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Car Hacks & Mods for Dummies
In general, I steer myself and others away from the "for Dummies" book series since I believe a lot of material at this level can be found on the internet for free. HOWTOs and tutorials abound for using and modifying most consumer products. In this case, the time saved from filtering online discussion is well worth it. The book is well organized, with separate sections devoted to handling, power, braking, engine management, safety, and cosmetics. There are 26 chapters spread across 360 pages. As you can see, chapters are short and can be tackled easily during lunch or a short taxi ride to retrieve your broken car.
Slashdot readers may be surprised to learn that there is no discussion of entertainment electronics such as stereos or car-mounted computers. This should not be confused with engine management units (ECU). ECUs are discussed at length. Car Hacks & Mods for Dummies main focus is making your car go, stop and turn. Sections were added for safety and cosmetics, but performance is by far the emphasis.
The book does not actually explain how to do any specific modifications whatsoever. Instead it serves as a guidebook to learn what options are out there and compare one upgrade path to another. For example, there is a great explanation of the differences between a turbocharger and a supercharger, but you're not going to get an analysis of the mods required to support your brand new 10.5cm hotside. Instead there are careful treatments of the pros and cons associated with almost any upgrade car car enthusiast may be considering. The coverage of jargon and rating systems used for various products is especially useful. Whenever a new subject or car component is mentioned, the author goes over regulating and standardizing bodies (the DOT, EPA, and SAE) as well as explains how parts, pieces, and fluids are rated. While this is useful when thinking about a new project, it isn't the information someone would want to rely on once they begin such an undertaking itself. The author clearly states, "this book is not intended to be an instruction manual."
The author gets high marks for addressing safety -- both the driver's and the vehicle's -- before any modification. The emphasis on maintaining legal and effective safety devices on a tuner car is something you are not likely to get during an argument about which upgrade path is optimal, nor is it obvious that many safety 'upgrades' -- 4-point harnesses, flashy roll-bars -- actually decrease driver safety when used on the street. In addition the author consistently gives warning when introducing a mod that could put added stress on a vehicle.
If you are a professional mechanic, this book is not for you. You already know most of the contents. Mechanics would be better served by product literature and shop manuals. If you are thinking about modifying your car, but don't have any idea where to start, this is probably a good place. Just be sure to read the first chapter. Car modding quickly becomes expensive, and jumping in without knowing the attached costs (which this book addresses) can be a financial nightmare.
You can purchase Car Hacks & Mods from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
A wealth of information is available, but the data is surrounded by noise. For every knowledgeable enthusiast, there are many more misinformed or incorrect speculators whose opinions usually spring from personal preference or a need to hear themselves talk.
:)
Instead of reading other websites or books, he should have done a AskSlashdot
In my opinion (a WRX), it's best to leave any mods/upgrades to the experts. If you have the money to spend on mods, you should have the money to pay for the experts' time. Cars, in most cases, are the second most expensive asset a person's going to get (after a supercomputer), so I would rather put it in good hand, and just enjoy the outcome, not the journey of car mods.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Do I need to install a really big fan on my car to mod it?
Does the book cover proper application of Type R decals?
Shades of Grayden
I'd like the Speed racer kit please.
http://nomoneydownnews.com/
And I thought it only happend on /.
See what I've been reading.
Ha: http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6 55091
PepperHacks - Hacking the Pepper Pad
And this differs from Slashdot, how? ;-)
Driving an unmodified car and proud of it. Can't stand "overtuned" cars.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I hope that this book explains the usefulness of putting giant spoilers on front wheel drive cars to all idiots who continue to do so. I also hope that it explains the difference between a real exhaust system, and a fart pipe. Kids these days are really, really, really stupid, it seems (either that, or I'm getting old).
I don't respond to AC's.
Is there a discussion of common car annoyances such as fart pipes, chain-link license plate frames, spoilers on family sedans, ill-fitting aftermarket plastic body kits, and drivers of any type of Pontiac?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I have a 2005 Dodge Magnum RT, so a lot of the ricer-type "upgrades" don't apply to my car. I need a balance of old-school stuff (bigger exhaust, cold air induction) with new-school stuff (reprogrammed PCM). Unfortunately, a lot of the upgrades for the Hemi engine in the Dodge Ram pickups don't work with the Hemi engine in my Magnum.
So my question is, does this book cater to the pocket racer crowd or will I find any good information for my 347 cid hot rod station wagon?
IMHO, the majority of modded cars you see on the road are driven in a significantly more aggressive manner than unmodded ones. This seems to outweigh a slight improvement or reduction in safety by such mods. That said, perhaps learning about safety from a "for dummies" book is even more important in these cases?
For every knowledgeable enthusiast, there are many more misinformed or incorrect speculators whose opinions usually spring from personal preference or a need to hear themselves talk.
I have nightmares about an unmodded slashdot...
DON'T PANIC
VWVortex.com has some great discussion forums, although the main model-specific forums, especially the Golf/Jetta forums, are mostly full of "what rims should I get?" and suchlike, which is a shame because I keep finding that requests for actual help are buried under such junk. It's quite frustrating to check back a while after a request to find two pages of rim polls burying your post past the 1-3 pages most people bother to read. Some people resort to adding a photo to their post to get the camera icon next to their thread so people will open it even if the photo is unrelated to the help request.
... which has probably already been tried, with no success.
... although the sad fact still is that fewer people traffic those forums so you'll have to wait longer than you should for a real answer.
Then there are the large number of people who, frustrated by this and by the search function that seems to be totally incapable of actually finding anything, post a nice query that obviously took some time to set up, only to be greeted by people who post "Use the search" or screenshots of the forum software toolbar with huge arrows pointing to the search function
So, I recommend the forums, but use the more-specific forums for your problem
i am a soviet space shuttle
the book's gotta say something about painting parts yellow to make your car go faster..
?SYNTAX ERROR IN LINE 42
"A Dummys Guide to Ricing" instead of an O'Rielly "Car Computing"
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
www.diy-efi.org is a great source of information on GM vehicles. The guys there have reverse engineered many GM ecms and distribute their work for free.
Right now I'm working on a GPL'd bin editor, and once that's done I'll be working on a PROM burner that works in Linux.
Oh, I should add a link to www.moates.net as well, since he makes lots of cool stuff like PROM emulators and USB programmers. Craig's gonna kill me...
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I recently bought a high-performance automobile that has a reputation for its tuning potential
you just got a new Minivan??? sweet!
Offroaders! We mod too.
Jeep Enthusiasts!
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.
Unfortunately, there's no source for after-market parts or chips that can do this, which makes me sad.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
You've got the Civic DX too eh?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Wow, didn't see this one coming on Slashdot.
...
About a year ago I delt with David at length while he was working for WORKS, a tuning shop in San Francisco. We were discussing the details of the power, handling, etc. modifications that they would be making to my Mitsubishi Evolution (the car they in which they specialize). For the entire time I delt with David (before he left WORKS to pursue other things, like the book) I was consistantly impressed by his comprehensive knoweledge of both the technical and legal aspects of vehical modifications (especially impressive in good ole California thanks to strict emission standards).
His expertise and professionalism have resulted in him gaining much respect within the Evolution community, and although I have not yet had a chance to review his book, if it's anything like the conversations I've had with him, you'll be amazed by just how far car tuning has come.
Before talking with him, I didn't think it was safely possible to take a $32000 car, $7k of tuning, and end up just a hair short of a supercar*. Amazing.
Hope the book sells well.
-S
* by which I mean a 2.0L 340hp 4WD beast that sprints from 0-60 in 4.4 seconds, skidpad tests to 1g, and through the twisties can out perform anything short of a 911 Turbo
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
For every knowledgeable enthusiast, there are many more misinformed or incorrect speculators whose opinions usually spring from personal preference or a need to hear themselves talk.
.01 to .1 seconds in a 1/4 mile let alone from one stop sign to the third telephone poll.
The whole reason for test and tune day at the track.
That grouping can be catorigized into two types of people. Those that actually race and those that do not. People have many different goals when it comes to building a car: looks, straight line speed, handling, and durability and almost always some mixture of each. With that, you get different opinions on what works and what does not.
There is some gray area.. Examples.. Some people remove the cooling water supply from the throttle body on cars so equiped. Some think it heats up the incoming air to much and others think it is required to cool the throttle body. Another one. At a 1/4 or 1/8 mile track, many people are pushing their cars to the line and apply ice to the intake, others run it to the line and have the car at normal operating temperature. For some, the colder denser air seems to be an advantage, for others, having the temperatures in the normal range puts the cars computer in a closed loop and running at its peak as it is not compensating for lower temperatures (retarded timing, incease in idle, higher or lower fuel/air ratio etc...) Each of these examples are really effected by what else the person has on the car and some are opinions. The actual indicator of advantage is the clocks time.
My point..
The people that actually race the car and can compare before and after times are the only ones that really know the true effect of a modification. 10 degrees advanced timing or 15 degrees? You will only know the true difference between the two on a track with a timer. Optimum tire pressure for your tire and suspension setup? Who the hell really knows without repeated timed laps.
People that NEVER go to an actual track or an event are not the ones you want to blindly take advice from, those are probably the same people that put a new muffler on the car and swear they can actually feel the difference. I doubt anyone in the world can actually feel the difference between a real world difference of
The time clock should be treated the same as running a doom3 timed demo after changing your memory timings. Does it just feel faster or do you have something indicated to back it up? That can seperate FUD from speculation.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Man, I've been a computer geek all my life. Recently I've started playing around with cars (got a couple non-turbo 3000GTs and a VR-4 coming next week). It's a tremendous amount of fun... As with the computer groups, there are a bunch of newbie folks and those in it just for the image... but for every ten of those there seems to be one or two knowledgeable folks.
I'm the first to admit that I know very little about modern cars. Just as with computers, however, there are things that seem to make sense but can be bad for your cars. I'm still in the fix it stage -- trying to put a car back to complete stock condition. It's almost like restoring an old Atari ST or Amiga to full functionality. E.g., the other day it took me a couple hours to change the front fog lights. The bolts had frozen up and grime had covered one of the screw holes so it wasn't immediately obvious how to remove them. After lots of cleaning I got them off, changed the bulbs, and got the housings repainted. The second time around it was a fifteen minute job. So, like learning some weird bash shell construct or new awk script, it was satisfying.
Disclaimer: I'm a race car engineer. I make race cars go faster. It's my day job.
If we work under the assumption that the wing in question actually produces signifigant downforce (not a trivial assumption, given the typical aluminum extrusion pretending to be a wing from most rice shops) the download generated by the wing will be borne by all 4 tires.
Depending on a number of parameters, the rears may carry a larger share of that download, but the net effect will be increased normal force on the front tires, which in turn increases grip.
Now if our boy was smart enough to use a real airfoil on his wing, he was probably smart enough to fit a front airdam and splitter, which means he probably has way more FRONT downforce than rear, and is probably using the wing to help balance out a high-speed oversteer condition. On production-based cars, building front downforce is much easier than building rear downforce.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
the best place to start might be the local car club. The folks in the club can direct you to race tracks that have a fairly large VW contingent. Go to these tracks and talk to people - drivers and builders - in the pits (but don't be a nuisance).
Years ago I was fortunate enough to find a VW shop run by a) a close-to-retirement gentleman who had everything and knew everything and b) his assistant who drag-raced VWs professionally (i.e. for money). Through them I bought an engine w/ the following specs:
1835cc (stock is 1585cc, also called a 1600)
044 heads, 40mm intake and 25mm exhaust [stainless] valves with high-RPM valve springs
an Engle 120 cam, 294 degrees duration and .435" lift
a pair of Weber 48IDA carburetors, velocity stacks only - no air filters (I was young+stupid but it seemed like a good idea at the time)
:-) - is that a book might help in certain areas, but the real in-depth knowledge usually comes from people who are already doing what you want to do. These folks can help you be sure the whole will be better than the sum of the parts, or at least that the individual parts will work together satisfactorily.
The carbs, heads, and cam worked together to make rather a lot of midrange to top end power. I ran a 16.65 quarter mile but had trouble getting first and second gear to hook up. (The tires were 195/50-15 street radials.)
Anyway, the point - besides a bit of bragging about my old car
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
That whole chapter should have been nothing more than a warning regarding the "Gay Batmobile Effect"...which can only be explained by example. In this case, the example is a kid who lived not far from my now-ex-girlfriend when I lived out in Philly.
Specifically, a Hydundai Tiburon. Metalflake purple, with ground effects. Gold rims. Big non-functional scoop on the hood. Type-R stickers everywhere. And two -- yes, two spoilers, stacked one on top of the other. Some sort of bad airbrush art on the hood. When I first saw the thing, my first words, were, "Jesus Christ! It's the Gay Batmobile!"
blog |
>>Does the book cover proper application of Type R decals?
Somehow this critical chapter was left out... editors these days! (sigh)
Addendum.
Chapter 31: "Sticker-charging" your Rice Rocket
Subtitled: If you can't go fast, make up for it by looking silly.
To increase the co-efficient of drag, add weight, reduce ETs and gain street cred with your peeps consider plastering your POS ragged-out pathetic bomb of an economy car with stickers. More is better, especially on four-door models. Our testing has found that stickers containing deliberate misspellings or pictographic words in an Asian lauguage you cannot speak are of particular, uh, "value."
(End of chapter)
If you put your car into a "Kwik-fit" type place for an oil change (£15 oil change offers are pretty common in tyre and exhaust centres round here) then that is all they will do - change the oil. No oil filter (or a cheap shitty one if you're lucky), and the cheapest, crappiest oil they can get away with. Now, I use fairly expensive oil (about a tenner a gallon), and real, genuine, Citroen-approved Purflux filters, which costs me about £15-£20 (I don't know exactly, because I usually wait until I need about £100-worth of stuff for various jobs and buy the lot all at once). It takes about 30 minutes of actual work to change the oil (I take the oil and filter off, let it drain for an hour or so while I clean the car, then refit the plug and filter and fill up again). Half an hour and twenty quid, and I know the job's done *right*. Same thing with the hydraulic system - every 10,000 miles (should be 30,000 but the oil was very gunky when I got the car), out goes the shitty old stuff and in goes a gallon of fresh, green LHM. Next time I'm going to bleed the brakes and steering block, because I didn't do that last time, so it'll take about an afternoon, but once again I'll know it's done properly.
There's something very satisfying about knowing you can fix very nearly any problem that crops up with your car...
Actually, there's some pretty sound physics behind those wheelie bars on FWD drag cars.
The amount of rearward weight transfer is a function of CG height, wheelbase and longnitudnal acceleration amount - that's it.
The resultant pitch ANGLE that the sprung mass adopts as a result of the weight transfer is a function of weight transfer, pitch stiffness (driven primarily by spring rate) and jacking geometry (anti-squat) and you'd be suprised how many people confuse pitch angle with weight transfer.... anyway...
The amount of grip produced by a tire is a function of the normal load on it - more load, more grip - and when accelerating, weight is transfered rearward, reducing the grip on the fronts and increasing the grip on the rears. If you are a FWD, this is bad news, as the harder you accelerate, the more weight you lose from your drive weheels, the less grip you get.
You can change springs all day, and you can't change this fact. You CAN change the pitch angle, but not the weight transfer amount.
But by attaching wheelie bars, when the bars contact the ground the wheelbase lengthens - and a longer wheelbase actually REDUCES the amount of rearward weight transfer. Tada! Magic!
Where some cars were getting into trouble though is that the wheelie bars tend to be pretty close together, which give a narrow track width - the analogue of wheelbase, but in roll. The front tires, being low pressure slicks, are very soft in roll as well. So if something happened to induce a roll movement (like a steering input) there was very little force to oppose the roll, and the car would suddenly hook in a random direction. VERY directionally unstable. Much more exciting for the driver than is probably healthy.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book