when dave walker talks about ...
Discussion
I dont think its the ppc forums, there's very little of interest ever goes on in there, much like the mag these days unfortunately .. Dave's excellent 3 pages each month is all I read usually, will be cancelling my subscription that's for sure as the rest of the mag is pretty poor now.
I think the forums might be some kitcar ones or Caterham or Lotus but have never managed to find them. He often talks about heated debates over what he's been writing in PPC or other techie books but ive never stumbled across any of those heated debates and wondered which glaringly obvious forum wood I was missing because of the trees ..
I think the forums might be some kitcar ones or Caterham or Lotus but have never managed to find them. He often talks about heated debates over what he's been writing in PPC or other techie books but ive never stumbled across any of those heated debates and wondered which glaringly obvious forum wood I was missing because of the trees ..
Back in the 70s and early 80s I used to buy every issue of Hot Car and Cars and Car Conversions magazines, mainly for the brilliant, easily understandable and hands-on tuning articles by DV. How to streamline the butterfly spindle in your SU and gain 2 bhp for free etc. I still have them all in boxes in the attic.
Sadly the performance car magazine world then gradually turned into little more than articles about tits and ICE. Scantily clad girls draped over glossy paintwork, sound systems that could shatter house windows at 100 paces, exhaust tailpipes that a pregnant badger could climb into and the largest possible diameter alloy wheels with rubber bands fitted to them controlled by suspension lowered so far and with springs so hard that the cars were undriveable and you risked spinal injury if you drove over so much as a matchstick in the road.
This has primarily been driven by the growing lack of understanding of how engines even work at the basic level in most young men. When I were a nipper most lads had a dad or an uncle who could teach you how to set points, change the oil, adjust the valve clearances, tweak the carb and the numerous other regular servicing items that had to be done to stay reliable. Then came the fuel injection system to replace the humble carb and later the catalytic converter, lambda sensor, ever more complex ecus and control systems, hydraulic tappets or long life shimmed tappet systems and suddenly cars didn't need regular servicing anymore and if anything broke it was too complex to fix yourself anyway for most people.
So people stopped tinkering with engines on a regular basis and as they did so they lost the knowledge of how engines work. I remember chatting with Dave Walker as far back as nearly 20 years ago and already he said that surveys showed that the cylinder head porting and flowbench articles he liked to write for magazines weren't even understood by most readers and they just skimmed through them until they got to the more familiar bikini clad models and huge exhaust system articles they liked to read, or at least look at the pictures of if they couldn't even read very well.
So he was told to stop writing technical articles and the technically oriented magazines went to the wall due to lack of sales to be replaced by magazines that did little more than tell which charlatan to go to if you wanted more power and how much you'd have to spend with them. Power claims became outrageous because no one understood what was possible or impossible anymore or how to evaluate the claims. 200 bhp from your Mini engine sir? Not a problem with our latest ecu chip or camshaft or whatever the particular purveyor purveyed.
Snake oil products became commonplace. Totally inert tin pellets in a tube inserted into the fuel line that couldn't possibly react with anything would miraculously let you run old engines on unleaded petrol. A tiny electric fan would turbocharge your engine even though it couldn't possibly move sufficient air. ECU chip modifications would add huge amounts of power and torque even though the OE manufacturer had calibrated all the fueling and ignition outputs optimally to start with.
The world will be a poorer place when people who dispell such nonsense like Dave Vizard and Dave Walker are no longer in it.
Sadly the performance car magazine world then gradually turned into little more than articles about tits and ICE. Scantily clad girls draped over glossy paintwork, sound systems that could shatter house windows at 100 paces, exhaust tailpipes that a pregnant badger could climb into and the largest possible diameter alloy wheels with rubber bands fitted to them controlled by suspension lowered so far and with springs so hard that the cars were undriveable and you risked spinal injury if you drove over so much as a matchstick in the road.
This has primarily been driven by the growing lack of understanding of how engines even work at the basic level in most young men. When I were a nipper most lads had a dad or an uncle who could teach you how to set points, change the oil, adjust the valve clearances, tweak the carb and the numerous other regular servicing items that had to be done to stay reliable. Then came the fuel injection system to replace the humble carb and later the catalytic converter, lambda sensor, ever more complex ecus and control systems, hydraulic tappets or long life shimmed tappet systems and suddenly cars didn't need regular servicing anymore and if anything broke it was too complex to fix yourself anyway for most people.
So people stopped tinkering with engines on a regular basis and as they did so they lost the knowledge of how engines work. I remember chatting with Dave Walker as far back as nearly 20 years ago and already he said that surveys showed that the cylinder head porting and flowbench articles he liked to write for magazines weren't even understood by most readers and they just skimmed through them until they got to the more familiar bikini clad models and huge exhaust system articles they liked to read, or at least look at the pictures of if they couldn't even read very well.
So he was told to stop writing technical articles and the technically oriented magazines went to the wall due to lack of sales to be replaced by magazines that did little more than tell which charlatan to go to if you wanted more power and how much you'd have to spend with them. Power claims became outrageous because no one understood what was possible or impossible anymore or how to evaluate the claims. 200 bhp from your Mini engine sir? Not a problem with our latest ecu chip or camshaft or whatever the particular purveyor purveyed.
Snake oil products became commonplace. Totally inert tin pellets in a tube inserted into the fuel line that couldn't possibly react with anything would miraculously let you run old engines on unleaded petrol. A tiny electric fan would turbocharge your engine even though it couldn't possibly move sufficient air. ECU chip modifications would add huge amounts of power and torque even though the OE manufacturer had calibrated all the fueling and ignition outputs optimally to start with.
The world will be a poorer place when people who dispell such nonsense like Dave Vizard and Dave Walker are no longer in it.
A woman with enormous norks could explain a 3d map of battery voltage vs coil on time vs coil saturationI always enjoyed DW's articles in Cars and Car Conversions before it disappeared. I just never really warmed to PPC.
Not really a reflection on the magazine itself I guess. I just stopped buying all magazines, as most of the articles were mostly fabricated and as Puma says, even the supposedly tech articles were full of complete and utter rubbish.
Sad really. Autospeed online usually has some decent tech articles, although not really in depth stuff. But always worth a read.
Just isnt the same as paper in your hand though.
Not really a reflection on the magazine itself I guess. I just stopped buying all magazines, as most of the articles were mostly fabricated and as Puma says, even the supposedly tech articles were full of complete and utter rubbish.
Sad really. Autospeed online usually has some decent tech articles, although not really in depth stuff. But always worth a read.
Just isnt the same as paper in your hand though.
Pumaracing said:
Back in the 70s and early 80s I used to buy every issue of Hot Car and Cars and Car Conversions magazines, mainly for the brilliant, easily understandable and hands-on tuning articles by DV. How to streamline the butterfly spindle in your SU and gain 2 bhp for free etc. I still have them all in boxes in the attic.
Sadly the performance car magazine world then gradually turned into little more than articles about tits and ICE. Scantily clad girls draped over glossy paintwork, sound systems that could shatter house windows at 100 paces, exhaust tailpipes that a pregnant badger could climb into and the largest possible diameter alloy wheels with rubber bands fitted to them controlled by suspension lowered so far and with springs so hard that the cars were undriveable and you risked spinal injury if you drove over so much as a matchstick in the road.
This has primarily been driven by the growing lack of understanding of how engines even work at the basic level in most young men. When I were a nipper most lads had a dad or an uncle who could teach you how to set points, change the oil, adjust the valve clearances, tweak the carb and the numerous other regular servicing items that had to be done to stay reliable. Then came the fuel injection system to replace the humble carb and later the catalytic converter, lambda sensor, ever more complex ecus and control systems, hydraulic tappets or long life shimmed tappet systems and suddenly cars didn't need regular servicing anymore and if anything broke it was too complex to fix yourself anyway for most people.
So people stopped tinkering with engines on a regular basis and as they did so they lost the knowledge of how engines work. I remember chatting with Dave Walker as far back as nearly 20 years ago and already he said that surveys showed that the cylinder head porting and flowbench articles he liked to write for magazines weren't even understood by most readers and they just skimmed through them until they got to the more familiar bikini clad models and huge exhaust system articles they liked to read, or at least look at the pictures of if they couldn't even read very well.
So he was told to stop writing technical articles and the technically oriented magazines went to the wall due to lack of sales to be replaced by magazines that did little more than tell which charlatan to go to if you wanted more power and how much you'd have to spend with them. Power claims became outrageous because no one understood what was possible or impossible anymore or how to evaluate the claims. 200 bhp from your Mini engine sir? Not a problem with our latest ecu chip or camshaft or whatever the particular purveyor purveyed.
Snake oil products became commonplace. Totally inert tin pellets in a tube inserted into the fuel line that couldn't possibly react with anything would miraculously let you run old engines on unleaded petrol. A tiny electric fan would turbocharge your engine even though it couldn't possibly move sufficient air. ECU chip modifications would add huge amounts of power and torque even though the OE manufacturer had calibrated all the fueling and ignition outputs optimally to start with.
The world will be a poorer place when people who dispell such nonsense like Dave Vizard and Dave Walker are no longer in it.
Sadly the performance car magazine world then gradually turned into little more than articles about tits and ICE. Scantily clad girls draped over glossy paintwork, sound systems that could shatter house windows at 100 paces, exhaust tailpipes that a pregnant badger could climb into and the largest possible diameter alloy wheels with rubber bands fitted to them controlled by suspension lowered so far and with springs so hard that the cars were undriveable and you risked spinal injury if you drove over so much as a matchstick in the road.
This has primarily been driven by the growing lack of understanding of how engines even work at the basic level in most young men. When I were a nipper most lads had a dad or an uncle who could teach you how to set points, change the oil, adjust the valve clearances, tweak the carb and the numerous other regular servicing items that had to be done to stay reliable. Then came the fuel injection system to replace the humble carb and later the catalytic converter, lambda sensor, ever more complex ecus and control systems, hydraulic tappets or long life shimmed tappet systems and suddenly cars didn't need regular servicing anymore and if anything broke it was too complex to fix yourself anyway for most people.
So people stopped tinkering with engines on a regular basis and as they did so they lost the knowledge of how engines work. I remember chatting with Dave Walker as far back as nearly 20 years ago and already he said that surveys showed that the cylinder head porting and flowbench articles he liked to write for magazines weren't even understood by most readers and they just skimmed through them until they got to the more familiar bikini clad models and huge exhaust system articles they liked to read, or at least look at the pictures of if they couldn't even read very well.
So he was told to stop writing technical articles and the technically oriented magazines went to the wall due to lack of sales to be replaced by magazines that did little more than tell which charlatan to go to if you wanted more power and how much you'd have to spend with them. Power claims became outrageous because no one understood what was possible or impossible anymore or how to evaluate the claims. 200 bhp from your Mini engine sir? Not a problem with our latest ecu chip or camshaft or whatever the particular purveyor purveyed.
Snake oil products became commonplace. Totally inert tin pellets in a tube inserted into the fuel line that couldn't possibly react with anything would miraculously let you run old engines on unleaded petrol. A tiny electric fan would turbocharge your engine even though it couldn't possibly move sufficient air. ECU chip modifications would add huge amounts of power and torque even though the OE manufacturer had calibrated all the fueling and ignition outputs optimally to start with.
The world will be a poorer place when people who dispell such nonsense like Dave Vizard and Dave Walker are no longer in it.
I miss the old world, the new one is lost on me as honesty, knowledge, dignity and respect seem long gone. Good post. macdeb said:
cool: I miss the old world, the new one is lost on me as honesty, knowledge, dignity and respect seem long gone. Good post.
I suspect we all look back through rose tinted spectacles but even so the world back then seemed so much more carefree and easier. If plod wanted to do you for speeding they had to follow you for a minimum of a 1/4 mile without you spotting them and there had to be two of them in the patrol car to back up each other's story. Getting nicked was almost an optional offence if you were capable of looking in a rear view mirror. Now you just have to drive past some f**king soulless camera hidden in the bushes and kerching another 60 quid racks up on the till for the police coffers.I could go down to the corner shop for a packet of fags for mum and although even then kids weren't supposed to buy them no one batted an eyelid. When we went to stay with gran and grandad when I was 10 or 12 or so I used to get up at the crack of dawn sometimes and help Uncle Gerald do the milkround in his landrover. When we got to the last downhill stretch that ran all the way through the village I sat in the driver's seat and let it run down to each house for him, stopping to let Jed get off the footrail at the back each time and then letting the brakes off again when he returned and tapped on the tailgate. There was no need for the engine to be running, the brakes were non servo and the slope was steep enough for it to coast quite quickly from house to house. It saved him a huge amount of time constantly getting in and out of the driver's seat and stopping and starting the vehicle. Of course nowadays he'd get instantly nicked for letting a child control a motor vehicle.
I remember the summer of 76 when it was already so hot every morning when I woke up that the evening dew was steaming off the back lawn in clouds of water vapour. I'd tie my fishing rod to the frame of my bicycle, sling a bag of tackle over my shoulder and spend the day basking in the sun down by the local lake. Didn't have a rod license and had no idea I needed one. No one really cared though.
I'd happily ping away at pigeons and starlings in the back garden with my air rifle from my bedroom window when I was a kid but nowadays I daren't take it out of the cupboard. It would just take one nosey neighbour to end up with a bloody SWAT team kicking down the front door. If god forbid they tested it and found it had more than 12 ft lbs of muzzle velocity which I have no idea whether it does or not I'd be banged up for firearms offences. Lord help anyone who openly walks about with a rifle these days trying to pot a rabbit for supper. That's Darwin Award territory when plod shoots first and asks questions later.
Some time ago an ex girlfriend nearly ended up falling foul of the law because of her 4 year old. As a divorced mum of two she had to leave the kids with a child minder every day to be able to work to provide for them. Except one day little Ben had a tiny bruise on his arm from where he'd taken a tumble in the garden the previous evening and the child minder reported the "injury" to social services as she explained she was bound to do by law. So plod and social services turn up at the house to grill her and Jane spent the next god knows how long being assessed as to whether she's a fit mother or not and whether her kids should be taken into care.
A mate ended up being arrested because of his car key some time ago. He drove into town to get a new battery for the "plipper" in the car key and took a penknife along with him to pry the cover off to replace the battery. Except he also had to pop into the court house to sign some legal papers and at the metal detector they pounced on the penknife, found it had a blade a tad over 3 inches long and next thing he's in a cell. So plod finally come for him hours later and he has to go to the car park with them, prove the plipper doesn't work, show that the battery he bought fits the key and the penknife can lever the cover off and eventually they concede he wasn't actually setting out to knife someone. I can no longer take the Swedish fishing knife my grandad bought for me when I was 12 when I go fishing for fear of being arrested for weapons offences.
The first time I flew anywhere after 911 was up to Aberdeen from London in 2003 to collect a new car. I had 4 of my own make big inlet valves in my hand luggage for my mate's engine which saved me posting them. Well of course when the bag went through X-ray all hell broke loose. We end up with this guy unwrapping a valve, tapping it against his hand to see how much much damage it might possibly be able to do to someone if used as a weapon and making sure it wasn't some sort of bomb part. Eventually he conceded I might not be a terrorist and let me on the plane but with the exortation I wasn't under any circumstances to take the valves out of the bag during flight. So that was my chance of getting into the Guinness Book of Records for the non-stop juggling of Ford CVH inlet valves on a domestic UK flight scuppered but at least they weren't confiscated.
I really think the world we live in these days has essentially gone mad and it'll be looked back on in a hundred years or so as the insane time when paranoia ruled the legal process and thought crime and hate crime trumped freedom of speech and common sense.
When I came over to meet You, my luggage was full of engine and gearbox parts. Oh God, You should see the faces of the officers when they x-rayed the bag!
I had to take out every bit and explain them what they do. Some parts twice to see if I am telling the same or not. Parts were even shown to a dog (maybe a car expert dog).
Funny world it is.
But to tell something different, in 1995 I travelled to the USA to take part in a Boyscout camp. I decided to carry over my traditional bow and a set of arrows. I told the security what it is, and also that they are acient relics that are very expensive (ok, for a 17yrs old boy with quite limited funds, they WERE expensive items), soo I want to carry them with me in the plane as hand luggage. Soo did I.
I had to take out every bit and explain them what they do. Some parts twice to see if I am telling the same or not. Parts were even shown to a dog (maybe a car expert dog).
Funny world it is.
But to tell something different, in 1995 I travelled to the USA to take part in a Boyscout camp. I decided to carry over my traditional bow and a set of arrows. I told the security what it is, and also that they are acient relics that are very expensive (ok, for a 17yrs old boy with quite limited funds, they WERE expensive items), soo I want to carry them with me in the plane as hand luggage. Soo did I
.Pumaracing said:
I suspect we all look back through rose tinted spectacles ...
I remember the summer of 76....
I don't...that summer saw me electrocute myself and because of a dodgy 'old school' fuse in the fuse box, I nearly died. The new fangled MCB/RCD devices used now are much safer. See...some things have got better! I remember the summer of 76....
Pumaracing said:
Lord help anyone who openly walks about with a rifle these days trying to pot a rabbit for supper.
You can...I do...not been shot yet (on land I'm allowed to...otehrwise it's poaching)Pumaracing said:
A mate ended up being arrested because...he took a penknife...into the court house
To be fair, unless you're stupid...don't walk into court with a big pen knife...Pumaracing said:
The first time I flew anywhere after 911...
I've carried small penkives on plans since the 911 restrictions have been eased (yes, I've had to argue the toss a few times), but still can't carry a bottle of water (I'm drinking from) - strangePumaracing said:
I really think the world we live in these days has essentially gone mad and it'll be looked back on in a hundred years or so as the insane time when paranoia ruled the legal process and thought crime and hate crime trumped freedom of speech and common sense.
Or the'll look back and think - "Ah...the good old days when you could take a plane to get to another country (wish we still had those)...and you could drive your own car...by yourself...imagine that...you were actuaslly in control of a car"...The good old days...
...when you could hit your wife with a stick no more than the tickness of your thumb.
Slavery - why do it your self when you can imprison a foreigner and make them do it for you.
Smoking...with your kids in the car/house.
Sewers? why? just s
t in your drinking warter...
Heart attack? - what shape coffin would you like, sir?
Yes, a lot of things have got silly, but It's not all gotten bad ;-)
Edited to add...spell check....
...when you could hit your wife with a stick no more than the tickness of your thumb.
Slavery - why do it your self when you can imprison a foreigner and make them do it for you.
Smoking...with your kids in the car/house.
Sewers? why? just s
t in your drinking warter...Heart attack? - what shape coffin would you like, sir?
Yes, a lot of things have got silly, but It's not all gotten bad ;-)
Edited to add...spell check....
ive heard that CCC isnt totally dead, just waiting for the right time to re-appear. A couple of well known and more importantly, well respected mag conitributors one of whom may or may not have worked for said mag in the past ;-) have mentioned it to me in last couple of years.
Like many, CCC was 'the bible' for me, be great to see it back with the Clinics, techie articles etc.
Like many, CCC was 'the bible' for me, be great to see it back with the Clinics, techie articles etc.
Boosted LS1 said:
The magazine Fast Power got off to a good start and iirc Peter Burgess wrote a series of good tuning articles, head porting and how to make a flow bench using 3 hoovers and some pipe work. Sadly it soon succumbed to scantily clad young woman and Lax Power similarities.
I think you mean Fast Car magazine and btw Peter Burgess's flowbench design doesn't calibrate accurately because he got a pressure tapping in the wrong place. It reads too low at small flow numbers and gets progressively closer to accurate or even reads high at large flow numbers making him think he's found a bigger percentage gain from head modifications than he really has.BTW - for anyone wanting to get their modified car set up properly I'd recommend Dave Walker as being amongst the best of the best. It's not all about your equipment or how state of the art it is. It's more about being able to recognise common faults, find them quickly, work round them or fix them and know how to optimise fueling and ignition for both low speed and high speed operation, cold starting, transient effects when the throttle is depressed rapidly and a bunch of other stuff. I think on all of these he's very experienced.
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