- 6,658
- Marietta, GA
- Dagger31198
I'm actually bad to do that one, blame it on me learning about it when I was eight
. It's" Gi-Ar-Do" right?
Conceptions/Misconceptions Over Cars
- Thread starter Grandea GTR
- 308 comments
- 17,225 views
. It's" Gi-Ar-Do" right?
- 15,460
- Orange County, NY
- GTP_GT916
- Nii916
- 4,464
- Vancouver, BC
- GTP_Grand_Prix
Some misconceptions about Grand Prix racing:
- Some people seem to have this idea that because the F1 World Championship started in 1950, no Grand Prix cars existed before this date. Or even worth discovering.
- There is also a misconception that F1 / GP cars have only gotten faster over the years in a straight line. Naturally this leads to an assumption that cars from say, the 1930s, must have been pretty slow. In truth, much like nowadays, the Grand Prix car has always been greatly influenced by regulations changes over time. Many of these changes were written with the intention of slowing down the GP car, because even in the 1900s, with the tech available at the time which necessitated 4 cylinder engines with 12-16 litres displacement or more, it was capable of 100mph, on dirt roads...
When you look at the course of its development and the many different engine designs that were used over the last century, to say that there has been a few ups and downs in the evolution of the Grand Prix car would be an understatement.
- There is also a third misconception about F1 cars, which is related to the one above. That being, that Formula One has always been the pinnacle of motorsports. This was not always the case. To name a couple examples; F2 regulations were used for Grand Prix racing in 1952 and 1953, due to a small number of participants; Can-Am racing was most certainly the pinnacle of motorsports, while it lasted.
- Some people seem to have this idea that because the F1 World Championship started in 1950, no Grand Prix cars existed before this date. Or even worth discovering.
- There is also a misconception that F1 / GP cars have only gotten faster over the years in a straight line. Naturally this leads to an assumption that cars from say, the 1930s, must have been pretty slow. In truth, much like nowadays, the Grand Prix car has always been greatly influenced by regulations changes over time. Many of these changes were written with the intention of slowing down the GP car, because even in the 1900s, with the tech available at the time which necessitated 4 cylinder engines with 12-16 litres displacement or more, it was capable of 100mph, on dirt roads...
When you look at the course of its development and the many different engine designs that were used over the last century, to say that there has been a few ups and downs in the evolution of the Grand Prix car would be an understatement.
- There is also a third misconception about F1 cars, which is related to the one above. That being, that Formula One has always been the pinnacle of motorsports. This was not always the case. To name a couple examples; F2 regulations were used for Grand Prix racing in 1952 and 1953, due to a small number of participants; Can-Am racing was most certainly the pinnacle of motorsports, while it lasted.
- 4,209
- Wasilla, AK
IT'S NOT A SUNFIRE! IT'S NOT A FOUR CYLINDER! IT'S NOT AN AUTOMATIC!
- 15,532
- Cairo, Egypt
- GTP_SEMS
-Sedans are cooler than hatches, because hatches are "girly". /sigh
- 4,763
- Houston, TX
Miata's are front wheel drive right?
- 6,658
- Marietta, GA
- Dagger31198
Pretty sure they're Rear wheel drive.Miata's are front wheel drive right?
- 4,543
- Bay Area, CA
- Zenith113
Cam stuff:
Muscle cars don't have their famous loping idle because they have big displacement or because of their OHV arrangement. They have this idle because of their aggressive cams with lots of intake duration and lots of overlap. This was to allow them to get good high rev power.
Variable Valve Timing:
-VTEC is not just Variable Valve Timing. It is also variable lift. The car effectively has two cam shafts that it switches between instead of one that it phases.
-Variable Valve Timing is also not without fault. Many race prepped cars will either limit the travel of the cam or do away with variable valve timing completely.
Why? VVT limits the aggressiveness of the cam because an overly aggressive cam paired with an overly active VVT would cause the valves to hit the pistons. VVT still rocks for street cars.
If we compare a "max aggression" VVT cam to a "max aggression" static cam, the VVT cam will have better mid-range power and the static cam will have better top end power. Race cars and light cars will benefit more from the static cam.
Until camless valve control is developed, IC engines will have to live with trade-offs
Muscle cars don't have their famous loping idle because they have big displacement or because of their OHV arrangement. They have this idle because of their aggressive cams with lots of intake duration and lots of overlap. This was to allow them to get good high rev power.
Variable Valve Timing:
-VTEC is not just Variable Valve Timing. It is also variable lift. The car effectively has two cam shafts that it switches between instead of one that it phases.
-Variable Valve Timing is also not without fault. Many race prepped cars will either limit the travel of the cam or do away with variable valve timing completely.
Why? VVT limits the aggressiveness of the cam because an overly aggressive cam paired with an overly active VVT would cause the valves to hit the pistons. VVT still rocks for street cars.
If we compare a "max aggression" VVT cam to a "max aggression" static cam, the VVT cam will have better mid-range power and the static cam will have better top end power. Race cars and light cars will benefit more from the static cam.
Until camless valve control is developed, IC engines will have to live with trade-offs
- 15,368
- TRAPPIST-1g
- ProjectWHaT
- 6,658
- Marietta, GA
- Dagger31198
I don't get it...
- 34,949
- Indian Falls, NY
- slashfan7964
Depends on the engine. You can bet your ass a 2 barrel 302 isn't making 500 horsepower. 427 SOHC sure as hell made 650 at the crank.
It depends. Most of them were pretty off though.
Oh god this. Most young guys now here engines with aggressive cams with choppy idles and think that's how they came, when in reality they were a pretty smooth "lump lump lump" sounding. Not "chop chchop hop chop cchop chop chchop" like most videos on YouTube are.
MedigoFlame
Premium
- 6,213
- Maine
- MedigoFlameX
I've never really heard that one before. Most people tell me that hatchbacks are just ugly... To which...my opinion disagrees with that. But unfortunately, it seems that hatchback/wagon lovers are outnumbered by the general pubic in the US that favors more towards the mainstream sedan.
Why couldn't we get the A-Class instead of the CLA. And all of the wagon variants of the mainstream sedans...
My friends keep telling me that wagons are ugly without any other reason as to why they don't like them. To which my response is "Would you rather have the space of an SUV/Crossover without the car feel? (I know, not all of them feel SUV-y) or with the car feel."
(Says the wagon lover who drives a sedan)
I would like to contribute some more, but I can't come up with anything at the moment.
- 27,387
- Toronto
- NewAesthetic
- SlipZtrEm
Exhibit A:
Except concepts are very much different, as a good chunk of them sometimes don't even have engines in them - or if they do, the entire car is in such precarious, delicate shape that journalists get to drive them with a limit of 30mph or so.
Maybe it's just me, but a car without an engine isn't cool. Which reminds me; I don't think anybody's ever suggested concepts and race cars are, as you put it:
Just that they're not particularly cool. In a Cool Wall thread, I'd say that's pretty valid.
...
I think this thread highlighted an odd double-standard a few folks tend to have.
- 6,658
- Marietta, GA
- Dagger31198
Yeah, I went overboard with the "Worst thing ever" comment...Exhibit A:
Except concepts are very much different, as a good chunk of them sometimes don't even have engines in them - or if they do, the entire car is in such precarious, delicate shape that journalists get to drive them with a limit of 30mph or so.
Maybe it's just me, but a car without an engine isn't cool. Which reminds me; I don't think anybody's ever suggested concepts and race cars are, as you put it:
Just that they're not particularly cool. In a Cool Wall thread, I'd say that's pretty valid.
...
I think this thread highlighted an odd double-standard a few folks tend to have.
- 40,690
They absolutely fudged the numbers; and a very small handful of those cars (like, the aluminum block 427 Chevrolet engine was one), as they left the factory for street use, even approached 400 horsepower. The 1971 model year shows this perfectly. Compression was down slightly for most engines, for fuel mileage reasons and to try to wean the country off of leaded fuel, so an earlier model would be a bit more powerful if rated honestly; but for the companies that would show both numbers there could be anywhere from a very narrow margin between Gross and Net (like the 4 barrel Chrysler 340 engine, which went from 275 gross to 235 net which was still more than enough to make it faster than any 383) to a massive difference in power between the two (2 barrel 383 didn't even have 200 horsepower, but was gross rated for the same 275 as the 340 4 barrel; or the Chevrolet LS6 engine, which lost a hundred and twenty-five horsepower after the changeover).
Big engines were rated so much because when they put them on the dyno to pull gross ratings, they ran them through open headers and on gas and with highly advanced cam timing compared to the diesel-like drive they produced normally; and the smaller engines (like the Ford Boss 302 motor or Chrysler 340) already were that hot in street tune so they didn't benefit as much. Overrating something like the boat anchor Ford 390 also made it more desirable to people with normal driving habits than something like the Camaro Z/28 motor did; plus they were much cheaper for the manufacturers to make so they could roll in the money. That's why the fuel injected Corvette went away despite how much better it was than anything else in America at the time.
Related to that:
They are so easy to modify because most of the big block engines that were attainable in the late 1960s were basically heavy duty truck engines. You can easily get a lot more power than stock out of an engine that left the factory with atrocious fuel delivery, terrible exhaust, inefficient head design and low compression/cam timing. And that applies doubly so for when they took those same engines, then beat the crap out of them with highly inefficient emissions equipment and even worse compression/fuel delivery in the 1970s.
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- 34,949
- Indian Falls, NY
- slashfan7964
The point is that 95% of them were not what they were rated, some much less, some more, but mostly less. There was a few freaks, and it should be mentioned that the 427 SOHC was never installed into any car, and only sold over the counter.Exhibit A:
And this is exactly why I tell people not to look down on the crap that come out of the '70s.
Joey D
Premium
- 47,285
- Lakes of the North, MI
- GTP_Joey
- GTP Joey
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Prefer whatever transmission you want too but when people think that a car is instantly worthless because it has an automatic or think in no way it can possibly be fun, then they just end up looking completely narrow minded. A fun car will be a fun car whether it's automatic or manual, you might have more fun with a manual if that's what you prefer but you're in no danger of falling asleep if it happens to be an automatic.
And a RWD/AWD can never do things a FWD car does. I fail to see your point. Saying FWD is inferior is being closed minded and thinking everything should be RWD or AWD is just ridiculous. An economy car that sole purpose in life is to shuttle people to work down the freeway doesn't need to be RWD or AWD.
Preferring less technology is fine, thinking it's some how the downfall of the automotive industry make you look like a whack job. Sure there are plenty of technologies in cars I think are sort of ridiculous, like self parking cars, but the only reason I think it's ridiculous is because I don't have a practical application for it.
Like I said, you seem to be confusing people preferring things and people saying what they prefer is the be all to end all with cars. It's just a way of saying "stop being a closed mind jerk" with more examples.
- 15,532
- Cairo, Egypt
- GTP_SEMS
I've never really heard that one before. Most people tell me that hatchbacks are just ugly... To which...my opinion disagrees with that. But unfortunately, it seems that hatchback/wagon lovers are outnumbered by the general pubic in the US that favors more towards the mainstream sedan.
Why couldn't we get the A-Class instead of the CLA. And all of the wagon variants of the mainstream sedans...
My friends keep telling me that wagons are ugly without any other reason as to why they don't like them. To which my response is "Would you rather have the space of an SUV/Crossover without the car feel? (I know, not all of them feel SUV-y) or with the car feel."
(Says the wagon lover who drives a sedan)
I would like to contribute some more, but I can't come up with anything at the moment.
I've hear it alot, also yes aside from some case Hatches>Sedans for me.
- 688
- Sydney
What really gets me going is when people on the GTP Cool Wall Forums vote seriously uncool and uncool for cars like the Toyota Supra and their reasons for it are because of its links with the Fast and the Furious and because of the modifications people do to it and various other cars of that type.
It's really annoying ok. Let me put it this way. A Toyota Supra is like a budget supercar, anyone can get their hands on it and do what they want to it to personalize it to their style. In that sense go off at how some people can afford million dollar supercars and spend even more money on customizations.
It's really annoying ok. Let me put it this way. A Toyota Supra is like a budget supercar, anyone can get their hands on it and do what they want to it to personalize it to their style. In that sense go off at how some people can afford million dollar supercars and spend even more money on customizations.
- 9,884
- Carthage, TN
- race_emhard
Sure, the regulations have forced the forced the cars from looking like this:
To this...
Sure, todays are so so much safer than cars of old, but the F1 cars of today just aren't anywhere near as elegant as the 90's cars.
- 688
- Sydney
I understand that but there was a Cool Wall forum on the Supra and there were a lot of uncool and seriously uncool comments about it being a tuning platform. Why? Is that to say an Original 60's Shelby GT350 to be uncool? Look at other modifications are being done to other cars and comment on that.
- 27,387
- Toronto
- NewAesthetic
- SlipZtrEm
Like @Joey D said, uncool doesn't mean someone dislikes a car (well, not always - some people do seem to treat it as a Like Wall).
But if people want to vote a car Uncool because of ties to things like F&F, let them. People vote some cars Sub Zero because of their pop culture connections too; witness the Jag XKSS or currently-polled Porsche 550. It works both ways.
It just sounds like you're bothered because people don't like a car you personally like. That happens.
- 40,690
Unless you were Bill Cosby, the absolute best engines you could buy at the end of the decade in a car (rather than pretty much racing-only engines sold on a crate because you knew a guy who owned a NASCAR team, like with the Ford Cammer or the Chevrolet Z11 427) without having to screw with it would have been if you bought a ZL1 Camaro (which was essentially a Can Am engine with engine accessories installed and lower compression, meaning it was barely driveable on the street), the 426 Hemi, the Side Oiler 427 (another hand built race engine that I pity anyone who had to drive it on the street), and the Buick GSX 455 engine (which, aside from oiling problems, was otherwise built well enough that it happily would go past 5,500 RPM and was by far the most attainable and driveable of the set). None of them, as installed in the car from the factory with accessories and air filters and legal exhaust pipes, would reach 400; regardless of how easy it was to make them make more than that.I'm on a roll of stupid today
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- 6,658
- Marietta, GA
- Dagger31198
Yeah. I figured most of the dyno pulls on youtube were modded with fairly hard to detect parts/filmed from angles where you couldn't see the parts. I mean, they were definitely powerful for the time, but some of the numbers people claim are just unrealistic. There are supercars that barely make 600 horsepower.
Again, the value of old-school V8s is what they can be.
- 29,578
- Bratvegas
- GTP_Liquid
@Azure Flare Those pictures you posted are a bit skewed, but I do agree with you in terms of aesthetics.
The 1991 McLaren wasn't from the same regulations as the 1995 Ferrari and 1997 Williams. The former was from the 3.5L wide era, the latter two were from the 3.0L narrow era.
Agreeing this universally will be tough, but you can periodise F1 design eras as the regulations have evolved.
1982-1988 (non-ground effect turbo era)
1988-1994 (3.5L wide era)
1995-2003 (3.0L narrow era)
2004-2008 (sidepod wings era)
2009-2013 (snowplough slicks era)
2014-??? (hybrid penis turbo nose era)
Just a few very brief examples. But you and @Grand Prix are right, misconceptions about Formula One are awful to explain to those who don't know. Or care.
The 1991 McLaren wasn't from the same regulations as the 1995 Ferrari and 1997 Williams. The former was from the 3.5L wide era, the latter two were from the 3.0L narrow era.
Agreeing this universally will be tough, but you can periodise F1 design eras as the regulations have evolved.
1982-1988 (non-ground effect turbo era)
1988-1994 (3.5L wide era)
1995-2003 (3.0L narrow era)
2004-2008 (sidepod wings era)
2009-2013 (snowplough slicks era)
2014-??? (hybrid penis turbo nose era)
Just a few very brief examples. But you and @Grand Prix are right, misconceptions about Formula One are awful to explain to those who don't know. Or care.
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