achieved by having a piston-ported inlet and the exhaust through conventional valves in the cylinder head, or by having two pistons in the same cylinder one controlling the inlet ports and one the exhaust, as in the Commer TS3, the Deltic, and various others. This also allows the port events to be asymmetrically timed so the exhaust can close before the inlet, which means that this layout can be supercharged in the conventional manner.
The theoretical maximum torque possible from a 4-valve/cyl engine is 98lbft/litre. If there's any truth in that theoretical maximum...
There isn't.
The Alfasuds were also built using some sort of foam on the inside of the shell which retained water.
Mk 3 Escorts were built with a chunk of sponge stuffed up inside the A-pillar to retain water and ensure that the base of the windscreen pillars would rot out shortly after the corrosion warranty expired, rot in this area being an absolute b
d to fix and more or less guaranteeing that you have to buy a new car instead. I have watched someone cut open the box section with an angle grinder, stick a hook up inside and pull this bloody chunk of sponge out.The Rover 420SDi has greater steering lock in one direction than the other.
Not uncommon, if you can actually find the figure for the degrees of lock available left and right on a car they are often a degree or two different.
The 80's Austin Maestro could talk, but so could the Nissan Laurel and it said more.
The one I drove didn't talk
What it did do was corrode/crack through both inner wings between the front axle and the bulkhead, so the front crossmember was only held on by the steering linkages...
Volvo started out making ball bearings. Volvo means "I roll" in Latin.
And the ball bearing business is now SKF.
BigAl83 said:
Dont know if this has been on but, TVR Cerbera front indicators are the same found on sherman tanks and landrover defenders (on the back)
No they're not, Sherman tanks never had indicators. Not much did in 1943. More likely they are the same lights as on a Challenger and/or Warrior.Alfa_75_Steve said:
2 plugs per cylinder is hardly a new or uncommon idea.
Rolls Royce used what is now known as "twin spark" in the 20s for the Phantoms, maybe even earlier on the Ghost, I am not sure though about the Ghost. I have the Chief Designer of the Allegro's phone number on my mobile(Harris Mann). He helped out on my last project.
absolutely said:
Alfa_75_Steve said:
2 plugs per cylinder is hardly a new or uncommon idea.
Rolls Royce used what is now known as "twin spark" in the 20s for the Phantoms, maybe even earlier on the Ghost, I am not sure though about the Ghost. Pigeon said:
the reason for the buttresses at the back of the XJS was that the origional design was for the car to be Mid engined, and they were to provide extra rigidity etc to the engine compartment...
The flying buttresses are an aerodynamic aid, they create a vortex pattern which assists with flow separation.
I'm sure I've already mentioned this further back. The XJS was originally going to be a fastback with a large opening rear window. However, the frame for the window was too thick so the viewable area behind wasn't large enough to meet regulations, hence the change to the upright window and leaving the buttresses in place.The flying buttresses are an aerodynamic aid, they create a vortex pattern which assists with flow separation.
They do have the advantage of aiding airflow, but that wasn't the original reason.
crankshaft said:
deevlash said:
the Honda NR750 had oval pistons.
...and 8 (yes eight) valves per cylinder!It was an attempt to keep four strokes competitive against the two strokes - the attempt failed and Honda built the three cylinder two stroke on which Freddie Spencer won the title.
- One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.
- Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1.5 gallons of nitromethane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.
- A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster supercharger.
- With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle.
- At the stoichiometric 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitromethane the flame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F.
- Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.
- Dual magnetos supply 80 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.
- Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After 1/2 way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow.
- If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.
- In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph well before half-track, the launch acceleration approaches 8G's.
- Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have completed reading this sentence.
- Top Fuel Engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light!
- Including the burnout the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load.
- The redline is actually quite high at 9500 rpm.
The Bottom Line
Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated US $1,000.00 per second. The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.426 seconds for the quarter mile (2006, Tony Schumacher). The top speed record is 336.15 mph as measured over the last 66' of the run (2005, Tony Schumacher).
Pigeon said:
In 1973 Triumph dropped the power of the TR6 to 125Bhp in an effort to stop the TR6 being faster than the more expensive Stag.
The power drop was due to the need to meet US emission regulations.
Eh? How do you work that one out? Since the TR250 all six-cylinder TRs in the US produced ~100Bhp because of emissions. The power drop was in this country not America and was only on the injection cars, which the U.S never got.The power drop was due to the need to meet US emission regulations.
Triumph at the time said it was to cure erratic engine behaviour at idle i.e. a lumpy idle. I've never noticed that it being that much of a problem. And also, why try to 'cure' a problem that owners had almost 6 years to get used to and live with?
Edited by Combover on Saturday 16th August 09:59
Pigeon said:
djmojo said:
The PRV V6 engine (Peugeot Renault Volvo) was used in the DeLorean DMC12 (2.8 naturally aspirated), but also used in the Alpine GTA (2.8 N/A and 2.5 turbo), and a few Venturis, as well as the more mundane Peugeots, Volvos and Renaults (like the 25 turbo). Power ranged from 150bhp up to well over 400 (in the Venturi Twin Turbo guise), and were a fairly healthy 300 and plenty horsepower in the Europa Cup GTAs from the 80s racing series, although in the GTA without changing the manifolds (inlet & exhaust) they struggle to make 280hp, even with hooj turbos!!
That engine was originally planned to be a V8 but the early 70s fuel crisis gave them the sts about fuel consumption so they lopped two cylinders off the end, but retained the 90 degree V angle, resulting in a cack engine which was as rough as a bear's arse. Volvo eventually brought out a version with offset crankpins to try and smooth it up a bit. It also had camshaft lubrication problems.
ClaphamGT3 said:
Pigeon said:
djmojo said:
The PRV V6 engine (Peugeot Renault Volvo) was used in the DeLorean DMC12 (2.8 naturally aspirated), but also used in the Alpine GTA (2.8 N/A and 2.5 turbo), and a few Venturis, as well as the more mundane Peugeots, Volvos and Renaults (like the 25 turbo). Power ranged from 150bhp up to well over 400 (in the Venturi Twin Turbo guise), and were a fairly healthy 300 and plenty horsepower in the Europa Cup GTAs from the 80s racing series, although in the GTA without changing the manifolds (inlet & exhaust) they struggle to make 280hp, even with hooj turbos!!
That engine was originally planned to be a V8 but the early 70s fuel crisis gave them the sts about fuel consumption so they lopped two cylinders off the end, but retained the 90 degree V angle, resulting in a cack engine which was as rough as a bear's arse. Volvo eventually brought out a version with offset crankpins to try and smooth it up a bit. It also had camshaft lubrication problems.I think a few people may disagree with you there
At a certain speed, both the Boxster and Cayman produce aerodynamic lift.
The Suzuki Hayabusa is named after a Japanese falcon know for eating Blackbirds (a sneaky dig at the Honda Blackbird).
Smart facts!
The Smart concept was originally designed by SWATCH
The turbo fitted to a Smart Roadster (Garrett GT-12) is so small that the turbo and manifold are one piece.
The BRABUS Roadster bi-turbo costs over £300,000 and delivers a power-weight ratio identical to a 911 Carrera 4S, only 10 have been produced. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P17Ry7mspCw
The Suzuki Hayabusa is named after a Japanese falcon know for eating Blackbirds (a sneaky dig at the Honda Blackbird).
Smart facts!
The Smart concept was originally designed by SWATCH
The turbo fitted to a Smart Roadster (Garrett GT-12) is so small that the turbo and manifold are one piece.
The BRABUS Roadster bi-turbo costs over £300,000 and delivers a power-weight ratio identical to a 911 Carrera 4S, only 10 have been produced. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P17Ry7mspCw
The Maxi was the world's first hatchback. It was also the first production car with a 5 speed 'box.
When FSO made their first Polenez hatchback, no-one told them that the whole point was so that you could fold the rear seats down to get stuff in. Consequently, the seats couldn't fold and the car was totally useless in stead of potentially beign just mostly useless.
When the Dolomite Sprint engine was originally built it was still an 1850cc engine but it was a bit hairy to drive, so the engineers upped the capacity to 2 litres and detuned it.
The first 6 Dolomite Sprints to leave the production line were badged "Dolomite 135". This related to the hp, but it was very quickly realised that they could get into trouble for this as the production tolerances gave a varying output from 127-135hp. The cars were rebadged "Sprint" and the output was officially pegged at 127hp.
According to one of the production managers at the Mini plant I used to know, the pre-production Cooper S acheived 180mph at MIRA! In a repeat of the Dolly Sprint story the engine was seriously tamed for production.
Volvo were responsible for the invention of the three point seatbelt, the laminated windscreen, crumple zones, collapsible steering columns, airbags and most of the safety items on a car today
(My 1968 Volvo 142 had dual circuit brakes with 4 pots up front and 2 pot rears, servo assistance, discs all round, collapsible steering column, three point belts and a laminated windscreen as standard. I also once owned a 1968 Austin Cambridge....oh dear. no comparison).
When FSO made their first Polenez hatchback, no-one told them that the whole point was so that you could fold the rear seats down to get stuff in. Consequently, the seats couldn't fold and the car was totally useless in stead of potentially beign just mostly useless.
When the Dolomite Sprint engine was originally built it was still an 1850cc engine but it was a bit hairy to drive, so the engineers upped the capacity to 2 litres and detuned it.
The first 6 Dolomite Sprints to leave the production line were badged "Dolomite 135". This related to the hp, but it was very quickly realised that they could get into trouble for this as the production tolerances gave a varying output from 127-135hp. The cars were rebadged "Sprint" and the output was officially pegged at 127hp.
According to one of the production managers at the Mini plant I used to know, the pre-production Cooper S acheived 180mph at MIRA! In a repeat of the Dolly Sprint story the engine was seriously tamed for production.
Volvo were responsible for the invention of the three point seatbelt, the laminated windscreen, crumple zones, collapsible steering columns, airbags and most of the safety items on a car today
(My 1968 Volvo 142 had dual circuit brakes with 4 pots up front and 2 pot rears, servo assistance, discs all round, collapsible steering column, three point belts and a laminated windscreen as standard. I also once owned a 1968 Austin Cambridge....oh dear. no comparison).
BB-Q said:
Volvo were responsible for the invention of the three point seatbelt, the laminated windscreen, crumple zones, collapsible steering columns, airbags and most of the safety items on a car today
Didn't Mercedes claim to have brought a lot of those to market before Volvo did in the S-class?Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff