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The Bugatti Veyron
An anonymous reader writes "OK, most /.ers cannot afford the Veyron, but reading this article at HowStuffWorks is still fascinating. How do you fit 1,000 horsepower into a compact engine? How do you keep a passenger car on the road at 250+ MPH? The article links to a set of videos on the Veyron engine that are also very good. Are there any cars out there better than this?" There's also a story by Popular Science.
Who cares? I want my flying car!
karma capped
Apparently the acceleratory (is that a word?) force of this car is so immense, that at full bore you are pulling the same kinds of G-Forces as you do on the vertical drops of a roller coaster ride.
;)
Does 186MPH in 14 seconds.. must be a terrifying experience for both the driver, and for his wallet when he comes to fill it up!
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
My lowely little GMC minivan is far better than this car. I can fit the kids, my wife, our double stroller, and a whole bunch of groceries/luggage/cargo, etc in it confortably, pay about $350/month for it, and still get around 20mpg.
Not that the Bugatti wouldn't be a lot of fun, but I doubt I'd have my license very long if I owned one of those.
This car has been in the works for two years (maybe longer) now with repeated release delays and increasing costs. I have my doubts that VWAG will ever actually produce and sell one of these vehicles.
The Veyron is an interesting ride. It has one of the few W16 engines out there, not to mention quad turbos. One of the most amusing facts about the Veyron is the amount of effort that went into the sound system. Apparently, Bugatti demanded audio perfection, even when screaming along at 252 mph. I don't know if I speak for anyone else, but I think I 'd have larger concerns than the quality of my audio, if I was cruising at 252...
I have a Veyron you insensitive clod!
Modding your 1982 Pinto doesn't count.
Anyone care to put money on this car making it to market?
The Bugatti Veyron is the last gasp of Piech's reign at VW (He had a thing for supercars and old nameplates). It's been plauged with reliablity issues and has cost VW a fortune to develop.
(Kinda sounds like Rhapsody a bit, doesn't it?)
-E2
The evil monkey commands you to dance.
60 years ago when internal combustion propellor planes were the standard, I'm guessing that the prop plane defined the hi-tech, high powered, low weight internal combustion engine. Anyone know if that's still true?
The question from the orginal conversation was "has anyone used a wenkel rotary (it has a low weight to power ratio) in a plane?" Why/Whynot . . .
You have a French tank?
Well, here in the USA, we do use very heavy passengers:)
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Sorry, but according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the most valuable car in the world is the Bugatti Type 41 Royale, at $15 million. It's also not the fastest overall, since it's beaten by racecars and the like.
Carmack's Testarossa had 1198 bhp and they had trouble getting it dialed in and over 170. Pretty tractable though the wheels DID spin in 3rd gear when the turbos came up to speed at 85 mph.
Not sure if the Bugatti really does have "the most horsepower." Maybe most for a production car.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Fill it up with petroleum distillate, and revulcanize my tires! Posthaste!
It would be incredibly easy to kill someone within 3 seconds with this car. Scary. I hope it has good visibility.
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
You don't. That's part of the beauty of it.
KFG
I like the fact that instead of it being a V-8 engine it's a W-16 engine.
It would be interesting putting this engine into a truck or some working vehicle...but there are probably more efficient engines out there, like a diesel?
Interesting read though.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
"How do you keep a passenger car on the road at 250+ MPH?"
The answer for most people is: you don't.
If I would have won the lottery yesterday you would see a Ferrari, or maybe a Ford GT in my driveway. Maybe not anymore, holy shit.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I like how the HowStuffWorks article has a "Shop or Compare Prices" link at the very end.
It doesn't come up with too many matches, though.
"Tomorrow's forecast: a few sprinkles of genius with a chance of doom!" - Stewie Griffin
Better in what way ? I personally enjoy getting more than 3MPG (just me). I like the Civic Hybrid and Prius personally.
Get a motorcycle.
Most of the 1000cc sportbikes on the market today will do a nice 140+ mph quarter mile, top out at 180+ mph, and corner better than anything short of an indy car for around $10k.
Or, if insist on stupidly ridiculous 250 mph speeds, you could still get one of these and save three quarters of a million dollars.
There are tons of kit cars and one off race cars that are capable of such feats but you never hear about them because gearheads dont have billion dollar marketing budgets to get news stories written about their flagship image cars.
250 mph top speed is retarded because the only places you can really reach such a speed are on a banked oval track. Overlooking the fact that the veyron is a heavy barge of a car and has mediocre street tires... Even the fastest of close wheeled race cars (many of which have comparable horsepower, much stickier tires, far less weight and better aerodynamics) are hard pressed to break 200mph even on tracks with enormous straight sections. Mostly they keep to speeds below 150 because of having to constantly brake for curves. It would be a much lower speed if they had street tires instead of racing tires. 250mph is a useless speed until tire compounds and braking systems have advanced a VERY long way. The trick is less in getting to 250mph than it is in avoiding things going slower.
As for aerodynamics, it isnt very hard to keep the car planted, even without fancy computer desgined undercar tunnels. There are tons of books on desgning and testing over and underbody aerodymics- much of this knowledge has been floating around for decades.
As for 1000+ hp, there are a ton of big block v8s making that power all over this country. Some making significantly more. A few even do it on pump gas.
Check out these babies . They can do 0-60 in a mere 2.9 seconds, that's actually 0.1 quicker than the bugatti!
They're powered by two bike engines working together to give a power to weight ratio of 600BHP per tonne, and the amazing part is they only cost around 16,000 although some assembly is required. Top speed isn't close to 250+mph, but do you know anywhere where you could get to that speed (UK driver speaking here!)? These certainly win the 'bang-for-buck' award here, and are available to joe avaerage...
http://www.frenchgeek.com/
As if 1000hp is so impressive. A twin turbo-ed 302 block (a little 5.0 block for those not in the know) can easily push 1500hp at the flywheel with the proper forged parts in the lower end. Plenty of high end drag cars put out 2000-3000hp on average. 1000hp is out of the ordinary, but certainly not a feat of engineering that the text above makes it out to be.
rk
It has wings - just upside down - for the downforce needed to make it stable. From TFA:
But wouldn't it have been easier to just add 398 lbs. of extra metal? Serious question. Is downforce from the spoiler(wing) that much better than extra metal?
The latest CAR magazine (a british mag) has an article on a new chrysler car which has 958bhp.
In any case, I could not find a link to the this car anywhere, but pick up the mag if you get a chance. Oh, and it's less than half the price of the Bugatti.
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Bugatti has been renowned not only as a sports car, but a luxury sports car. It's asking the question what is the absolute best I can buy. where in ferrari for exampe is primarily a sports car creature comforts only as needed. so given the history of the car this is not unheard off. On a side note engine technology has also been pushed as far as the marine world. if i'm not mistaken the original diesign for the W16 engine was taken from one developed for speed boats.
according to Guiness book of records
is this baby
Is that just at full throttle? This car reminds me of some of the huge Dusenburgs in the 1920's. These cars were such gas hogs that you had to turn the car off while pumping in gas, becuase they used it faster than the low power pumps of the day could get it in the tank. Also, I remember Bugatti calling this car a show car, but I don't remember them ever saying they were going to make it. It seems to me that it is not practical enough to drive. At 1.33 GPM, you would need to drive a gas truck behind it to get more than 5 miles! How big a gas tank can this car have? 15-20 Gallons? Think about it...
Sure there is the one and only McLaren F1, and no crazy 1000 HP required too, just some really really kick ass engineering, better yet for acceleration McLaren F1 LM (I think only 2 road-going excist)
First off, I've known of Bugatti ever since playing Top Trumps when I was 8 or something.
/. or just because I'm programming right now... :o)
The first time I read the title, and the second..I read it as Bug-atti and not Bew-gatti, maybe it's the context of
The perfect accessory to the Bugatti
I am a karma whore.
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
Remember, Google is your friend
Q.
The question from the orginal conversation was "has anyone used a wenkel rotary (it has a low weight to power ratio) in a plane?" Why/Whynot . . .
They have.
OT: My '86 RX-7 is a blast to drive. I wish they still made them.
Life is too short to proofread.
Cars are designed to use their engine at 10% of peak output most of the time.
Planes are designed to use their engine at 90% of peak most of the time.
I can see a better way to get that much power. Make a redundant array of independant cars, or RAIC. Take 10 Kias, and weld them together. You get 1200 hp, plus better mileage. Also, who needs run flat tires, if it breaks down, pry one of the Kias out and drive to get help.
But wouldn't it have been easier to just add 398 lbs. of extra metal? Serious question. Is downforce from the spoiler(wing) that much better than extra metal?
Downforce has weight but not mass, so you don't need to expend horsepower accelerating it.
Wankel engines in the past have had dependability issues. In a aeronautical sense this isn't too appealing. The old Wankel had serios issues with fuel concumption, and wearing of the plugs, and combution linings. This engine in the Wankel rx-8 is supposed to solve most if not all of these problems. so perhaps now it will be a viable alternative.
Tire grip increases with weight, but it is a log curve- the more you increase weight, the smaller the increases in traction are. Since each increase in weight also increases the mass, the tires have to do more work to change the direction of the car. Thus, heavy cars tend to develop less and less traction than lighter cars.
Adding downforce increases the car's "weight" for purposes of calculating the grip of the tires on the road, but doesnt increase the mass of the car that they have to change the direction of.
This is why the "ideal" race car is a stick figure formula 1 type car with a giant engine and huge wings. The downforce keeps the car stuck on the road with the force of many times its weight, but since the car is so light it can change direction with mind boggling speed. This is why formula one cars can develop over 5gs of sideways acceleration. The powerful engine helps to generate speed which in turn increases downforce. The cars actually grip more the faster they go.
Buy an M5 and have a man's car, not one of those girly M3's. 8) But want a real car? Drive a 911. There is no substitute. Really.
still no retail sales, still only prototypes in images and video. An engine that has reliability problems, and all yours fora cool $1million dollars. Uh, no thanks. I'll be amazed if this car ever sees the light of day. They need to cut their losses and move on.
'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'
No... The point is that you want those small-dicked meatheads to kill themselves, just so long as they don't kill us geeks in the process.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Yes: Aston Martin. Best looking car on the road.
The McLaren F1 is another car in a class of its own, although they don't make it anymore. I think there are only 200 in the world and suprisingly at over GBP1 million some people own more than one.
Last August at the Monterey Historic Races, a prototype Veyron spun but fortunately missed the wall at Laguna Seca raceway. Rumor had it that Bugatti (VW) still had a lot of downforce issues to work out before full-scale production could begin. Let's see who owns one first, P. Diddy, Jay Z, or 50 Pennies.
I applaud your tastes. Used to race 911's in my race prepped 1971 240 Z. It's nice to have an extra gear at 145. :]
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
airplanes engines are rarely measured in terms of miles per gallon, its damn near impossible to measure, but instead by hours. Youll notice looking at used planes that their age is measured in flight hours instead of miles. By the hour i'm sure that cars are more efficiant, but by the mile planes by sure. Think about it this way, many single prop two seaters can go a few hundred miles on one tank of gas going around 150 miles/perhour running off a four cylander engine spining at just a few hundred rpm's. Now i know its apples and oranges but you try finding a car that can do that.
downforce is controlled much easier. It does not have mass so it is easier to accelerate, break and most important, turning the car...also, you can control the amount of downforce so you can achieve top speed easier (I'm not sure about veyron but enzo ferarri decreases the downforce after a certain speed so it can accelerate more)
I think Continental still makes some powerplants for older Cesnas planes, generally they are high compression (even for today), but lower RPM (3000 RPM is near redline). General Aviation is sort of undergoing a rebirth after liability suits went out the window, the industry had died until a few years ago. If you pop out to an FBO I'm sure you could find a few pilots who would show you their bird. Honda was working with Textron on some newer engine designs for GA. Cutting edge (for general consumption) internal combustion technology is likely in Japanese speedsters or some of the new European diesels. In a few years (after the R&D is done there should be some interesting stuff coming out of the general aviation industry), although from what I've seen its more focused on the areodynamics and cabin space rather than improving engines.
Generally the cost of proving a new engine reliable to the FAA was prohibitive for all but a few designs. I'd guess there are some experemental craft (homebuilts) with Wenkels but you'd have to be pretty brave to trust your life to a point seal.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Are there any cars out there better than this?"
I am not a troll, but I'm going to venture and say, all cars. High-priced Italian sportscars are designed to work for about 2-3 years and then fall apart. Their parts are ridiculously expense (I've read how some vehicles oil changes alone are hundreds of dollars.)
Cars like the Veyron are made to be purchased by an elite few who will drive them on rare occasions and keep them in climate controlled garages the rest of the time.
If you've got nothing better to spend your money on, buy out the RIAA.
But wouldn't it have been easier to just add 398 lbs. of extra metal?
I wonder if the F1 people have thought of this - they could just tow little trailers maybe.
It takes energy to accelerate mass, and 398 pounds is indeed significant.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
If you're clearly insane (which you'd have to be to go 250mph on the street, in a car that's hugely different aerodynamically from an F1 car), then why not build a motorcycle with better performance for a lower price? Really, this is either 1) like putting linux on a toaster, you do it just because nobody else has, or 2) it's just a way to prove you can blow huge amounts of money.
certainly not. 400lbs is a ton of weight, even in the sport-luxury end of the scale. that would dratsically mess up handling, braking, and accelleration.
...and that is "How Slashdot works". :)
Leonid Mamtchenkov
It would seem VW bought the naming rights at the fire sale.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
We should make sure that they have their own lane. Then I could see the beauty.
Yes, they are used.
http://www.monito.com/wankel/aircraft.html
Even for R/C planes
http://www.osengines.com/engines/osmg1400.html
The Veyron's W16 shatters transmissions like crazy. I'll believe the output and speed numbers when the vehicle actually comes out.
Rotary engines are great. Fantastic power/weight ratios. The problems is they need rebuilt often. Until they can overcome that in the engineering design, they won't be popular for regualr passanger cars. I'm hoping the new RX-8 engines show that they can last longer than the old RX-7's. Rebuilding the engine in your car every 60k miles kinda sucks.
Because you want reliablity in an airplane motor. Mazda's rotaries are not reliable enough. Not to mention they're terribly fuel inefficiant and heat up quickly.
Do you mean that you actually get out of the house? You can't fool me, you are no geek...
Is mostly going into refined small piston engines like the Jabiru http://www.jabiru.co.uk/engndsc.html or small turbines similar to these
http://www.amtjets.com
Are there any cars out there better than this?
This may or may not be the best car available. However, it is surprising how much competition the Veyron has:
There are more cars in this class, but I can't remember them off the top of my head.
I don't know how the market can support all of these $250k+ cars. How many people out there can really afford these? Wish I was one of them
The company that folded in 1997 didn't have anything to do with the original Bugatti (save for the name) either.
All this talk about horsepower and not many even know that it's actually pretty easy to get to the 1000 mark. Toyota Supras, a ricer's wet dream, can be tuned to that level realatively easy as well as the Nissan Skyline. Of course, what do 600-(~)900HP Supras have in common? The same 1/4 mile times. (not true in all cases you anal geeks)
To true car enthusiasts who enjoy driving, it's more about speed in a corner rather than straight line speed. What's the point to having a 1000HP car if you can't turn it?
Anyway, what has me worried as that the US auto companies are sell more "high horsepower" cars and cheaper than the European ones. They're "fast cars on a budget." A good example would be the Dodge Neon (SRT-4) or the Pontiac GTO. Since they are cheap and the Neon pretty much being a "girls car," it would be purchased to be given to inexperienced teenage drivers and many accidents will follow. I've seen at least 4 SRT-4 roll-overs, all by teenage drivers.
The European companies such as BMW or Mercedes, their "performance" cars will be pushing incredible figures, something along the lines of 500HP for the new M5 and 600 some for the CL65. These cars are out of most people's budgets, but what the point is that BMW and Mercedes are putting in many safety gadgets that help the driver with traction in many conditions and BMW's Dynamic Stability Control system will even put the brakes on individual wheels when the car senses a slip so you don't go skidding out of control. Merc has a similar system. I haven't heard of any such things from Dodge or Pontiac.
In the end what I really want to ask is, will Bugatti be responsible as to whom they sell the cars to and also add as many safety features as they can? If you have something that fast and add an inexperienced driver, a horrible wreak will ensue.
That's with a normally aspirated (i.e. no turbo/superchargers) V10 engine. Of course, instead of revving at 6000RPM, they regularly hit over 19000RPM (6000RPM is idle for an F1 engine).
I used to work out of the home of a county coroner. I got to hear all the stories the next day as he traipsed in tired and haggard.
Most of these guys do themselves in in the middle of the night. They think radar can't see in the dark or something.
As it happens, neither can they.
"Hey, where did that tree come fr........WHACK!"
KFG
There is an older article by Gordon Murray (McLaren chief designer) dealing with exactly the same issues. Basically Murray talks about how little horse power means at speed of 250+ MPH, and how it's a balance between weight, aerodynamic qualities of the frame and body and HP that make cars like this break records. And that is why Veron has not and will not break any records
If you're referring to General Aviation propellor aircraft, the answer is definately no.
Chances are that the Lycoming or Continental engine in your average Cessna has changed very very little over the past 50 years. Even though intercooling and turbocharging are more common options today, they are still air-cooled, still cruise at 2500-3000rpm, and still magneto-fired. If you took a time machine, kidnapped an A&P from 1950 and put him here, he would probably die from the shock of everything being exactly the same. If not, he would begin a spree to kill all of the lawyers responsible.
By comparison, your car's engine is about 25% more fuel-efficient, can produce 50-100% more power per unit of displacement thanks to its higher speed, is liquid-cooled, is often variably-timed, will run on unleaded low-octane fuel, and is probably much quieter than an aircraft engine.
Many automotive engines, from Honda Goldwing engines to Chevy 350 cu. in. V8's and on up, are converted to air use in Experimental Aviation. They usually must be geared down to swing a decent-sized prop at a reasonable mach number (supersonic prop tips are bad). Some pilots do this because of the costs of a certified engine ($20k+, plus regular maintenance by an A&P), some do it because 100LL avgas is so expensive, some do it because they believe the end result will be more trustworthy.
As for rotaries, yes, they'll save you a bunch on weight (and size, if needed), and some people put them in experimental aircraft. They have very few moving parts which increases reliability. Unfortunately the combustion chamber in a rotary has so much more surface area (per unit of displacement) than the equivalent reciprocal engine that rotaries will probably continue to lag 15-20% behind reciprocal engines on fuel efficiency.
Ferrari have always been putting the closest thing to a racing car on the real road, and I think it would be interesting to pitch the Bugatti against the Enzo on real roads.
BTW, you don't need 1000 HP to do 0-60 in 3 seconds, just tires that are so soft you will have have to change them every couple of hundred miles, which is not long at that speed!
Horse power comes into play at higher speeds, you need a lot of downdraught to get high performance in corners, as well as stay on the road at 250Mph. F1 cars have so much downdraught they could run upside down on the celing ay only 100mph.
The downshot of the downdraught is that you need a lot of horsepower to force those inverted wings througth the air!
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
Foo: I have a Veyron you insensitive clod!
Bar: Modding your 1982 Pinto doesn't count.
Man, and I thought overclocking your brain was pushing the limit!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't want the rich healthy successful people taking themselves out of the gene pool. But of course it would be good if they have a special cut down safety system if the owner is a lawyer :)
Bugatti was bougt by Audi in 1998?. Audi is part of the Volkswagen AG.
They have tremendous problems with the gearbox. The 1000hp is only a marketing thingy. But now their problem is that their gear box breaks after about 3 months with the power of the 1000hp. Their solution: A smaller version with only 800hp to match the gearbox.
Their problems:
- customers ordered the 1000hp version not the smaller one
- producing a gearbox to handle all that torque that 1000hp produce.
Are there any cars out there better than this?
Porsche Carrera GT At Porsche the don't design for top speed for driving straigt ahead, they design for top speed in curves!
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
Its a freaking 16 cylinder engine. Not sure that I would call that compact my friend.
I want this car in the next version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
---
IMHO, of course.
May the SOURCE be with you.
...you insensitive clod!
:o)
:o)
As exploited here.
On a more serious note, and I won't pretend to know more about race cars than you, but how is any innovation a bad thing? (And reading the howstuffworks article gives the impression there is a fair bit of innovation here.)
Would I be correct if I likened this to the people who overclock their CPUs and GPUs to insane speeds, have bottle-necks at their hard-drive and only ever test the limits in artificial benchmarks?
No bluetooth!
is that VW will probably not release it. I've read a lot of info about this car, and even the engineering team is demotivated with the project.
Too bad, a very nice and FAST car.
...I'm reading here are kind of off-base.
"You can only drive 60(75,85)mph anyway, what a waste"
"The small-penised guys who buy this will kill themselves in 15 minutes"
"How pointless, it only gets 3mpg!"
etc, etc, etc.
Hmmmm, where do I begin. The people who are in the market to buy this automobile are not going to drive it every day. In fact, they will probably transport it in its own trailer if they take it to any concours, etc.
The main thing is, you're viewing this as a car. It isn't. It's a piece of kinetic, semi-functional sculpture. The collectors will buy this, then put it in their lovely 30,000sq.ft. showroom, and maybe take it around the block once in a while to get a little sun.
There are people with vast amounts of money who appreciate exceptional feats of engineering and design. Jay Leno is one. The Sultan of Brunai is another.
As far as the driving like assholes, that only happens with idiot rockstars and the like who just got a million dollar paycheck. The vast majority of the people driving this car will be doctors, investment bankers and the like. These guys drive carefully.
I live in Carmel, CA. We have the Concours d'Elegance here at Pebble Beach every year, and countless other similar events at nearby Laguna Seca. In addition, there are enough Ferraris and the like around here normally that I usually see 2-3 on the way to work every day. Hell, Porsches are common as VW beetles around here. I've never seen any of the more exotic cars driven less than super-carefully.
Yeah, it's a lot of money, but it costs much less then some of the jewelry worn at the Oscars... and this is much cooler then some bling-bling necklace.
-m
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
No such thing exists. More like "Nerdular Nerdence".
"Max, come over here. French-Canadian bean soup. I want to pay. Let them leave me alone." - Dutch Schultz
Yes, it's that much better. Consider that there is so much downforce on a Formula 1 car that if you flipped it upside down, it could drive on the ceiling of a tunnel. Adding extra weight would just negatively effect handling in the turns. This is why racecars are so lightweight. Less weight, less lateral force on the car around turns.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
I would rather have this instead
http://www.moller.com/.
VW isn't "buying rights to famous nameplates", they're buying automakers. They only owned Rolls Royce for a couple years before it was sold to BMW.
A guy had a Koenig and it broke down at least seven times. Clutch, some part of the coolant system... I think the car's just made to look pretty.
Cool, there is a "Shop or Compare Prices" link at the end of the article!
'We couldn't find any product matches on Shopping.com for "the Bugatti Veyron"'
Damn!
I refuse to have a sig... dammit!
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
There's always the Koenigsegg..
Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
I've personally gone in excess of 160mph in a '69 Camaro with just a 355cid V8, no nitrous, no turbos, no blower, on pump gas.
You want to read up about someone who knows how to make fast passenger cars?
http://www.bankspower.com/on_the_salt.cfm
287HP in a very-near-stock body Pontiac Firebird on pump gas, and that was years ago.
These are hard to find on bugatti's site... Lots of flash to navigate through. But through the miracle of packet sniffing....
o de lle/veyron/technik/motor/1001ps/mov/1_en_hi.swf
h ttp://www.bugatti-cars.de/bugatti/flash/home/mode lle/veyron/technik/motor/1001ps/mov/2_en_hi.swf
h ttp://www.bugatti-cars.de/bugatti/flash/home/mode lle/veyron/technik/motor/1001ps/mov/3_en_hi.swf
h ttp://www.bugatti-cars.de/bugatti/flash/home/mode lle/veyron/technik/motor/1001ps/mov/4_en_hi.swf
h ttp://www.bugatti-cars.de/bugatti/flash/home/mode lle/veyron/technik/motor/1001ps/mov/5_en_hi.swf
h ttp://www.bugatti-cars.de/bugatti/flash/home/mode lle/veyron/technik/motor/1001ps/mov/6_en_hi.swf
h ttp://www.bugatti-cars.de/bugatti/flash/home/mode lle/veyron/technik/motor/1001ps/mov/7_en_hi.swf
http://www.bugatti-cars.de/bugatti/flash/home/m
JBoyce
How do you keep a passenger car on the road at 250mph?
You don't. You keep it on the racetrack.
As for 400 Km/h speeds being useless, that may be, but:
It sounds like it can be done without a lot of problems.
I'm glad you think it's easy. Bugatti who knows a little about such matters, thought:
They seem to think it a great challenge. Maybe you should take your books and go work for them
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
>250 mph top speed is retarded because the only places you can really reach such a speed are on a banked oval track.
A banked oval wouldn't be the best spot, because of the downforce in the turns. You need to seriously beef up the suspension and then deal with the lift on the straights. I would personally recommend your nearest salt flat. Either that or I-80 between Battle Mountain and Winnemucca.Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Whole different ballpark here. You can make 1200bhp out of that 1.6L with enough money. The problem is that is will only last a few seconds. I'm willing to bet that the 400bhp your coworker is making won't last 100,000 miles since the rebuild before there some major things start breaking. The trick on a McLaren F1, Mercedes SLR, Carrera GT, or a Veyron is making 500+ bhp reliably. Very tricky (i.e. expensive) indeed.
Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant. The population is growing.
1. General Aviation engines are air-cooled because they must operate in a wide range of temperatures. You may descend from 15,000 feet at -50F to 120F on the ground. I don't think there is an air-cooled wenkel.
2. Aircraft engines must operate without electricity. They use magnetos instead of distributor/electronic ignition. This is a safety/reliability feature. How much performance would your car engine put out with all mechanical ignition?
3. It is very difficult/time consuming to get an engine certified by the FAA.
4. The aircraft market is very small compared to cars. Shipping 50 airplanes would be considered a good year for many manufactures. Comibine this with #3 and you see why no one has done it.
The Bugatti Veyron is so extremely cool :D Before that though, the fastest streetcar was the Koenigsegg CC, which had a top speed of 390 km/h (~240 mph) - They made a new model, the CCR, which is also pretty nice - These two cars are my favorite dream car :) :)
My favorite car dream site is the German Auto-Salon Singen - They have SO many cars (in stock too). New and used. Stock, prototype and vintage - They got it all. I must go down there and see the store some time, I'm told it's unbelievable
Oh, yeah, they got four Bugatti Veyron's in stock, price: EUR 1.086.206,00 (each)
*drool*
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
Okay. so this is all great and well...
But how do the breaks work?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I'm sorry, but 5g's? do the math! a lotus exige (converted elise racing model) has phenomenally high lateral grip, and its best effort is 0.98g. F1 cars don't even get close to that figure under breaking, which is always your highest acceleration figure, i believe that under breaks, they can do about 3. Sure they can do 5g's around a corner, but they'll be spinning towards the runoff area at the time...
not very nice bud.... French tanks don't have a reverse or didn't you know ??
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
Actually, they bought Rolls/Bentley, but later found out to their chagrin that the Rolls name was owned by Rolls Royce Aircraft Engines and only licensed to Rolls the automaker. RR Aircraft Engines then licensed the name to BMW, who now make the "Rolls" Phantom (though it is on a bespoke platform built in a new factory and not a rebodied 7 series).
"Are there any cars better than this?"
Yeah, just about any car on the road, for most commonly used definitions of "better". For example, a Civic is cheaper to buy, cheaper to insure, cheaper to maintain, easier to drive, quieter, rides better, more comfortable, has more cargo space, and has better gas mileage.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Adding downforce increases the car's "weight" for purposes of calculating the grip of the tires on the road, but doesnt increase the mass of the car that they have to change the direction of.
This is why the "ideal" race car is a stick figure formula 1 type car with a giant engine and huge wings.
What you didn't mention is that all that extra horsepower and downforce is useless at low speeds. (I believe downforce is proportional velocity cubed, so it falls off rather quickly.)
A Formula 1 race car is an idea car for a Formula One race, but I wouldn't be suprised to see one get its ass kicked by a race-prepped Miata at an autocross event with a bunch of hairpin turns.
In the end, the "perfect car" depends on where you're going to be driving it.
Life is too short to proofread.
The 'I' in RAID stands for 'inexpensive', which is definitely what you wanted to say, anyhow. :)
I say McLaren F1, or the new Mercedes Mclaren
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Does it really get >1K HP except at top speed? I'd expect that on a dyno, or off the line, the performance is nowhere near that because you can't funnel air into the engine fast enough. For cars with lower horsepower ratings, the aerodynamics and speed of the car make less of a difference, right?
Fat, overweight, and only saved by an immense engine.
For the same money, have Dauer build your own 962-based Porsche supercar... literally a race car that has been tamed for the streets. Not only is the Dauer lighter, it also accelerates 0-60 in ~2.6 seconds... with a mere 3 liter, six cylinder engine, that happens to develop 700hp. See the latest issue of Excellence for an in-depth article.
Besides, just how safe would you feel in the 1.0 supercar release from a brand that used to be associated with Econoboxes?
...a huge bump in PowerBall tickets being bought this week...
Hey, I've now replaced that Viper on my list of the "When I win the lottery..." cars.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
The question from the orginal conversation was "has anyone used a wenkel rotary (it has a low weight to power ratio) in a plane?" Why/Whynot . . .
i believe there was a lot of interest in aviation use early on because their streamlined shape made them more appropriate aerodynamically for wing mounted engines, however they never saw widespread use, as the early generations of rotaries were plagued by fuel inefficiency and mechanical difficulties (as mentioned by other posts). still, the interest was there, and i wonder now that it seems some of these issues have been solved whether they might see a resurgence in aviation use of rotary engines.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
From the article: "Everything about the engine is superlative." Soooo...who cut and pasted directly from the manufacturer website again?
That would be the one. Still a prototype at this stage, but the performance targets are dazzling. Follow the parent's link, and you'll see what I mean.
It sounds like the Veyron and ME Four-Twelve are using very similar transmissions, but the Chrysler engine produces a more manageable 850 lb/ft of torque, thus avoiding the biggest development issue VW has had with the Veyron. I think VW derived their transmission from their DSG, while Chrysler farmed theirs out to a racing gearbox specialist, Ricardo.
What allows Chrysler to make up the horsepower gap is weight. The Veyron weighs about 4300 lbs, according to Howstuffworks. The ME Four-Twelve weighs only 2880 lbs. The article mentions that the Dodge Viper weighs 1000 lbs less than the Veyron. The ME Four-Twelve weighs 500 lbs less than the Viper. Colin Chapman would be proud. :-)
What amazes me is that Dr. Piech thinks he can charge US$1,000,000 for the Veyron, while Chrysler estimates that the ME Four-Twelve would sell for around $250,000. Did VW really use $750,000 of wood and leather in the interior?!
This sig intentionally left blank.
Five years ago this would be the first place they would advertise. Oh my how times change.
No, wait. . . now!
No, really, now! And it will have a jillion horsepower and go a bazillion miles an hour!
As to the question of "are there better cars out there?" the answer is yes: any one of them you can actually drive.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
2. Aircraft engines must operate without electricity. They use magnetos instead of distributor/electronic ignition. This is a safety/reliability feature. How much performance would your car engine put out with all mechanical ignition?
And why is this necessary? When was the last time the electronic ignition in your car went out? How many military planes don't have electronic controls on their engines (last time I checked, fighter jet engines were heavily computerized, along with the rest of the planes). This seems like a pretty silly requirement to me. As long as you used mil-spec electronic components (to handle the extreme temperatures at high altitudes), I don't see a problem.
Have you ever seen the cars that people bring to compete in A MOD? A formula one car would demolish the entire field at most autocrosses. 1000 lbs, 900 hp and slicks go a long way towards victory. Even the most stripped miata is still going to be about 1800 lbs with driver. And that assumes no rollcage for autox use only.
And yes, obviously a formula one car will not generate 5g of skidpad at 30 mph, but you shouldnt write off a car just because it generates only 1.5 or 2 g of skidpad at low speeds. Still worlds faster than any car I have seen at an autocross.
Consider that there is so much downforce on a Formula 1 car that if you flipped it upside down, it could drive on the ceiling of a tunnel
that may have been true in the past but not with the current formula of formula 1 cars, since ground effects (which suck the car down - as opposed to aerodynamic downforce which "pushes" the car down) are prohibited. A better example would have been the Champcars, I recall they still use ground effects.
With ground effects the effective downforce is proportional to something like velocity squared. I can't remember, but yes the point is, it is possible to drive a car upsidedown in a tunnel, given you are going at a very high velocity.
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
drag engines are torn down after every day, if not every race - do you want to have to bring your car in for a total engine rebuild every 500 miles?
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
"Are there any cars out there better than this?" Yes, it's called a Lexus. The most reliable car brand out there, holds its value over time, excellent fit and finish, good engines, good mileage, smooth as silk transmissions, and while of course expensive, as it's a luxury brand, not astronomically so. Even has cargo space. Only improvements I could suggest are AWD, hybrid engines, and lower octane engine requirements, especially as gas prices go up, up, up. You want to pay over $250 per pound for an impractical race car that has no real use in the real world, be my guest. However, most millionares and multi-millionares don't drive these things. They drive large American cars, usually under 30K. People who have money generally know enough not to waste it on toys, but use it to grow their personal worth. To have money, one first has to conserve and use it as efficiently as possible to get there, not blow it.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Do the math yourself. A lotus street car made from steel is VERY VERY different from an open wheeled race car made from composites. An fully fueled exige weighs about 1700 lbs [b]without[/b] driver. We will assume a small driver of 150 lbs, for a grand total of 1850 race weight.
A formula one car is regulated to a minimum of 1287 lbs race weight (including driver and fuel) and can generate 1287 lbs of downforce at 100mph. This is far less than the cars are capable of- the rules limit them to this by forbidding certain underbody designs. At 200 mph the car will generate over 5000 lbs of aerodynamic downforce. Speed doubles, downforce quadruples.
Lets see, that will give the car over 6000 lbs of weigh pushing down on the tires, which are extremely sticky dry weather tires. Such tires on lesser cars could easily generate 2g of skidpad. Furthermore, the vehicle itself only weighs the aforementioned 1287 lbs, so you can imagine how easily the car could generate 5gs of lateral force under the right circumstances.
Wait, I just did the math. Would you like a cold glass of shut the fuck up?
Have you ever seen the cars that people bring to compete in A MOD? A formula one car would demolish the entire field at most autocrosses. 1000 lbs, 900 hp and slicks go a long way towards victory. Even the most stripped miata is still going to be about 1800 lbs with driver. And that assumes no rollcage for autox use only. And yes, obviously a formula one car will not generate 5g of skidpad at 30 mph, but you shouldnt write off a car just because it generates only 1.5 or 2 g of skidpad at low speeds. Still worlds faster than any car I have seen at an autocross.
Perhaps, but you understand my point. In an autocross, you're be better off without the big wings and insane horsepower in favor of a lighter car. There's not really a "perfect car" out there.
Life is too short to proofread.
For that kind of money I'd rather have a real F1 car. With a 1.5 liter 4 cylinder that makes 1000bhp, or for qualifying laps more like 1500bhp. Not to mention tremendously better handling.
Thats just me though.
My general understanding is that rotary engines don't really have a reliability problem, they have an accelerated maintenance schedule. They can be counted on to fail more or less reliably every so many miles, or perhaps kWh would be a better measurement? As long as they are rebuilt regularly (which you have to do with aviation engines anyway) they should give quite reliable operation.
Now there WAS a highly unreliable RX-7, the last one with the twin turbos. From what I hear that system had more vacuum lines than a hoover factory, and a bunch of other complicated stuff crammed into a quite diminutive engine compartment, which led to no end of troubles.
Anyway the main seals wear out and have to be replaced, no shock there, it happens to normal reciprocating IC engines also. The apex seals do likewise, but when they wear down, the motor doesn't stop working, it just gets worse and worse compression, leading to more and more blowby and worse and worse emissions and economy.
Anyway this is all just what I've picked up over time. The people I've known who have owned RX-7s were not the highly technial type, at least not in the automotive realm. Though they are not my sole source of information, I could still have something wrong, so feel free to correct.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
While the Bugatti is an amazing car, I must still admire the McLaren F1.
10 years ago this car was built. Its engine cranks out 627 BHP, from a NORMALLY ASPIRATED (eat that, quad turbo W16) V12. And its only 6.1 liters!
For a car more than a decade old to still be this good compared to todays technology is a feat.
16 litres at 6000 rpm == 1000 hps 6000 rpm / 3 nbrLitres * 3 16 litres * 3 == 48 litres But I really don't know if it should be calculated this way...
I'd rather be sailing...
400lbs is a ton
Damn you metric sytem!
In an autocross, you're be better off without the big wings and insane horsepower in favor of a lighter car.
In an autocross you will be better off with bigger wings than not. Go look at the wings in the prepared class. The most competitive cars are all at the max allowed. Pull the wing and run them. You will go slower.
Take a car. Remove power. You will go slower.
More hp and bigger wings will help, even in an autocross.
Learn to love Alaska
And to the other poster, I'm pretty sure an F1 car would beat the pants off any car in an autoX type event. There is just no replacement for lateral grip, and crazy accelleration (0-100 in 5 secs), and braking (55 feet 100-0).
I think that an F1 car would get it's ass kicked if it was prepped for an F1 race and dropped on to an autocross course. I think that it would do quite well if it was prepped correctly for an autocross.
F1 tires would not heat up by the end of an autocross run, giving little benefit. They would need to be swapped out from tires meant to last for 100+ miles of racing with ones designed to last 10 miles of racing (softer compound autocross tires). I've never driven an F1 car, but my guess is that the steering would suck for an autocross. I suspect it would be easy to mess with the ratio to make it more usable, but the lock-to-lock at relatively low speeds would probably be close to impossible without mods. Also, there is no point in 6 or more gears when you wouldn't even get out of first gear (and even then, you'd not get to the power peak in first gear on an autocross course). Again, I've not driven an F1 car, but I would expect that they would not generate significant power at low speeds, as that is not what they were designed to do.
If you took any 1000 lb car with 1000 hp and set it up well, it would be great for autocrossing. However, the F1 circuit does not leave the cars set up well for short, low-speed handling contests.
Learn to love Alaska
firstly, the lotus exige is 550kg unfuelled, so about 50-100kg heavier than an F1 car. i have no doubt that an F1 car could do 2g lateral on a skidpad, but not 5. hell, under the right circumstances, i can pull 5g in a honda civic, i just crank the wheel, pull the handbrake... i'm saying that a controlled 5gs is not possible.
I have to take issue with one point you make here... 'Grip' or friction between the road surface and the tire is linearly related to the normal force or weight. Your other point regarding inertia increasing with mass is correct though and a good point.
Now when does Catsup Kerry's order come through?
In Detroit, "oh, I own all these SUVs"... on Earth Day "no, I don't own SUVs."
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
How would it perfom in a head on collison with an Expedition?
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
Ah, but at high speed mass gives you the downforce for free (apart from the rolling resistance, which is about 1.5%). The aerodynamic downforce will cost you about 20%, typically.
Therefore the heavy car with no downforce should a higher top speed than the light car with downforce. Working out which would accelerate more quickly at high speeds is not a no-brainer, unlike at low speeds.
OK, that's a nit pick, but the grandparent was making quite an interesting point as well.
"Even with a set of really sticky slicks there isn't a consumer car that's going to do 2Gs."
So you think that an F1 is a consumer car?
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Wouldn't give you 5g. Your tyres probably saturate at probably 2g, and locked wheels are even worse. F1 get several g because they use aero to clamp the car to the road, and tyres that do not saturate so quickly as load increases. Therefore the MASS can be accelerated by a big FORCE without needing the WEIGHT to hold the car down to generate the FORCE. Caps for emphasis, not shouting.
"Top speed is only limited by three things: drag, power, and gearing." and yaw stability.
As the car accelerates the centre of lateral drag moves forward. This tends to make the car unstable in yaw as speed increases. If you add a fin at the back then it will increase the speed at which it occurs, but this adds drag.
As the car accelerates the understeer/oversteer curve also tends to move towards oversteer (ref Gillespie or Milliken and Milliken) this also tends to flip the car sideways. This can be got around by tuning the steering to give terminal understeer, but this is not a very popular choice with drivers.
Unfortunately, GTA III / VC seems to have the most accurate physics of any driving simulator I've played with, and I've gone through a lot. Kinda sad, since they purposefully exaggerate towards comical movie physics a lot.
I actually had no idea the Ultimate Mod's Bugatti was a real car until reading about it just now... I thought that the really insanely fast car in the mod was just rice'd up and given artificially high stats!
Ooo er, it all depends why you want the downforce. At very high speeds the problem is keeping the car on the road going in a straight line. For this, ballast is fine. However if you want to brake, or turn, then the mass is counterproductive.
Ummm.... the ground effects are irrelevant to this example. The front and rear spoilers provide more than enough downforce to keep the car on the ceiling. Flip them upside down and shove a jet engine on the car and you have a nice straight-line aeroplane.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
A GA airplane has one alternator and a small battery. You can have any number of faults with the electrical system: failed alternator, broken alternator belt, short in system. Commercial and military aircraft will have multiple redundancies to cover this: multiple power sources with seperate electrical systems.The problem for GA is weight and complexity (==cost).
The easiest way around this is a non-electronic engine. Simple, proven and light weight considering the alternatives. Besides, when was the last time your car was struck by lightning?
... And they can't buy a fast webhost?
Commercial and military aircraft will have multiple redundancies to cover this: multiple power sources with seperate electrical systems.The problem for GA is weight and complexity (==cost).
The easiest way around this is a non-electronic engine. Simple, proven and light weight considering the alternatives. Besides, when was the last time your car was struck by lightning?
Sounds like a cop-out to me, given current technology. Considering that one of these primitive engines from Lycoming or Continental costs upwards of $30k, I see no reason why they couldn't include a few redundant systems for that price. It's not like they have to design new electronic systems from scratch: they could easily use inexpensive off-the-shelf parts from the automotive sector and adapt them to their purposes.
well the thing is, I have only heard of this "driving on the ceiling" example applied to ground effects, not to aerodynamics. I'll have to check it out.
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
I'm a private pilot and I appreciate the fact that barring a mechanical meltdown with the engine, it will keep running if fed with fuel. I'd like some high-tech in my aircraft too, but it comes at a price. Take a look at this panel:
Cirrus
It's a very nice aircraft with all the extras, and it costs $350,000+ And it has magnetos on the engine. Go figure.
Sure they have. There's a whole history of rotaries being used in aircraft.
Whoopee. They can put advanced avionics in these planes because they're not so tightly regulated by the FAA. It's pretty easy to put various electronics in the cockpit. The reason it still comes with a stone-age engine with magnetos is because either 1) it's nearly impossible to get the FAA to certify a more modern engine, or 2) the engine manufacturers are too cheap/lazy to upgrade to newer technology and get it certified.
There's loads of private pilots flying with electronic ignitions, ECUs, etc. Of course, their planes are all "experimental", because that's the only way you're allowed to use technology less than 50 years old in a plane in this country thanks to the FAA and lawyers.
Despite lacking the 'amazing' performance specs, for my money the Toyota Prius is by far the most advanced car on the road. It's power distribution and energy recovery seems like a much bigger innovation.
Let's see, the Veyron is cool and fast, but everything in the car is pretty common and didn't require any special innovation to achieve. The engine? Just two corporate VW DOHC V8s bolted together. And turbos are not exactly new technology, and putting 4 of them in one place doesn't get you any farther. Wow - 4 valves per cyclinder, did NASA design this monster!?! Ohhhh, dry sump lubication, fairly rare due to cost on production vehicles, but in use for plenty long. Continuously variable cam timing, I believe Honda was putting this on Civics about 20 years ago. And obviously seven gears are seven times more advanced than four gears. Dual clutch systems were invented decades ago, just never worked so well due to reliability. F1 style paddle shifting - Ferrari had it first. All wheeel drive - Jeep perhaps? Many high end cars have unique tires, all that means is they're expensive, not innovative, and have dimensions too ridiculous for the manufacturers to build in volume. Carbon fiber chasis also common on several high enders.
The Veyron is just a really expensive combination of all the top technologies available in the market at the moment, I see nothing new here. Of course, that could just be the envy talking.
In theory yes, in practice no.
The tire is not a perfect cylinder, nor is it solid. It is usually deformed to one degree or another. This is especially true with slicks that rely on air pressure to maintain sidewall rigidity. A heavier car will require more air pressure to maintain the appropriate shape in a corner (too much deformation and the tire rolls over onto the sidewall or rim, which have no grip). This has the unfortunate side effect of giving it less grip since it now has a smaller contact patch and reduced flexibility between the rim and the contact patch.
The tire is not parallel to the road (camber) nor is it rotating in a direction parallel to the direction of the car (toe). When turning, the front wheels will gain additional camber as the wheel is turned. All of these details are designed to sacrifice straight line grip for cornering grip. All of these angles will affect the coefficient of friction of the tire.
The real proof that increased downforce kills off CF is weight transfer during cornering. The more weight that transfers from one side of the car to the other, the more download is put on the outside tires. However, since the CF keeps decreasing, the increase in grip on the outside is less than the decrease on the inside. And the car loses grip. This is also why stiffening the front shocks of my miata allowed me to brake harder- less weight was transferred off the rear wheels and onto the front, increasing the overall grip of the car. See, not linear downforce vs grip.
If you really care about this stuff in anal retentive detail (as I obviously do), I suggest the "Going Faster" book that skip barber sells. Very good racing technique book that also has details on suspension and tire stuff. That and a couple of long track days really helped my driving a lot.
Just for the record, the article claims that F1 cars use a ground effect like the Bugatti. These days, actually, F1 has a few regulations to prevent that. The car bottom is flat and has a wood plank underneath that is 10mm +/- 1mm. If the plank is less than 9mm at the end of the race then the car is judged to have been riding too low.
See FIA 2004 Formula One Technical Regulations sections 13.2 and 13.3 for details.
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
Ground effects ARE aerodynamics. All ground effects are is shaping the underside of a car so that air under the car is minimized and the air that gets under the car can escape more efficiently. Ground effects aren't mechanical (well, SOME have been. See the 'Sucker Car'. Two large fans were attached to some ducting that lead under the car, under braking the fans came on and sucked air out from under the car. Unfortunately, it also tended to suck up loose bits of pavement and rocks and spit them at the car behind), they're just further aerodynamic modifications. A spoiler is an upside down wing, nothing more. Turn it over and downforce magically becomes lift. That's why the car could stick to the ceiling.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
I think the lateral 5gs are only obtained when the track is banked. On a flat road they'll probably get 2-3gs lateral, and that only in certain very high speed turns. In medium-tight turns or on a circular skidpad where they use slow speeds (by F1 standards) the downforces are small and they won't get much more than 1g lateral.
The other $975,000? I'd use it for my presidential campaign...
-b.
[kinda off-topic but still]
Think about this: air resistance normally goes up with the square of your speed due to turbulence (for cars it really picks up around 60mph, which is why the old highway speed limit was set at 55mph). Now if the downforce on an F1 car went up with the square of vehicle speed (and I think it does) you could engineer a turn so that if you tried driving around it at low speeds you'd make it ok, then at a certain medium speed you'd lose traction because centrifugal force exceeds friction, but then at much higher speeds you could have the downforce kick in and give you enough grip to make it around the corner again. That's because centrifugal force is liner to your speed, but friction depends on downforce wich goes up with the square of speed.
So by "death trap" I meant a turn that you could take at say 200mph or more, or below 150mph, but any speed between 150mph and 200mph would make you lose control. Any such thing you've heard of, or am I making no sense?
Gas tank is probably over 20gal. And even on a track, no cars run at full-bore the entire time.
-bZj
.sig
I submitted this article, from PopSci, 2 days ago: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/auto/article/0,12543, 358540,00.html
/. worthy?
It has actaul programing relevance, and it was rejected. But this Press Release, on a car that hasn't been able to hit it's production date for over a year, is
Oh well, poor me, I guess.
-bZj
.sig
For that matter, Cadillac has a "1000 horsepower car." No way could it deliver that much power through the wheels, though.
Fun. If you started off in third, you didn't notice any problem.
The G's are at the base of the drop when you start to go back up.
Well about two years late on posting this, but there's a problem with talking about the excessive amounts of power and so forth. It was supposed to be out this year, then delayed. VW wanted to refine it even more and more and more and more... you get the point. Now they have lowered the power output expectations in this refinement process. This is the early 90s all over again when it comes to the car market. We've got every company coming out with some type of supercar. The market is basically being flooded more and more everyday. It seems to be surviving so far but it's going to pop soon, just like in the early 90s. My guess is that when the Bugatti comes out it's going to be kind of like the Jaguar XJ220. It was suppose to be a V12 with AWD. They couldn't do it and just gave the TT V6 with RWD. What you see now, if VW keeps it up, will be nothing like what we finally see coming out for production.
http://www.maximum-cars.com - My little hobbie.
Yup. Its called a 797. Caterpillar 797.
V24 diesel engine, with four turbos. Three thousand, four hundred ponies. Yeah, you heard me: 3400hp.
Seven forward gears. 42 inch brakes. Can haul up to 380 tons of your kids crap.
Course, it only does like 42mph (loaded) while getting 0.3 mpg. Yes, at 47 feet long and 23 feet tall, its kind of hard to park. But you can rest assured that your 13 foot tires are bigger than your neighbours' Escalade! Or his entire Chevvy for that matter.
Yours for only 3.4 million! (Some assembly required).
(PS: All joking aside, i've seen one of these beasts up close, and they're just insane. The pictures don't even do it justice.)
The article claims This computer-controlled system is identical to the sort of system found in a Formula 1 car or a Champ car. There is no clutch pedal or shift lever for the driver to operate -- the computer controls the clutch disks as well as the actual shifting. The computer is able to shift gears in 0.2 seconds.
Champ cars don't use a clutchless system; they use a sequential gearbox, like a motorcycle. They don't have to use a clutch except to start rolling, but there are three pedals on the floor, and a shift lever (although it moves back and forth, rather than in an H pattern).
There is no computer on that clutch, and it's cheating if you do.
Sorry, you are very confused. The skidpad ratings you are quoting are done ON A SKIDPAD with a small radius (most magazines use 300ft), at not-very-high speeds. F1 and Indy cars routinely do > 2Gs in highspeed turns, and up to 5Gs when braking.
Production car is implied when they say fastest car.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
I have read somewhere that aircooling in VWs (and hence in PorSches up to 1996) is related to Hitler's wish to produce a car able to "sleep outside" (for workers not able to afford a garage) and start even during the worst German winters. Watercooling technology of the time was not able to keep up with this. Everybody recognizes that Hitler had "visions", could lead incredible brainstorming sessions, and get certain people to give more than the best of themselves ; this is what occured to Porsche during a few nights with him. Fortunately for us, AH could also be spectacularly wrong, and due to is past brilliances, noone dared to contradict him !
Speaking of tanks, the French 8-wheeled light Panhard tank of the fifties had a low lying, flat ten, gasoline engine (sounds familiar ?) whose design was taken from Porsche as war repairs (along with the ATAR turboreactor powering the Mirages)
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
There's a Bugatti Museum just over the field from my house (Gloucestershire, UK [Map]). The site is also home to the impressive Prescott Speed Hillclimb which is open to the public- you can even enter the time trial in your own car, although I find it more fun to watch the vintage cars, including old Bugattis, race up the hill.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Yeah:
. se rial.number.summary/index.htmlt ta.cc/english/All.Maserati/Summa ry/Maseratis.Overview.htm
http://www.barchetta.cc/All.Ferraris/ferrari.by
http://www.barche
The Rocket III to be specific.
k eI D=83
http://www.triumph.co.uk/site/bikes/page.cfm?Bi
2.2l engine in a motorcycle, yes, it is insane, but it accelerates faster than a sportsbike. To get the best acceleration out of it you need to be carrying a pillion, though on thinking about it maybe that wouldn't be necessary in the US.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I've seen one with a 409ci V8 in it, very strange.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
The next big thing in fuel efficiency for conventional piston engines is the variable timing and lift technology now available in BMW's 4.5liter V8 and soon to come form other manufacturers.
Toyota have been putting their variable valve timing and lift engines in several of their lines for over four years now. Branded as VVTL-i (i standing for intelligence), they're fitted in MR2s, Celicas, Corrolas and all sorts.
More info here
Come back and talk when we are talking megaWatts. I want the equivalent of a *power station* under the bonnet.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
hi.
/OF
Good looking too: The Koenigsegg
Nope... French tanks are the ones with enormous firepower, great performance, and terrific soldiers inside them, but which are unfortunately in entirely the wrong location. British tanks are the ones the Americans give the joke IFF circuits to. German tanks are the ones we hope like hell they never decide to use again.
It's Italian tanks that have the high reverse performance.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
> The Thrust SSC is a way better "car" than that thing
Just waiting for the production version of that car so I can take it for a drive around town....
Steve.
Superbikes have faster 0-60 times indeed... But the main problem with modern days superbikes is keeping the front wheel down (eg. nog wheelying). :)
While a Yamaha R1 for instance has incredible numbers on paper, you cannot fully whip open the throttle and expect the bike to rocket forwards (you're more than welcome to try it). Chances are you'll end up on your ass with a broken coccyx
At speeds approaching 200mph, a modern F1 car generates 2100kg of downforce. enough to stick it to the ceiling 3 times over.
It's a common misconception that the ground effect era of the 70's was the pinnacle of racing car downforce. The aero enginnering on an F1 car today is so advanced that the downforce they generate is way ahead of where they were in the 70's.
What *is* true is that ground effect gives more *mid corner* downforce when the car is going slow, so it pushes cornering speeds up. And if you lose the ground effect mid corner from hitting a kerb or something, you can get lift or at the very least lose all that lovely adhesive low speed downforce. This directly lead to the deaths of a couple of F1 drivers, hence ground effect aero was banned.
--is not to be confused with user #672982 - Bame Flait
Does it come with OnStar?
Might be handy if you get into one of those 250 mph accidents on a dark road in the country.
Fuelings W3 engine . The sort of thing i would like on my buell
Unless you're talking about a 911 GT2 or a race-prepped GT3, any street-driven Viper will mop the floor with a 911. And if you're talking GT2 or GT3, a more apt comparison is a Viper Competition Coupe, which again will eat the Porsche's lunch.
That being said, if 911's weren't so overpriced, I'd still buy one for my wife.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
"The question from the orginal conversation was "has anyone used a wenkel rotary (it has a low weight to power ratio) in a plane?" Why/Whynot . . ."
Actually, yes. I know a few people who specialize in rotary engines -- building them, modifying them, tuning them, etc. Anyway one day one of hem was talking about this mailing list that he's on that consists of people using rotary engines in homebuilt airplanes. Unfortunately, I don't have any links as this was entirely a word of mouth discussion at the shop. I also don't think the engine has been used in any commercial planes. It was, however, interesting to hear about some of the things the airplane people did differently to make the engine more reliable.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
not to mention the 1cm of ground clearance on a modern F1 car and no conventional suspension. also radiators that need to be moving at high speed to avoid overheating. an F1 car on an autocross track would not work, just as an autocross car on an F1 track wouldn't.
Actually the French made the most impressive tank ever (the Leclerc).
A swift, powerful, costly masterpiece of technology. The most reliable defence against what was then regarded as the main threat for France and Western Europe: a Soviet invasion.
Unfortunately the production began two years after the Berlin Wall fell.
Now the few Leclerc tanks that have actually been produced and sold gather dust in French territories or in the Arab emirates.
Typical French: "Toujours en retard d'une guerre" (always one war backwards).
Thomas Miconi
Really, most of the dependability issues stemmed from people not properly maintaing the car. People tried to treat the car as a standard piston engine car, never checking the oil (the car does burn some oil as lubrication for the combustion chambers), using the cheapest damn gasoline they could find, and most commonly, not paying attention to the cooling; you overheat the engine once, and it's probably dead due to how thin the water jacket is on the engine. The rotary engine just needs a little more attention than standard piston engines, and most people didn't understand that.
The engine can be reliable, however with the right care.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
At the other end of the spectrum in beauty, power, and fuel economy is the Lupo 3L TDI. This plucky little Volkswagen has entered the record books for fuel economy of 101.6 mpg. Click the link for record setting details.
The Bugatti Veyron sure is beautiful and gets my adrenaline pumping. The Lupo is a economically smart car that makes a lot of sense for day-to-day living. Of course, neither is available where I live. The descision for me is between a Mazda Rx-8 and a Toyota Prius. Its like I have a little angle on one shoulder and a little devil on the other... What to do?
This space for rent.
250 isn't a hard number to hit. The Winston Cup cars were running close to 230 at Talladega and Daytona before they slapped restrictor plates on them. The Champ Cars were touching 250 at Indy before they instituted pop-off valves on the turbos.
On a large, banked oval, any car with enough horsepower to overcome drag will hit that speed. A modified Corvette pushed past 250, and the McLaren F1 was GEARING LIMITED at around 240 or so.
It would be nice if a car like this actually existed. Too bad they don't mention that minor detail anywhere in the article.
Did anyone else notice that there are no real photos of this car? Any pics I could find were all just nice computer-generated renderings. My advice: don't place your order for this car just yet.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
The Lotec Sirius isn't far behind, although it's not in production yet. You can read about it here. And it looks great, too. :-)
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
Well, a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII RS will pull .95g stock and with carefully chosen upgrades will pull over 1G.
And that's with 4 adults and a baby seat in a compact sedan (Albeit a 271HP Turbocharged AWD Compact sedan)
Of course, with carefully chosen upgrades it will do 0-60 in under 4 seconds and run a 12 second quarter mile.
All this in a $30,000 car.
2+G's out of an F1 car is believable. Adding actual airfoils and massive rubber give the F1 it's stupidly good cornering.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
As a computer geek, I'd rather get a Prius and spend the savings on a fabulous computer-enabled home. But that's me.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
There's a difference between big wings and HP and a F1 car.
First off, F1 engines are like honda engines. Lacking in torque, althouh the F1 engines are much less torqy than any B16. This means that their low-speed accelleration is poor. Also they won't oversteer at low speeds due to the amount of grip, so you can't use that to aid your way through a turn.
They'd rip at a track meet, but not in the tight stuff at a parking lot meet, where something along the lines of an Elise 190 is ideal (light, well balanced, easy to do a controlled oversteer). You don't see a lot of 500+HP Autocross rides because at those outputs the power tends to overpower the cars ahandling (unless you're driving a beast like a Supra or a Skyline, which needs te power due to excessive weight)
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
You have to excuse the canadians, everything is smaller, the dollar, the ton, etc
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Tread squirm is reduced by (among other things) by having shallow treads (or none), as is common in racing tires. It is reduced by increasing tire inflation pressure, which is part of the reason that having low pressure in the rear tires increases the risk of a spinout.
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You are right.
what I had in mind was the introduction of the Boxster which prefigured the Porsche 996, the name of which isn't a coincidence.
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
Sorry. The centifugal force is proportional to the square of the speed divided by the radius of the turn.
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Big battery banks, big electric motors/generators are expensive. Sophisticated, reliable, cheap controllers are fairly recent.
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... at 250mph, who's going to get a good description of what just whizzed by?
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
I'm such a VAG (VolksWagen Audi Group) fanboy. I think everything they do is the beste thing ever :)
This car once again demonstrates the knowledge and technology that they have in house, gems like DSG, the W16, quatro, etc. all bring a tear to my car-loving-eye.
Ofcourse i hear that VW does not have a very good reputation in the states, but here in europe they are bige and many people here will acknowledge their cars as highly reliable.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
The RX-8 engine is called the RENESIS.
;)
The TT RX-7s were no different reliability-wise as any other rotary engine. As you alluded to (and as someone else has pointed out) you just have to know how to take care of it. Granted the TT RX-7 is a PAIN to work on (vacumm hoses galore), but it's just as reliable as any other. Pain in the ass to fix != unreliable.
The thing to remember is that this is NOT YOUR NORMAL RECIPROCATING IC ENGINE!!
Also, I'd like to point out that the cost of a tear-down and rebuild (if you do it yourself) are cheaper than "normal" engines, and when something does go wrong, the results are usually a lot cheaper to fix as well.
But, for the average person, a rotary requires rebuilds too frequently. While the cost of the parts is less than for a four-stroke ICE, the cost of the labor (probably less than for a four stroke) will likely still be significant.
That said, if RENESIS (I used to know the name of that thing, I did an e2node on the RX-8, even) lacks most of those problems, it's worth it. The car has turned out to get really terrible mileage from what I hear, only giving good mileage if you drive it as if it were a 1.6 liter four banger or something. 230-250hp from a 1.3 liter is amazing, but it doesn't sound like they've really ironed out all the kinks yet. Certainly the kind of power the thing is capable of developing is impressive, but it's pretty sad that you can actually get better mileage out of a fuel injected 350.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I had to butter my ass just to get into the passenger seat of the only one I've ever sat in.
Haha, I'm 6'2 and I fit in them just fine. Just don't get an overly harsh suspension or you'll have knots on the top of your head (Like me). I kinda like a tight fitting car though. I like to put my car on, not get inside of it. I'm also the type who doesn't mind the hassle of a racing harness in a daily driver; I like to drive my car, not have my car drive me, so YMMV.
Rotaries are amazing, but I will agree they aren't for your average driver who has a "Set it and forget it" mentality.
Reliability problems (this was solved only recently).
High fuel consumption.
High motor oil consumption (you have to mix oil with fuel).
Turbine and turboprop are simpler and cheaper in long run, because rotary engine is still combustion engine with lots of engine parts and harmful vibrations.
The calculations used on the web-site are just plain fiction. First they say a 16 liter engine would be too big to give 6000rpm and you could only get 2000rpm. So next you need a 48 liter V8.
OK, this would red-line at what...800rpm ? So then (using their maths) you would need an 120 liter engine for your 1000hp.
Ah but that would be even bigger and wouldn't rev faster than about 250rpm so you would need a 300 liter engine....and so on and so on
No wonder kids today don't "get" science if this is the sort of material being used for reference. Doh!
for the record, my 240SX has 550lb front/500lb rear Eibach ERS springs (purchased when they still called them FRS) and ground control coil overs, with konis in the rear and I-have-no-idea-what in the front since they're inside the strut casings and I haven't bothered to open 'em. The handling is amazing, or at least it was before my T/C rod bushings disintegrated. (I have some polyurethane ones to go in, I plan to press them in and subsequently bolt them on tomorrow afternoon.)
I haven't got the money for racing seats yet, but seats and five points are on my list.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So there.
well, the legendary reliability of 911s is due to the comparison to Jaguars or Ferraris...in comparison to a mass-produced model, on a daily use basis, it is rather a nightmare, especially if not driven soft (which rather kills the pleasure). I had the pleasure of sharing a 930, only to be passed by an old Fiat when flooring it ! The owner explained that the double ignition had a tendency to reset itself from time to time, all one had to do was to remove the key and reinsert it !
I have also heard of countless motor overhauls (rather easy since the 911 is kind of a rally car), also due to a strange inclination of Porsche hobbyists to tune the engine (what's the point if you can already go faster than 99.9 % of cars on the road ?). I have seen a tuned 930 twin turbo with 450 HP which holds the speeding ticket record , according to the cops, at a certain highway bridge (285 km/h). The engine exploded at 80 000 km at the odometer (valves gone mad). As the owner put it, he sold it after some repairs (and countless legal troubles as well with the highway patrol as with the mechanics and the tuner) to someone "who used to be a friend".
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
well, lessee here...637hp out of a 7.0L (427ci) is under 100hp/liter, which is a trivial output level - honda's s2000 puts out 120hp/liter; the latest round of F1 cars put out 250-300hp/L, and a Top Fuel rail (the BME car to be exact) pumps out 8000hp from 8.2L (500ci) - that's damn near a THOUSAND HORSEPOWER PER LITER. if you can get even 20% of that power in a mill that will run for 3000 miles with no maintenance, you're gonna be one of the richest men in history.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley