brillomaster

Wouldnt have a great impact on the economy at all , not that that is a prime consideration running a large capacity supercharged engine Its something I have been looking into a fair bit recently I spose it makes sense if you already have a water to air heat exchange you can plumb into, beats refilling the tank with ice every so often. but back on topic (ish) is an engine actually any more efficient at turning fuel into power if the intake temps are lower?

oh here you go, this is essentially putting ice in the airbox... except its dry ice, and looks to be for drag racing, and you need to keep refilling the icebox. http://www.dryiceintercoolers.com/

interesting... so that system uses the A/C to cool the water in a water to air intercooler? ultimately, its using more fuel to make more power. but its using fuel to drive the a/c, which in turn increases the engines ability to burn fuel by cooling the intake charge. which is all very well and good if just want more power, but don't care about gas mileage (AKA being American).

fractionally... after all the new M4 sprays cold water directly into the cylinder heads to cool the air down to make more power i think... and a lot of turbos use water to air intercoolers to cool the intake temps. although just sticking ice in the air filter box wont work so well as air is a terrible conductor of heat, you'd need a proper heat exchange system.... like air conditioning... now theres an idea, plum the nice cold air conditioned air into the intake for the engine...

i'm not too fussed about being ANPR'ed while i'm pootling around town. what does concern me is if two ANPR cameras 30 miles apart on the M40 start logging that everyone is doing that 30 mile journey in 20 minutes, and automatically issues half the people driving on the motorway that day a speeding ticket.

cooler air is definitely noticeable when you're boosted. and i always get better milage when its warm, which i suspect is due to less dense air, therefore reduced ability to burn fuel.

hmm, just checked, im out by a factor of 10! wind pressure at 70mph is 12.5 pounds per square foot, which is 0.087 psi. which is 100 times less than a turbo producing 8psi. or in other words, diddly squat.

ram air effect is pretty minimal, its still only atmospheric pressure. bit of rough maths here... if you hold your hand flat out the window at 70mph, you probably need to apply a force of ~80newtons to keep it steady. say your hand is 8" by 3", that has a total area of 24 sq inches. 80newtons is about 18 lbs, so, pressure from wind is 18/24 = 0.75psi. now bear in mind that even small turbos are operating at at least 8psi, which is 10 times as much pressure as a 70mph wind can provide. its clear how minimal the ram air effect is! (that said, 0.75psi blowing on the side of a 30ft by 30ft house for example, will exert a force of 97,000lbs, which could well blow the house down) the amount of air drawn into cylinders will be mainly decided by the volume of the cylinders, the compression ratio of the engine, and the engine speed. ie a 3 litre engine will consume roughly 50% more air than a 2 litre engine, and an engine that revs to 9000rpm will consume 50% more air than one that revs to 6000rpm. a 3 litre engine will consume roughly 3 litres of air every air every 2 engine revolutions (in a 4 stroke engine) so at 6000rpm, the engine will be consuming 9000 litres of air a minute, or 150 litres a second. maybe. i might be way off, i made that last bit up.

I for one cant wait. pretty much anything car related i'll be watching. I mean, i'm still happily watching top gear USA (which is what I suspect Clarkson, Hammond and May's new show will be like). Granted the presenter lineup on topgear wont please everyone, but then again theres so many of them now that there will be at least a few that you like. and Old top gear was very hit and miss, it had some great features and car reviews, and then it has some really obviously scripted tosh. hopefully The Grand Tour will have more of the good stuff, and less of the bad.

also, why? looking for increased ride comfort, or got some 17" tyres that need using up?

Loudest exhaust on planet earth? custom headers straight out the bonnet? single 3" pipe from the manifolds back? Or perhaps side exit exhausts?

I had an NB a couple of cars before the zed - whilst the MX5 was a good car, and good fun in the twisties, ultimately I chopped it in due to a lack of power - 140bhp just didn't cut the mustard. also compared to the zed the interior is quite dated, the zed is a comfier place to be, and considerably more spacious - i'm just over 6ft and had to modify the seat in the mx5 so I could see under the windscreen. No such problems in the zed. and while the mx5 sounded good with a sports exhaust on and the roof down, its no where near as nice as the 3.5 litre V6 with a cobra exhaust on!

a ) whats a marimba, and b ) why did you spend £6500 on it for your daughter?!? most expensive thing my dad ever bought me was an £80 telescope, which I used once before deciding stargazing is difficult and boring. EDIT I was about 8, before any of you suggest alternative uses for the telescope!

sounds like your home internet provider is blocking the site for some reason - i'd imagine theres a list of sites it will and will not allow through, google your ISP.

how old are the cars and what are the mileages? its not hugely uncommon for people to change cars every couple of years. main thing is the service history, and you might wanna check the mot history as well.

yep if theres one thing I know about motorsport is that it should never ever be considered cheap! and also for me, the cost to track time ratio is terrible... you spend thousands on a car, a few more thousand making it competitive, a couple thousand more making it safe. then you spend a few thousand getting your license, helmet and fia approved firesuit. a competitive car is unlikely to be road legal, so that's another few thousand on a tow car and a decent trailer to get to events. then to actually race you pay £500 entry fee, for which you get maybe 30 mins qualifying, and a 45 minute race. so that's several thousands of pounds for maybe an hour and a half on track. oh, and theres also a far greater risk of someone crashing into you and writing your car off, in which case you need to spend thousands more repairing it for the next race. its an expensive business! i'd like to try racing, but trackdays offer so much more bang for your buck, even more so if you have a tow car and trailer already. And its serious fun spending peanuts on a car and being faster than things that cost ten times as much

there are a few autosolo type events available as well, basically massive carpark, course laid out with cones. obviously not wheel to wheel stuff though. Could always do a topgear and enter an rallycross event? but as Rob says, what racing you do will be largely dictated by your budget. my budget for racing is non existent, so I do trackdays instead!

if you just want a bit of friendly competition against a clock then the javelin sprint series is certainly the cheapest way to do it. thought about entering a few rounds myself but haven't got round to it yet. http://www.javelinsprintdays.co.uk/JTSS/ then if you want actual wheel to wheel racing, MSV do a trackday trophy, which has a mix of cars grouped by class. http://www.trackdaytrophy.co.uk/ after that you're in the mx5, mr2 or maybe stock hatch racing series, or maybe BMW championship, but they're all more money!

then again, they may not... I think GT4s will go up in value, there were only 700 to start and there will be even less mint ones if people chop them up and put bodykits on. sell it on for a tidy profit, buy a cheaper normal DE, use the money saved for modifications

i'd sell the GT4 and buy a standard DE if you're planning on cutting the arches. I think it would be a shame to but up a mint limited edition car, when there are already plenty of DEs that need some work. And any car with cut arches/big bodykits will be a lot harder to sell. Also, what number GT4 is it? Ken may have some history on the car.

what wheels are you looking at anyway? if not a specific wheel, what style?

will you be fitting the customary sleeved exhaust for extra loud TVR-ness?

that purple is perfectly acceptable on a TVR. And yes, yes you should.

In to see how this pans out! hoping for another epic grundy wheel fitment thread

blues are far too hard for road use - we used them on our track beemer. I also ran a zed on reds and was perfectly happy with them. preferred them to the DS2500s which would squeal a fair bit when cold.