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Muscle Cars And Smokin' Chips
YetAnotherGeekGuy writes "IEEE Computer has an article this month, "The Zen of Overclocking" by Bob Colwell. In it the author compares overclockers to hot rodders (which, in my personal experience, are two sets with a significant intersection). More importantly he talks about the phenomenon, the culture, the attitude, and the natural tension between them and the industry in the quest for the right balance between performance and reliability. Thought-provoking, and some good one-liners. Enjoy!"
F1 cars are only 3.5L for a reason.
Yea. It's called a formula. If they could have bigger engines, they would.
Small engines have better performance per litre than big engines. Not because chevy sucks and honda rocks, just because it's the law of diminishing returns. Adding CCs is a more efficient way to increase power than adding vtec. The most fuel efficient engine in the world is also the most powerful and one of the biggest.
Really, who cares if your car has a 2 litre turbo or a 5 litre v8, if they make similar power? They're both going to use a similar amount of fuel.
When you get down to it, the reason japanese engines make more per litre isn't because they're better, it's because of the wacky restrictions and "agreements" the japanese government enforces on their car makers. So honda can make a 2 litre that puts out 160kw without a turbo. Then why don't they make a 400kw turbo 4 litre v8 for the nsx? Because it would be a grenade.
Bigger engines have more reciprocating mass, so they can't rev as highly, and most of the technological tricks that get more power out of small engines (vtec, vvti-l etc) relies on a much higher rev range.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
F1 cars are only 3.5L for a reason
Yes, because it's the rules. If they could have bigger engines, they would. And they're also $500,000 grenades that need a replacement/rebuild every race. Not exactly something one can apply to the garage rodder.
You can't work on a V8 engine in your kitchen. A dismantled little 4 banger is very easy to work with. Two guys can easily pick it up. One guy can pick it up dismantled.
All true. But I like to use my kitchen for you know, cooking. If you don't have an engine hoist and a garage, you shouldn't be trying to build your engine.
Do you know what insurance is on a 1600cc engine compared to a 8000cc engine?
If it's a customised 1600 with a turbo? Nothing. In australia at least, insurance companies have a checkbox for "Turbo, rotary, or V8" and most will laugh you out of the office if you tell them it's not factory.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
What the fuck are you talking about and what fantasy world are you living in?
..And you wind up with only half the powerplant..
The rules of F1 were already stated.. I won't mention that again.
"A 2.2L engine can deliver 400 hp for a long time"
Not nearly as long as a V8 could. A V8 doesn't have to work as hard to generate this kind of power. And torque? Hah. Big blocks rule the torque arena.
"4 cylinders means you only need 4 forged connecting rods and pistons and half the honing time"
"I am just finishing a project to get 300hp from a 1600cc honda engine. The total expenditure was around $3000cdn"
For $3k, do you know what you could have done with an old V8? Well, far more than 300HP, I'll tell you.
"You can't work on a V8 engine in your kitchen."
What kind of drugs ARE you on? I wouldn't work on ANY engine in my kitchen. That's where I prepare food, for fuck's sake. I have a garage for this reason.
"Do you know what insurance is on a 1600cc engine compared to a 8000cc engine?"
Smoking the peyote again, are you? Engine size is not the be-all end-all of insurance premiums.. In my city, a 2004 Civic costs DOUBLE what it is to insure a 1969 Camaro. The year of the car is the main determining factor.
"Turbo D16 has lots of pointers on how to get started on cheap turbo setups."
And this is exactly where the ricers fail to understand: whatever you can do to a little 2.2L engine, you can do to a 5.7L+ engine. I consistently hear quotes like "oh, all I have to do is throw a turbo or nitrous on my civic and I'll blow that stock mustang away". Okay, buddy, and if the mustang throws a turbo or nitrous on his engine? Then what? Huh? yeah, you get beaten again, and he paid half the price you did.
These little cars are great for day-to-day driving, but just fucking accept the fact that if you want to soup them up, they are 5x more expensive than a large-engine car and nowhere near as simple to work on.
I'm a DIY PC guy and muscle car guy (smallblock Chevys and big block Mopars). I spend a lot of time and money tinkering with cars, and none overclocking my PCs.
The big difference is that PCs follow Moore's law; cars don't. I remember when some guy overclocked his Celeron to 600 MHz with a water cooling system and it made Slashdot; and I couldn't help but wonder what that guy would feel like 6 months later when you could buy a 600 MHz CPU on eBay.
Meanwhile cars haven't really gotten any faster. The big block muscle cars of yore ran 12 second quarter mile times off the showroom floor. Modern acceleration beasts (Corvette, Viper, etc) struggle to match that, and "tuner" import cars are lucky to break into the 14s (I'm talking stock for stock).
So why spend $1000 and 40 hours getting a CPU to go 20% faster when you can wait 3 months and buy the same thing, cheaper and without any risk? That 600 MHz machine is now SLOW, and a 4 GHz machine of today will be SLOW in another year. But a 11-second street car always has been FAST, and always will be, whether it's a big block with a lopey cam, or a DOHC with a turbo.
First off, the big wing civics are 99.9999 percent slowasses who jumped on the badwagon. Of the very very small percent of civics that are genuinely fast, most of them have the cars set up as sleepers (no big wings, no big exhaust, everything quiet and stock looking). There is a local guy here with a traction controlled (the ignition retard variety) civic turbo that looks completely normal but runs mid 11s at 135mph on street tires. He runs an electronic cutout with a stock drinking straw exhaust for apperance's sake.
If it has loud v8 rumble it isnt a sleeper. Has your friend considered getting a quiet exhaust and running electronic cutouts under the car? It would be mild mannered quiet car 99 percent of the time and then you open the cutouts and the car makes full power. Just an idea.
Another great way to make a v8 sleeper is with turbocharging. In addition to the ridiculous power, the exhaust will be almost completely quiet. You can take a 2.3N/A fox body and put a twin turbo r302 block under the hood and it will sound the same despite having over 600whp (you could probably shoot for twice that if you wanted). The only downside to this approch is cost, which is pretty high.
Actually the funniest sleeper would be a riced out car that was actually fast. Never seen one of those before.
Heh. Excellent...
I tend to drive not just in a straight line, but also around curves. I'll take a well balanced and properly set up Miata over a muscle car or FWD 'ricer' any day. Say, from Fort Ross to Jenner on Highway 1...
I was cruising through that stretch, top down and enjoying the ride, when a Honda with a huge wing bolted on puled onto the road behind me. I thought it looked a bit silly, but otherwise wasn't paying much attention.
I rolled onto a short straight section after the first set of curves, and this guy apparently decided he was racing me. I figured I'd pull over after the set of S curves I had just entered, and let Speed Racer pass and do his thing. But no, this guy decides he wants to pace me through the curves. Mind you, I wasn't pushing my car hard. This was quite literally a Sunday drive.
First swing left, and suddenly he's swapping ends and sliding the wrong way down the road. The road runs along a cliff face at this point, with rock on the left, and a 200 foot drop to the Pacific on the right. He managed to come to a stop, turn around, and make it to a turnout, where presumably he changed his shorts.
Big wings on a FWD car, Type-R stickers and coffee can sized exhaust tips don't improve handling all that much. Muscle cars may be OK on a straight line, but the real world has curves.
And also increase the risk of your fuel/air mixture getting too lean, and causing detonation, which can result in very expensive damage to engine components. It is better to err on the side of too rich than too lean. They probably are leaving a bit to wide of a buffer, but make sure you know what you are doing, and do not make it TOO lean. As boost increases you need more fuel to keep the fuel/air mixture at the right level. If you decrease the amount of fuel you run the risk of leaning out at higher levels of boost.
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