THE BIG CUBIC-INCH TURBO BLOG

SCALING, PART I: ARE TURBOCHARGERS A REPLACEMENT FOR DISPLACEMENT?

2011-04-23T06:38:00.000-07:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (adapted from the legendary Car Craft Forum turbo blog)

"There's no replacement for displacement." -- Old Car Crafters' saying

Much of the writing on turbocharging is based on the assumption that turbocharging is a "replacement for displacement."

Are turbos really a substitute for cubic inch displacement? The answer is: "it depends."

Most certainly if fuel octane is virtually unlimited and engine life is measured in hours or minutes rather than hundreds of thousands of miles, turbocharged small engines have often proven much more powerful than naturally-aspirated big-cube powerplants.

And when street horsepower outputs are modest (less than 600 h.p.) turbocharging often stands in very well for large cubic inch mills.

But what about when lofty horsepower goals must be accomplished with durability and on widely available pump fuels? Is a small turbocharged engine going to be enough? Or will turbocharging need the added "boost" of extra cubes? And what are the downsides to hauling around a larger turbo 'plant?

These are questions that we need to answer before going much further in the turbo selection process.

One way of looking at the problem is through "scaling." "Scaling" in this context is taking proven test data from another project and extrapolating it to a variety of engine sizes for rough comparisons.

Of course this form of "scaling" is not completely accurate because of many factors. Small-bore engines may be stronger and more detonation resistant than larger-bore lumps. Volumetric efficiencies may significantly vary across engine types and sizes. Comparison engines may not be able to "live" under as much cylinder pressure as the original test engine.

But acknowledging these limitations, scaling can provide a "ballpark" figure about what outputs are realistic.

Nelson and Freiburger's "F-Bomb" Camaro provides a good baseline for a scaling exercise. While the "F-Bomb" engine is hardly a grassroots build, published test data is available for a wide range of r.p.m. and manifold pressures.

The first step in scaling is converting the raw data into a factor that can be multiplied by the displacement of the comparison engines. The process is simple and quick on a computer spreadsheet or calculator. First, divide the horsepower output by test engine size. Then multiply the resulting factor by the comparison engine size.

For simplicity, we'll use horsepower per liter (hp/l) as the factor.

The first published data set for the "F-Bomb" engine is a safe "low-boost" test (6.3-7.0 psi)

RPM HP hp/l

3500 418 62.80

3600 434 65.21

3700 454 68.21

3800 475 71.37

3900 498 74.82

4000 520 78.13

4100 539 80.98

4200 558 83.84

4300 574 86.24

4400 588 88.34

4500 605 90.90

4600 625 93.90

4700 644 96.76

4800 661 99.31

4900 670 100.67

5000 680 102.17

5100 695 104.42

5200 705 105.92

5300 718 107.88

5400 727 109.23

5500 730 109.68

5600 738 110.88

5700 744 111.78

5800 751 112.83

5900 761 114.34

6000 769 115.54

The next data set is what DF suggested was the at the limit for pump gasoline with the "F-Bomb's" charge-cooled EFI engine (11.0-14.4 psi)

RPM HP hp/l

3500 524 78.73

3600 559 83.99

3700 600 90.15

3800 638 95.86

3900 673 101.12

4000 705 105.92

4100 732 109.98

4200 753 113.14

4300 768 115.39

4400 787 118.24

4500 808 121.40

4600 822 123.50

4700 842 126.51

4800 873 131.17

4900 901 135.37

5000 927 139.28

5100 950 142.73

5200 967 145.29

5300 981 147.39

5400 991 148.89

5500 991 148.89

5600 997 149.80

5700 1008 151.45

5800 1025 154.00

5900 1022 153.55

6000 1009 151.60

The next data set is a moderate pull on race gas (12.2-18.3 psi).

RPM HP hp/l

3500 560 84.14

3600 600 90.15

3700 652 97.96

3800 709 106.52

3900 755 113.44

4000 778 116.89

4100 809 121.55

4200 834 125.31

4300 854 128.31

4400 874 131.32

4500 896 134.62

4600 921 138.38

4700 948 142.43

4800 979 147.09

4900 1004 150.85

5000 1028 154.45

5100 1059 159.11

5200 1080 162.27

5300 1087 163.32

5400 1103 165.72

5500 1120 168.28

5600 1139 171.13

5700 1150 172.78

5800 1155 173.53

5900 1161 174.44

6000 1165 175.04

By way of comparison, the turbocharged "Low-Buck" Demon 454 BBC in the February 2011 issue of Car Craft yields the following test factors:

RPM HP hp/l (hp/7.4)

3500 443 59.86

4000 527 71.22

4500 619 83.65

5000 696 94.05

5500 743 100.41

6000 776 104.86

6400 767 103.65

It's clear that the Nelson/Freiburger engine is much more efficient than the non-charge cooled, single-turbo "Low-Buck" 454. This could be the result of several factors including turbo efficiency, ignition timing, intake charge temperature and density, and volumetric efficiency.

FIRST PRINCIPLES: A PRIMER ON TURBOCHARGER ENERGY USE

2011-04-23T06:18:00.000-07:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (adapted from the legendary Car Craft Forum turbo blog)

"Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only change forms." -- First Law of Thermodynamics (abridged)

Many Car Crafters first learn about this through the Bernoulli Principle, as applied to carburetion. Speeding up air through a narrower passage (a carburetor's venturi) lowers the pressure of the air stream and allows outside air pressure (through the fuel bowl vents) to force fuel through the metering system into the venturi air stream. In other words, Pressure energy is briefly exchanged for velocity energy.

Changing energy into different forms is also at the core of how turbocharging works. Pressure, velocity and temperature of the gas passing through the compressor and turbine are interrelated and change predictably at different points of the turbocharging process.

For example, the compressor impeller increases the velocity of the intake air by pumping it through its blades at a high r.p.m. This air velocity energy is then tranformed into stable flow and higher pressure through the diffuser section of the compressor housing. Although some energy is converted into heat, the bulk of the energy input has transformed from rotational energy into increased air pressure.

Remember that the difference between the outside air pressure and the post-compressor air pressure is called the pressure ratio.

More energy is, of course, added to the system through the combustion process. Thus, on the turbine side, the hot, pressurized and pulsing exhaust gas is accelerated through a volute in the turbine housing(think: funnel bent around a circle) to a nozzle. The exhaust's expansion from the nozzle through the turbine blades to the low-pressure exhaust rotates the turbine, converting velocity energy and sometimes pulse energy into the rotational force that powers the compressor.

READING TURBO COMPRESSOR MAPS, PART IV: EFFICIENCY ISLANDS

2011-04-23T06:11:00.000-07:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (adapted from the legendary Car Craft Forum turbo blog)

"Efficiency is doing things right." -- Peter Drucker

Anyone who has mistakenly put their hand on the shop compressor discharge line will always remember that compressing air results in heat. And NASCAR TV viewers often hear about "starting on low tire pressures" to avoid "pressure build-up."

Both of these are examples of the relationship between air volume, air pressure and air temperature.

Ideal gas law states that:

(air pressure x air volume)/air temperature = remains constant (Miller 19-20) Thus, increases in air pressure of a fixed quantiy of air result in increases in temperature.

When any compressor takes a "gulp" of air and compresses it into a smaller space, heat is necessarily produced. Often, the temp increase is explained as the result of increased friction between air moleules rubbing together when jammed into a smaller space.

Engineers and scientists describe the ideal temperature rise from air compression as "adibatic" -- neither gaining or losing any heat (beyond what the Ideal Gas Law predicts, that is).

However, no air compressor is 100% efficient. Internal air movement, impeller friction, pumping losses, and other inefficiencies add extra heat to the compressed air. This inefficiency is represented on turbo compressor maps and is critical to determining the actual density of the compressed charge.

Looking at the old T66 turbo map, the lines in the middle of the map show zones or "islands" of efficiency. The percentages shown are the calculated efficiency of the compressor, based on measurement of the discharge temperature of the compressed air.

Thus, when someone reports that a particular compressor is operating in the 75% efficient zone at a particular pressure ratio, they're saying that the compressor is heating the air 25% MORE than the Ideal Gas Law adibatic temperature rise formula predicts.

By way of comparison, when a traditional Roots blower is operating in a 50% efficiency island, then it is heating the air 50% more than the ideal temp rise formula predicts.

Extra heat in the compressor discharge air indicates two things. First, the extra heaing means that the dischared air is less dense than under ideal conditions. Second, the extra heat shows that not all of the "work" applied to compressing the air actually resulted in air compression -- some of the energy was "lost" to heating the compressed air. (engineers and scientists refer to this as "isentropic efficiency.")

However, for Car Crafters, the more important things are to determine how much density has been lost and how to recover as much of it as possible.

WHAT IS "PRESSURE RATIO?" (AND HOW ALTITUDE AND RESTRICTIVE AIR INTAKES AFFECT IT)

2011-04-23T06:01:00.000-07:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (adapted from the legendary Car Craft Forum turbo blog)

"The course of the flight up and down was exceedingly erratic, partly due to the irregularity of the air . . . . " -- Orville Wright

Some readers have probably wondered why turbo maps use "pressure ratio" instead of "boost" (manifold pressure).

The simple answer is that reductions in compressor inlet pressure without any change in the pressure ratio will lead to reductions in manifold pressure.

Conversely, if manifold pressure stays constant and inlet pressure decreases, the pressure ratio must increase. formula to "prove" this is found in virtually every turbocharger matching book, from the Hugh MacInnes "classic" Turbochargers to the latest books from Miller, Hartman, and Warner.

Pressure ratio = (boost pressure (gauge pressure) + ambient air pressure)/ambient air pressure.

(See MacInnes at 16, Miller at 39, Warner at 23, A. Graham Bell at 68, Corky Bell at 26)

So how does this really work: If you're testing a car on the beach (at sea level), the average barometric pressure reading should be ~ 14.7 psi (29.92 in. Hg.) Now if the "gauge pressure" indicates 30 psi of "boost" . . .

Pressure Ratio = 30 + 14.7 / 14.7

Pressure Ratio = 44.7/14.7

And when you plug these numbers into your handy calculator or computer spreadsheet, you get 3.04. Thus,

Pressure Ratio = 3.04:1

That means you've crammed three "atmospheres" into the space of one. (You get one for free and two more from the turbo)

Now run the same calculation a little more than 2/3s of the way up Pikes Peak at 10,000 ft.

Average barometric pressure reading: 10.1 psi (20.58 in. Hg.) (A. Graham Bell summarizes you lose ~ 0.5 psi ambient air pressure for each 1,000 ft. increase in altitude.)

Pressure Ratio (10,000 ft) = 30 (gauge pressure) + 10.1/10.1

Pressure Ratio (10,000 ft) = 3.97:1

WHAT! How can that be? To produce 30 psi in the thin air of 10,000 ft., the turbo compressor had to work much harder. The pressure ratio had to increase to keep the "gauge pressure" constant.

But what if the pressure ratio hadn't increased? "Gauge pressure" would have dropped to 20.2 psi.

What should be obvious here is that a chart which equates pressure ratio to "boost" only works at a specific altitude. Most such charts assume sea level ambient air pressure.

This also illustrates a flaw in a fixed linking of compressor speed to engine r.p.m., as belt-driven superchargers do. Recalling the general relationship between pressure ratio and compressor r.p.m., a turbo can speed up to to increase its pressure ratio at altitude. The only way a supercharger can do that is either with a pulley change or variable drive system.

Of course, altitude isn't the only thing that can reduce compressor inlet pressure. A restrictive air intake, an air intake located in a low pressure zone, a restrictive mass air sensor, inadequate inlet ducting, clogged air filter or excessive intake air turbulance and heating (i.e. placing your air inlet behind the radiator) are common mistakes that reduce compressor inlet pressure in the real world.

Kenne Bell makes the following suggestion to its supercharger customers:

"If you don't have access to a [flow] bench, install a tap behind each component in the inlet track, make a dyno pull or a WOT run on the street in low or second gear and read the vacuum gauge. If it's "0" there are no losses and, therefore, upgrading [pre-compressor]components will not help. However, if there is a 4" Hg reading - that's 2 psi of lost atmospheric boost . . . ."

Although Kenne Bell's suggestion does not take into account potential pre-compressor intake air pressure increases through vehicle velocity (ram air), the basic test method is reasonable for any form of supercharger or turbo.

KEEP COMPRESSOR OPERATIONS OUT OF THE "CHOKE ZONE"

2011-04-23T05:45:00.000-07:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (adapted from the legendary Car Craft Forum turbo blog)

"Don't choke now!" -- Grady Seasons (Keith McCready), "The Color of Money" (1986)

The following excerpt appeared on the forum at Bangshift.com:

"[The January 2011 issue of Auto Enthusiast magazing at pg. 30]has a story about a class project at WyoTech's Blairsville, PA campus. They built a crate 350 SBC with a single [Holset]HX35. It maxed out at a paltry 575 h.p. on 15 psi manifold pressure (charge cooled). This shows that the engine was obviously running well into the choke zone of the HX35. [Jay K.] Miller's map [Turbo: Real World High-Performance Turbocharger Systems ]shows that the HX35 goes into choke at ~ 50 lbs/min at 2.0:1 pressure ratio."

Sadly, Holset is tight-fisted with its compressor maps and there isn't a good on-line map of the HX35 available today.

Referring back to the old T66 map, every point to the right of the mapped area is in the choke zone of the compressor. Choke means just as it sounds -- the turbo compressor is choking the engine because it is not large enough to flow air efficiently in the quantities the engine COULD be consuming.

A turbo operating in the choke zone is too small for the engine at high r.p.m. It's that simple.

That doesn't necessarily mean that the turbo is too small at every r.p.m. For example, the WyoTech Blairville SBC reportedly has excellent low r.p.m. response, with a boost threshold (on-set of measureable manifold pressure increase) of ~ 2,000 r.p.m.

In another famous example (reported in the June 2001 issue of Hot Rod Magazine), Chris Stewart used a pair of junkyard 1986 Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe Garrett T03E turbos on a 472 CID BBF. The boost threshold was a mere 1,700 r.p.m. and it pounded out 714 lbs./ft of torque at the rear wheels through a power-guzzling non-lockup C6 automatic. And Stewart achieved this on a mere 10 psi of "boost."

The torque peak was a diesel-like 2,200 r.p.m.

However, the smallish turbos greatly restricted power at high r.p.m., limiting the 8.2:1 BBF to a weak 355 RWHP at a tractor-like 4,200 r.p.m.

Even though a turbo will still flow some air in the choke zone, the mass air density will be lowered by excessive charge heating. The turbo could also be at risk of overspeeding. And if the turbine (exhaust side) is fairly well matched with the compressor (as expected with factory turbos but not always true with aftermarket "hybrid" turbos) the turbine is likely also in an inefficent range of operation when the compressor is in the choke zone. Excessive backpressure and exhaust heat from a turbine opertaing in choke can hurt power production and exhaust valve longevity. In short, operating in the choke zone is akin to a dog chasing its own tail.

It should be clear by now, a properly fitted turbo or turbos must avoid the extremes of surge and choke. The "sweet spot" for turbo compressor operation is in the middle portions of the map where compressor efficiency is the highest.

What does "choke" mean? And why does it matter?

READING TURBO COMPRESSOR MAPS, PART III

2011-04-23T05:31:00.000-07:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (adapted from the legendary Car Craft forum turbo blog)

"One must strike the right balance between speed and quality."-- The Right Honourable Clare Short (Former MP,Birmingham Ladywood, UK)

The next compressor map elements of note are the series of r.p.m speed lines arcing from the surge limit line on the left over to the right.

Each of these speed lines is a graph of compressor performance at specific compressor r.p.m.

Warner (Street Turbocharging) and Hartman (Turbocharging Performance Handbook) both provide detailed explanations of how turbocharger engineers use these speed lines in building a compressor map.

The short version is that the turbos are run up to a particular test r.p.m. on a "test rig" (sort of a turbo dynomometer) and then the outlet flow is restricted with a valve to measure how efficient the compressors are at various mass air flow levels (the bottom axis of the map).

Note that until the compressor becomes a flow restriction (the right side of the map) that pressure ratio and compressor speed are closely linked. The speed lines turn down sharply at the right side of the map because the compressor is simply too small to efficiently supply any more mass air, reducing the pressure ratio.

On this map, the downturn in the speed lines becomes more severe at higher compressor r.p.m. levels. This suggests that increases in mass air flow beyond the efficiency range of the compressor can lead to drastic increases in speed as the compressor struggles to "keep up" with air demands.

The map speed lines also show that for each level of mass air flow, there are many pressure ratios that can supply enough air. Thus, if the pressure ratio increases, and mass air flow does not, then the output is being more restricted. (it works the same way with a garden hose nozzle)

Of course, in the real world, the "restriction" of compressor output isn't a test valve. It's the physical ability of the engine to induct, react, and exhaust air. That means better "breathing" engines require less pressure and compressor speed to obtain a particular level of mass air flow.

READING TURBO COMPRESSOR MAPS, PART II

2011-04-23T05:23:00.000-07:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (adapted from the legendary Car Craft turbo blog)

Turbo Tip of the Day: "Let it eat" -- Dean Skuza (Former AA/FC racer)

Moving from left to right on our old T66 turbo map, we see the dotted line labled "Surge Limit."

Pressures to the left of the surge limit are not mapped. Why? Because they are both unstable and potentially destructive to the compressor.

Surge amounts to air backing up inside the compressor and fighting to get back out through the entrance (or more properly, the "inducer bore")

To understand surge, imagine air being agitated into a mini-tornado by the compressor impeller (that's the fan blade/meat grinder thing that rotates).

Impeller

When flow out of the turbo is shut off or excessively restricted, the mini-tornado is not properly diffused into steady pressure because it has no place to go. So air being air, it takes the path of least resistance toward a lower pressure -- backing "out through the in door."

These reversals of flow fight the impeller's rotation. The exiting air molecules slam up against other air molecules that the impeller is attempting to induct (draw in). That causes inlet pressures to fluctuate and the impeller's blades to lose efficiency.

Thus, on the left side of the surge limit, the turbo compressor is not doing useful work because the exit flow is too restricted.

Simply put, surge occurs when the attempted pressure ratio is too high for the amount of air consumed by the engine. (Remember, just like with your garden hose or shop compressor, "boost" is not mass air flow. Boost without air flow creates surge)

Surge is most easily found (and heard) when a downstream throttle is slammed shut while the compressor is at speed. Surge sounds like chirping out of the compressor. Blow-off and recirculating valves are often used to combat this form of surge.

Using a turbo that is too large can also produce surge when the boost threshold is lower than an engine's abiliy to induct the compressed charge.

The simple rule is that for your turbo to live, you've got to "let it eat" by avoiding surge.

READING TURBO COMPRESSOR MAPS, PART I

2011-04-23T05:17:00.000-07:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (adapted from the legendary Car Craft turbo blog)

"Somewhere there is a map of how it can be done."

-- Ben Stein

Turbo manufacturers create compressor and turbine maps to summarize the air flow and density characteristics of turbochargers. Sadly, these maps are often withheld from grassroots Car Crafters (especially turbine maps).

But when you can find them, these maps are invaluable guides in turbo selection . . . if you know how to read them.

The next few [articles]are going to be about reading turbo maps.

To make these tips more relevant to our discussion of turbocharging a big-cube V8, here's a turbo compressor map for an old Garrett T66 (a pair of these would support well over 1,000 h.p.).

The first thing to notice is the left vertical axis of the map. Pressure ratio is simply the relationship between compressor discharge pressure to atmospheric pressure.

However, it is NOT a direct measure of how dense the compressed charge is because of charge heating during compression and atmospheric conditions outside of the turbo. (If it were, we wouldn't need the map!)

1.00 is basically no compression (compressor discharge pressure = ambient (outside) pressure)

2.00 means the discharge pressure is twice as much as ambient pressure.

3.00 means the discharge pressure is three times as much as ambient pressure.

A PROBLEM WITH JUNKYARD TURBOS

2011-03-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (adapted from the legendary Car Craft turbo blog)

"Don't send a child to do a man's job!" -- old Southern proverb

Someday turbos such as the tiny units used on the current Ford EcoBoost V6 engines will become widely available at the junkyard. And like an earler generation lured by JY T2s, T3s and T28s, some budget Car Crafters will undoubtedly buy the current generation of small JY turbos to use on big V8s with hopes of of dirt-cheap boost.

Years ago, more than a few Car Crafters grabbed up another small turbo, the once-ubiquitous Garrett AiResearch T3, and slapped pairs of them on all sorts of V8s, including Ford's 460.

Did it work?

It depends on what you wanted. If the goal is maximum pump gas power, the answer was no. Here's why:

Here's a turbo compressor map for one of the larger T3 variants. Note that the bottom axis is in lbs/min. of mass air flow. The highest flow mapped is ~ 35 lbs/min. Although the turbo doesn't stop flowing beyond that, the efficiency level becomes unacceptable (excessive air heating, potential overspeeding, and choking of the engine)

Recalling the general rule of thumb that one pound of mass air flow will support 9-10 horsepower, it should be abundantly clear -- even if you've got no idea how to read a turbo compresor map -- that a pair of these smallish turbos would be hard pressed to feed a 460 above 4,500 r.p.m. (If it's not, then stay tuned!)

Two of these turbos working together would struggle to supply enough "boost" at any pressure ratio for 630-700 h.p. And that's exactly what the Car Crafters who have tried to use pairs of JY T3s on 460s discovered.(See e.g. Trevor Cornwell's twin-turbo 460 Ford Fairmont)

And even that level would be adversely affected by excessive charge heating due to compressor inefficiency. Best efficiency would be at around a mere 200 to 225 h.p. per turbo -- a level that an "all motor" 460 should be able to easily achive on its own.

CONVERTING CFM TO MASS AIR, PART II

2011-03-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (From the legendary Car Craft big-cube turbo thread)

STP isn't very "real world."

Standard temperature and Pressure (STP) provides a means to account for the fact that air density and air volume are not linked.

STP - commonly used in the Imperial and USA system of units - as air at 60 [degrees]F (520 [degrees]R) and 14.696 pounds per square inch absolute (psia) (15.6oC, 1 atm) See, Engineering Toolbox.

Of course, engines in the real world seldom if ever operate at STP. Underhood temperatures, heat radiation, convection, and conduction, humidity and altitude variations help all assure that. That's one of the reasons why the SAE and others have developed more realistic standard references for automotive use.

Recall that we learned turbo manufacturers use 85 degrees F as "standard" (A. Graham Bell).

Is there really much difference between the various methods of converting CFM to lbs/min? Let's compare them:

Assume we're trying to convert 500 CFM to lbs/hr:

Warner method: divide 500 CFM by 13.7 = 36.49 lbs/hr

A. Graham Bell method: multiply 500 CFM by 0.07 = 35 lbs/hr

Miller method: multiply 500 CFM by 0.069 = 34.5 lbs/hr

STP method: multiply 500 CFM by 0.076 = 38 lbs/hr

Note that Jeff Hartman in Turbocharging Performance Handbook (2007) also uses the STP method.

Although the spread among the various methods is not that large, it appears that Miller and A. Graham Bell's conversion factors produce the most conservative results. Moreover, because they track with turbocharger industry standard practice, we'll use the 0.07 conversion factor.

But don't forget that these all of these factors are based on picking a somewhat arbitrary air temperature and pressure as a measuring point. Actual results may vary.

CONVERTING CFM TO MASS AIR (PART I)

2011-03-01T11:10:00.000-08:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (From the legendary Car Craft big-cube turbo thread)

"Sometimes things aren't as simple as they first seem."

The problem with converting CFM to lbs/min. is that the density of air varies with changes in altitude, temperature and even moisture content.

That's causes some to just ignore the whole thing. For example, Corky Bell (Maximum Boost) avoids the whole thing during turbo selection by using the "semi-incorrect term 'CFM.'" (Pg. 27).

Mark Warner suggests that to convert CFM to lbs/min, you should divide CFM by 13.7, but points out that the conversion assumes 85 degree (F) inlet temps. (Street Turbocharging, pg. 35)

A. Graham Bell in Forced Induction Performance Tuning (2002) explains that "Most compressor maps are corrected for 85 [degrees] F/28.4 in Hg or 20 [degrees] C/98 lmB air conditions; so to convert from CFM to lbs/min, multiply by 0.07." (pg. 90)

Jay Miller concurs, stating that multiplying CFM by .069 at "standard density" yields lbs/min. (Turbo: Real World High-Performance Turbocharger Systems, pg. 40)

But other sources claim that you should multiply CFM by .076 at Standard Temperature and Pressure. (STP)

Next: What is STP and which conversion method is best?

ADVANTAGES OF TURBOCHARGING

2011-02-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC

Car Crafters often ask why turbocharge instead of building a bigger engine or using nitrous oxide as a "power adder."

Here are some of the advantages of using a turbo over "all motor"

1. "Area under the curve"-- A proper turbo engine can have a huge advantage in midrange and top end torque compared to a naturally aspirated engine.

For example, Here's the torque curve for a Dodge Viper 8.4 liter engine:

RPM Torque
3600 500 lbs/ft
4000 530
4400 545
4800 560
5200 560
5600 550
6000 525

Here's a torque curve for a turbocharged 4.6 liter Ford tested by Richard Holdener at 14 psi:

RPM Torque
3600 490 lbs/ft
4000 615
4400 720
4800 730
5200 755
5600 740
6000 705
6500 670

Here's the torque curve for a Gale Banks turbocharged 6.0 liter SBC on 91 octane at 8-12 psi:

RPM Torque
3800 590 lbs/ft
4400 605
4800 650
5200 650
5600 675
6000 650
6500 625

2. Fuel economy -- a smaller turbo engine with the same peak power as a radical big block is obviously a smaller engine when its off-boost. In cruise conditions, the turbo mill can yield 3-5 m.p.g. better fuel economy, or even better.

At $3.00+ per gallon, that can add up fast on a daily driver. For example, let's say you wanted to run the Hot Rod Power Tour at a round trip of 2,500 miles. With a 11 m.p.g. big block, it would cost $682 at $3.00/gallon. But with an 18 m.p.g. turbo engine, it would only cost $417. And a 22 m.p.g. turbo mill would run the trip for a paltry $340.

3. Drivability -- a 750 lbs/ft "all motor" engine is going to require a fairly big cam, carb and head combo. That usually means a rough idle and fairly crude low-speed manners. A loose torque converter and steep gears are generally necessary to keep the engine in its narrow powerband.

A 750 lbs/ft turbo engine can run a mild cam with a near-stock idle. Off-boost it can be so docile that you could let your grandma drive it. Turbos tend to work well with tighter torque converters and highway gearing.

4. Greater use of stock parts -- big "all motor" power typically requires high r.p.m. That means thousands for valvetrain and induction parts that can stand the revs. The lifespan of these parts is often much less in street driving than stock components.

The same power from a turbo mill can be achieved with mostly stock valvetrain parts. Reliability is measureably increased. Moreover, because high r.p.m, isn't necessary, the rest of the engine can use more stock parts.

For example, the April 2011 issue of Hot Rod magazine features the turbo build of a 150,000 mile GMC Denali engine (5.3-liter 5.3 LM7 engine). With nothing more than a mild LS6 camshaft (203.8/ 212.1 duration; .523/.522 lift; 115.9-degree Lobe Separation Angle) and a cheap Chinese turbo, the engine reportedly produced a massive 594 horsepower and 585 lbs/ft of torque.

5. Power density -- A turbo engine can be smaller and lighter than a big block of similar peak output. That can mean better weight distribution and more power-per-pound of engine.

6. A turbo engine can actually be cheaper to build -- Unless you're building a stock-based combo, building a big block can be expensive nowadays. It's not uncommon for an 800+ h.p. "all motor" big block to cost in excess of $15,000. The same level of power with a turbo engine often costs a fraction of that.

Now for nitrous

7. More tractable than nitrous oxide -- Most nitrous systems are on/off. A sudden 100-300 h.p. can be hard to manage. Even an expensive multi-stage nitrous system can have harsh transitions. Turbo engines can be more tractable because they can be modulated with the accelerator and boost controllers.

8. No bottle to run out-- A nitrous rule of thumb is 1 lb for 10 seconds = 100 h.p. A "200 shot" burns through 15 lbs of N20 in about 75 seconds. That can get expensive in a hurry.

75 seconds of turbo power doesn't really cost anything more than the fuel burned. And the turbo is still there for another 75 seconds . . . and another . . . and another . . . .

9. No nitrous backfires or other accidents -- Many heavy squeezers have stories to tell about intake manifold explosions, fireballs, clogged jets, melted pistons and other horrors of living on the edge with spray. A dialed-in turbo system simply doesn't have the same level of "drama." Many serious turbo racers report much longer engine service intervals than with N20.

10. Nitrous on the street is illegal in 38 states. And nitrous is banned in many forms of competition (drag racing is one of the few places where N20 is legal). There are a lot more places where you can run a turbo.

11. Less "prep" before a pass is needed with a turbo -- Turbos require no "purging" and no bottle heating. They're always ready for immediate action.

12. Easier to adjust for track conditions -- Dialing back a nitrous system for a "loose" track can be time-consuming (especually if it's a staged system). Dialing back a turbo system usually only takes a couple of seconds.

13. You can still have fun without race gas in the tank -- A big-power nitrous 'plant will require race gas to keep detonation at bay. On pump gas you've either got to change the jets or keep off the bottle.

But you can still make decent power with most turbo systems even when there's no race gas in the tank.

FIRST PRINCIPLES: AIR VOLUME IS RELATIVE

2011-02-22T06:27:00.000-08:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (From the legendary Car Craft Turbo Thread)

Most Car Crafters are more familiar with CFM [Cubic Feet Per Minute) than they are with measuring air in pounds/minute. After all, the time-honored measure for engine size is cubic inch displacement. And a cubic foot of air is 12 x 12 x 12 = 1,728 cubic inches. That's easy to understand.

Many of us have also read that it takes roughly 1.67 CFM for every horsepower on gasoline and ~ 1.47 CFM per pony on alcohol fuel. And some flow bench companies publish CFM charts such as this:

Flow**      Horsepower potential (V8 engine)

100 CFM   205.7 h.p.
150 CFM   308.6 h.p.
200 CFM   414.4 h.p.
250 CFM   514.3 h.p.
300 CFM   617.1 h.p.
350 CFM   720.0 h.p.
400 CFM   822.8 h.p.
450 CFM   925.7 h.p.
500 CFM   1028.6 h.p.

**cylinder head port measured at 28"

So why do we even need to think about air in lbs/min?

Because volume of air is relative. For example, a cubic foot of air at sea level has a lot more mass than a cubic foot of air in Denver, Colorado. And a cubic foot of air at 30" hg has more mass than a cubic foot of air at 14" hg.

NEXT: Converting volume to mass.

HOW MANY POUNDS OF AIR DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE ONE HORSEPOWER?

2011-02-17T06:53:00.000-08:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (From the legendary Car Craft turbo blog)

“He lives most life whoever breathes most air.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The concept is simple: your engine has to take in enough air in order to burn enough fuel to reach your horsepower goal. But for many Car Crafters, the “experts” all seem to be speaking different languages.

At times, it all sounds like an alphabet soup. The tuning experts talk of “AFR” (air/fuel ratio). Then the carburetor and cylinder head guys talk of “CFM” (cubic feet per minute). Yet most of us measure fuel in gallons or liters, not CFM. And the CFM recommendations seem wildly inconsistent. (i.e. “You’ll need a 650 CFM carb and some 200 cfm heads . . . .”) Making it worse, the supercharger and turbo folks talk about “pounds of boost” or other arcane measurements.

Many Car Crafters just throw up their hands and copy what the next guy is doing. And sadly, too many never really understand why what they’re copying works or doesn’t work.

Turbo Car Crafters, however, don’t usually have anyone to copy. So to be successful, we’ve got to understand how to compare and measure air and fuel.

We’ll start with some of “rules of thumb” of power production. They’re not a substitute for working a PLAN in detail, but they’ll get us “in the ballpark” and hopefully give us a basis to understand what the “experts” are talking about.

According to the turbocharger engineers at Garrett, it takes one pound of air per minute to make nine horsepower (See, Julian Edgar, 21st Century Performance, at pg. 161).

Turbo expert Jay K. Miller (Turbo: Real World High-Performance Turbocharger Systems) makes the estimates a little simpler by suggesting that it takes one pound of air mass for every ten horsepower. (Miller at pg. 40).

Engineer Mark Warner also uses the easier 1:10 rule of thumb, stating that once you know the mass flow rate into an engine, you can multiply it by 10 to get a horsepower estimate. (Warner, Street Turbocharging at pg. 29)

Others suggest that at the torque peak, each pound of air will support about 9.5 h.p. and at the horsepower peak each pound of air supports about 10.5 h.p. The popular 1:10 “rule” seems to split the difference.

In actual practice, each of these “rules of thumb” will be varied by many factors. But the basic concept of combining a “mass” of air with a smaller “mass” of fuel remains fundamental.

PLAN FOR TOP SPEED

2011-02-14T10:08:00.000-08:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (from the legendary Car Craft turbo thread)**

"Above 50 m.p.h., air is your biggest opponent."

A few Car Crafters don't "live their lives a quarter-mile at a time."

Their speed dreams are just getting started at the end of the 1320. Bonneville, Maxton, and the Texas Mile are places that matter to them. The calculations and assumptions for a street/strip vehicle aren't enough for top-enders. Developing a PLAN for pure top-end speed in a street car is a little more involved.

As anyone who has ever stuck their arm out the window at speed can testify, air becomes a powerful force once velocity increases. Air, in fact, becomes the main resistance to top speed.

Making this an even harder challenge is the "dirty" aerodynamics of our favorite "muscle cars." With a few exceptions, Detroit paid little attention to aerodynamic efficiency before the end of the 1970s. So some of our project cars have coefficients of drag (Cd) of .45 or worse.

Aerodynamics can be a complicated, math-intensive subject. Serious analysis typically requires expensive wind tunnels and computational fluid dynamics software. That's not grassroots Car Crafter stuff.

But back in 1984, the Chevrolet Power Service Manual (5th ed.) attempted to "dumb it down" for Car Crafters building full-bodied muscle cars. Using Chevy's modestly complex set of formulas (reportedly derived from GM wind tunnel research), we can estimate the power required to punch a boxy muscle car through the air at more than 200 m.p.h. If we assume a "dirty" .5 Cd and a frontal area of 24 square feet, 232 m.p.h. would require a masssive 1203 horsepower! Knocking back the target velocity to 200 m.p.h. still requires in excess of 800 h.p.

Of course as generations of "land speed" racers will tell you, using a smaller, more aerodynamic body can dramatically reduce the power requirements. But if you're interested in pushing a blocky, stock-appearing muscle car over 200, you're going to need to PLAN for some serious, sustained horsepower.

**Reposted with permission of the author.

APPLICATION OF POWER-TO-WEIGHT THEORY

2011-02-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (from the legendary Car Craft turbo thread**)

"If you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else."

Let's say our project car is a typical V8 compact or intermediate that weighs ~3,200 lbs. Add in the following:

120 lbs. for a tank of fuel (Gasoline 6.2 lbs./gal.)
200 lbs. for extra safety equipment required by track rules
200 lbs. for "Driving ballast" (you)
50 lbs. for the various jetsam that accumulates in a real street car (tools, maps, lawn chairs, etc.) or maybe some actual ballast to improve weight distribution.

Now the car's tipping the scales at nearly 3,800 lbs. Now let's say that you've figured out that to humiliate some arrogant jerk in a Viper ACR or a Corvette ZR1 that you need at least 140 m.p.h. in the quarter mile to be safe.

Recall that 140 m.p.h. requires a minimum of one horsepower for every 4.67 lbs. So 3,800 divided by 4.67 = 814 h.p. Factor in an extra 15% "reserve" and the horsepower target is 936 h.p. Note that this assumes that the car goes through the timing traps at the horsepower peak. If it doesn't, you'll need a higher peak to make sure that the car is making the minimum required power at the point on the torque curve that the car's gearing causes it to reach the timing traps.

If we up the target to 150 m.p.h. (3.79 lbs per pony), then we need a minimum of 1003 h.p. Add in the 15% "fudge factor" and the PLAN target is 1153 h.p. It should be clear now that quarter mile speeds over 120 m.p.h. in a typical heavy street machine are going to require in excess of 500 h.p.

And the power requirement escalates dramatically as speeds inch upward (i.e. raising the trap target from 140 to 150 requires around 200 more h.p. in our example).

FIRST PRINCIPLES: FORCE EQUALS MASS TIMES ACCELERATION

2011-02-11T11:01:00.000-08:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (from the legendary Car Craft turbo thread**)

"Force Equals Mass Times Acceleration (F=MxA)"

The first step in developing a PLAN for where you want to end up is determining how much power you're going to need to get there. For most Car Crafters, the "holy grail" of high-performance is power-to-weight ratio. It's the most fundamental relationship.

And for an overwhelming number of Car Crafters. power-to-weight is best benchmarked by standing-start acceleration over a quarter mile. Decades ago, Chrysler engineers worked out the math for how much power it takes to hit a target trap speed in a production-based vehicle at the end of a quarter mile.

Based on their formula:

M.P.H. Lbs Per Horsepower
100 m.p.h 12.82 lbs/hp
110 m.p.h 9.61 lbs/hp
120 m.p.h. 7.40 lbs/hp
130 m.p.h. 5.38 lbs/hp
140 m.p.h. 4.67 lbs/hp
150 m.p.h. 3.79 lbs/hp

Now to avoid disappointment and account for differences in measuring horsepower, mechanical efficiencies, and other factors, I'd add in 10-15 percent more horsepower, just to be safe.

Notice that these results don't mention engine size or overall weight. A big, heavy car with ~ 5 lbs/h.p. should have roughly the same trap speed as a small, light car with ~ 5 lbs/h.p. (excluding aerodynamic effects). It just takes more "engine" (and budget) to make a heavy car as fast as a light one.

The results don't mention [elapsed time] (E.T.) because "quickness" tends to be influenced by more factors than effective h.p. More often than not, E.T. is a measure of how effective a car is at relatively low speeds in the first third of the quarter mile. But unless you're doing something really wrong (i.e. running FWD, horrible weight distribution, "no traction" tires, "peg-leg" differential . . . .) you should be able to obtain at least the following under proper conditions on the street:

Lbs/Hp E.T. Zone

12.82 14s

9.61 13s

7.40 12s

5.38 11s

4.67 10s

Obviously, a well-sorted drag-oriented supsension and better tires will produce quicker E.T.s, but for conservative PLAN purposes, these numbers will get you "in the ballpark" on how much power to build for.

**Reposted with permission of the author.

LIMITATIONS ON HOME-BUILT TURBO PROJECTS, PART III

2011-02-11T10:56:00.000-08:00

“Genius has limitations, stupidity is boundless” – Anonymous
By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (from the legendary Car Craft turbo thread**)
LIMITATIONS (Part 3)

7. “The Man” – Car Crafters in many states have to watch out for the long-arm of the law. In fact, CC’s failure to do a big-cube turbo project is probably in part because CARB hates retrofit turbocharging. And even in the states where there’s still a little liberty left, Car Crafters face restrictions on noise, how much engine can be hanging out, and other legal limits.

8. Sanctioning body rules – If you’re going to run in any organized competition, then sanctioning body rules are going to be a limitation. For turbo Car Crafters, it may mean limiting the number of “power adders” and adding extra safety equipment. It probably will require adherence to specifications on fuel, fuel additives, cooling strategies, wiring, and plumbing.

9. Reliability and maintenance – This one is the fusion of time, money, parts quality, and practicality. At least until recently, Austin Coil could rebuild John Force’s AA/FC after every quarter mile pass. But most turbo Car Crafters expect their creations to last for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of miles. And while some elevated maintenance may be tolerable, constant fussing and repairs get old fast. So the PLAN for a realistic street/strip turbo car has to take into account reliability and reasonable service intervals.

If you don’t know your limitations going in – or ignore them – then the outcomes of your turbo build will be waste and frustration, if not expensive disaster.

**Reposted with permission of the author.

LIMITATIONS ON HOME-BUILT TURBO PROJECTS, PART II

2011-02-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

By 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (from the legendary Car Craft turbo thread**)

"The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.” – Goethe

4. Fuel quality – The trickest engine in the World is useless if you can’t obtain or afford its fuel. The most obvious limit on the amount of power you can jam out of a street/strip engine is going to be fuel quality. A few lucky Car Crafters have access to E85. An even smaller number will put up with the hassle of using racing fuel. But everywhere else, practical street/strip cars have to burn weak pump gasoline most of the time.

5. Parts quality – It does little good to PLAN a 1000 h.p. turbo engine if you’re using a production block and reciprocating assembly that self-destructs at ~ 600 h.p. So we’ve got to be realistic about how much abuse we can expect the parts we’re forced to work with will absorb.

6. Loyalty and style – Most turbo Car Crafters are going to build a make and model of car that appeals to them for reasons other than pure objective performance. That usually means the turbo project car is going to be heavier, less aerodynamic, and less weight-balanced than optimum.

And our powerplant choices are also often made based on personal history, brand loyalty, or whatever we’ve already got. They’re not usually based on what is the best engine design available to meet our chosen performance parameters. But a great thing about turbocharging is that it can be a huge equalizer for those committed to “obsolete” engine designs.

Moreover, many of the choices we make in crafting a project car are for reasons other than hitting a performance target. As David Freiburger once observed, this sport involves a big fashion component. It also nurtures some fairly strong traditions and peer pressure. Thus, one of our limits will be our self-imposed sense of what looks and feels “right” without regard to objective performance.

The GN/Type-T Regal is a perfect example of a turbo project car that is often picked for reasons other than optimum performance potential. Objectively, they're boxy. They're relatively heavy. They have poor weight distribution. They're saddled with an obsolete two-bolt main six and a cast crank. The cylinder heads are fairly restrictive. The factory turbo system was hardly optimized. And in stock form, they're down about 80 h.p. or more to many modern DOHC V6s.

So from a purely objective assessment of performance potential, there are plenty of better choices for a turbo project car. But over the past 25 years, Turbo Buick Car Crafters have often built these cars to be brutally fast and quick! And we're all glad that they have! The point here is that if you're carrying a torch for something that's off-beat or that has less than optimal hop-up potential, you should be honest about it going in and adjust your PLAN, budget, and performance goals accordingly.

**Reposted with permission of the author.

2011-02-10T07:08:00.000-08:00

LIMITATIONS TO BIG-CUBE HOMEBUILT TURBO PROJECTS, PART I

BY 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (from the legendary Car Craft Big-Cube Turbo Thread)

A man’s got to know his limitations.” – Harry Callahan, “Magnum Force” (1973).

The Jetfire V8 and recent Indy V8s can only provide limited guideposts for Car Crafters on turbocharging.

The comparison of these engines does show that success in turbocharging (huge torque & massive horsepower) depends on more than just sticking on any old turbo laying around.

But neither the Jetfire nor the Indy V8 would be good street/strip mills. Back in the early ‘60s, Oldsmobile dealers were often busy replacing blown head gaskets or removing Jetfire turbo systems and replacing them with four-barrel carbs. Bore corrosion was epidemic. So the Jetfire stands as a cautionary tale of what not to do.

And an Indy V8 on the street would produce horrible fuel mileage and unsatisfactory power below 5,000 r.p.m., even if you could afford the huge “buy-in,” packaging, and servicing costs. So Indy engines merely suggest general areas for improvement of street/strip turbo powerplants.

Thus, a practical PLAN for turbocharging a OEM production street/strip engine means building within the walls of a vastly different “box” of needs and performance expectations.

But before we identify our performance parameters and goals, we’ve got to take stock of the outer limits. We’ve got to know our limitations.

These limitations should be regularly consulted as we PLAN and build. They are a “reality check” on our turbocharged enthusiasm and creativity.

LIMITATIONS (Part 1):

1. Money – The big limit is always going to be money. While it’s not the same sum for every Car Crafter, everyone has a maximum budget. The only way a home turbo project becomes feasible for most Car Crafters is by avoiding the expense of custom-built parts and costly “experts” whenever possible. Thus, turbo Car Crafters are mostly stuck with mass-produced OEM and aftermarket parts and self-help labor. What is cheap and readily available often trumps what would be best.

2. Time – A close cousin to money is time. Most street/strip turbo Car Crafters are not engineers. Most are not professional fabricators. Most cannot spend every waking hour ironing out build problems or contemplating turbo tuning theory. So something that’s quick, relatively simple, and easy-to-build is almost always better than something so time-consumingly “perfect” that’s never completed.

3. Practicality – If it’s not practical, we won’t drive it very much. It’s that simple. A street/strip machine that guzzles race gas, or idles at 1500 r.p.m., or won’t start when it’s cold, or has to stop for refueling every 75 miles, or takes three hands and three feet to operate, or hides small children behind its giant hood scoop won’t stay attractive for long in the “real world, ” regardless of how “wicked” and “gnarly” it is in our imagination.

2011-02-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

PLAN back from where you want to end up.

BY 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (from the legendary Car Craft Big-Cube Turbo Thread)

To some Car Crafters it's self-evident why turbocharged Indy V8s "processed" more than four times more air mass than the 1960s Oldsmobile Jetfire V8. Others may just throw up their hands and mutter something about "racing engine" and "unobtainium."

But we can learn important things about planning PLAN from the Indy V8s.

While the Indy V8 engineers may have had huge budgets and the liberty to design purpose-parts (something most Car Crafters will never have), they were forced to design in a fairly restrictive rules box.

THE GOOD: The "N Factor" (number of combustion events per minute) of PLAN was rules-limited to eight cylinders and 12,000 r.p.m (although development had once taken r.p.m. levels as high as 15,000). That's 48,000 cylinder firings per minute at redline. That sounds like a lot until you realize the cubic-inch displacement factors (L & A) were limited to 2,650 cubic centimetres (161.7 cu in; 2.65 liters) That means each cylinder was only a little over 20 cubic inches.

The engines needed to last only 700 miles or less between major rebuilds. The designers were free to use many premium materials, dual overhead camshafts, multiple valves per cylinder, multi-point fuel injection and other strategies to optimize high r.p.m. power.

Fuel was detonation resistant methanol. Thus Factors A (area) and L (stroke length) were not as dependant on avoiding detonation (more on this later). And relatively high compression could be employed to extract more work from the "working fluid" (fuel + air).

THE BAD: The Indy V8s were limited to one turbocharger and very low intake manifold pressure. They could not use charge cooling (although it was hardly necessary considering the cooling effect of alcohol fuel and the low "boost" levels).

They needed to be responsive over a moderately wide r.p.m. range. They also needed to be a structural member of the chassis. But weight and packaging were restricted by chassis aerodynamics and handling considerations.

Fuel consumption and on-board capacity were both limited (limiting the amount of fuel enrichment for in-cylinder cooling). The engines needed to produce enough power to overcome extremely high-drag bodies at speeds of more than 230 m.p.h. and to accelerate 1500-1600 lbs from 35-150 m.p.h. harder than most doorslammers several times per lap on road courses.

So how did they make it work?

Mostly by concentrating on maximizing Factors P & N within the limits of the rules.

Optimizing Factor P (cylinder pressure) on low "boost" required all of the standard "all motor" hop-up techniques: Generous breathing, optimized by oversized bores (Factor A), large valve curtain area (the total amount of valve opening), large straight ports, pressure-wave tuned intakes manifolds and exhaust headers. They also increased efficiency through high compression and lowered crankcase backpressure by dry-sump scavenging (less air resistance to the power strokes from the back of the pistons).

The aerodynamics, bearings, and rotating assemblies of indy car turbochargers were also optimized for efficiency and improved responsiveness(more Factor P quicker, at lower r.p.m., and with less charge heating) Even the intake air bell was aerodynamically engineered to swirl the air into the turbocharger compressor to improve its efficiency.

To maximize Factor N, they built everything to withstand and enable sustained high r.p.m. They moved the torque peak closer to the rev limit. Stroke length (Factor L) was reduced to serve the needs of Factors N and P (bigger bores allow for more valve curtain area; shorter strokes reduce loading on the reciprocating assembly) They also helped get more of the work accomplished by Factors P & N through to the wheels by targeted reductions in rotating mass and reduced oil windage.

It should be clear that the success of the turbocharged Indy V8s didn't occur from just slapping a turbo on the engine and calling it good. The engineers instead focused on where they wanted to end up and the restrictions placed on getting there. Then they adjusted the PLAN factors to achieve their targeted results.

2011-02-10T06:55:00.000-08:00

Fail to PLAN, plan to fail.

BY 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (from the legendary Car Craft Big-Cube Turbo Thread)

Corky Bell's celebrated turbo book Maximum Boost: Designing, Testing, and Installing Turbocharger Systems introduces readers to the acronym PLAN to explain power production:

P -- Pressure (as in cylinder pressure)

L -- Length (as in stroke length)

A -- Area (as in bore area)

N -- Number (as in number of combustion events per minute)

Bell uses PLAN to show why turbocharging is more practical and cost-effective than most other forms of Car Crafting at boosting the output of production engines.

PLAN is also useful to explain yesterday's low boost comparison. The Indy V8's greater ability to consume air (and thereby extract power from fuel) is the result of optimizing PLAN within restrictive rules. The Jetfire's weak numbers are mostly from ignoring PLAN.

First, let's look at the Jetfire:

The Jetfire V8 used an early, less-efficient, smallish turbo compressor drawing through a restrictive gasoline carburetor. It forced the hot supercharged air-fuel mix into a constrictive cast iron intake through small ports regulated by a mild camshaft.

Although the Jetfire's static compression was in excess of 10:1 (which in many driving conditions jacked up peak cylinder pressure beyond the detonation threshold), it exhausted the waste gasses into simple log manifolds that joined together before a single scroll turbine section. The turbine exhausted into a small, restrictive exhaust and muffler system. Maximum effective RPM was less than 5,000.

In terms of PLAN, average cylinder pressure (Factor P) was held down by inefficient induction. It was artificially spiked by high compression, but that did not increase the amount of "working fluid" (air and fuel) available for combustion and ultimately led to less available power than an equivalent peak cylinder pressure produced by other means. Heat and kinetic energy use was not optimized.

The number of compbustion events per minute (Factor N) was also limited by induction design, cam timing, valve size, port size, short-block design, materials and exhaust design. (Pumping up Factor N is usually the most expensive way to increase power because it requires either adding more cylinders or increasing R.P.M.)

Thus, although the Jetfire has a small advantage in displacement (Factors A & L) over the turbo Indy V8, it is far outweighed by other factors limiting mass air flow.

As Bell points out at some length, Factors A & L are generally hard to change and require huge increases to yield big results. Spending $2,500+ on boring and stroking most engines will typically produce only a faction of the power of the same investment in a turbo system.

On the other hand, starting with a big-cube V8 can reduce the need to hike the P and N factors to budget-crushing levels to obtain tire-melting power!

2011-02-04T16:55:00.000-08:00

WHAT IS "BOOST"

BY 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC (from the legendary Car Craft Big-Cube Turbo Thread)

"Boost" can be oversimplified as resistance to air flow. Every tire on your car probably has 30+ pounds per square inch of pressure, but (hopefully) no air flow. Your shop compressor often has more than 100 psi, but at air flow volumes that are minuscule to the demands of even a low-performance automobile engine.

When we read "boost" from a tap in the intake manifold of an engine, what we're mostly reading is resistance to air flow between the compressor impeller and the cylinders. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing. Resistance to flow between the compressor impeller and the compressor housing is part of how any centrifugal compressor increases air density.

But it should be apparent that a high "boost" level doesn't necessarily mean high mass air flow into the engine. 14 psi of non-chargecooled "boost" through a Stromberg 97 on an asthmatic flathead V8 isn't going to result in as much mass air flow as 14 psi of cooled "boost" through a modern EcoBoost V6.

In other words "boost" is relative.

A great example of this is comparing the ancient Oldsmobile Jetfire V8 to the last of the turbocharged Indy V8s. Both were non-charge cooled, single turbo engines. Both engines ran less than 6 psi of turbo "boost." The Indy V8 was rules-limited to a mere 161.7 cubic inch displacement. The Oldsmobile Jetfire displaced 215 cubic inches. Yet the mass of air consumed by a turbo Indy V8 was roughly four times more than the Jetfire Olds. And it was at a lower peak boost level to boot! (4.91 psi initially and reduced to 1.96 psi by the end of the Indy turbo V8 era).

So the lesson here is that turbo Car Crafters should be focusing mass air flow instead of "boost." "Boost" is good for bragging, but it's mass air flow that wins races.Forget the old saw "there's no substitute for cubic inches." The truth is that there's no substitute for mass air flow.**

(**Okay the nitrous oxide fans may carp at this last point, but N20 injection is merely substituting part of the ordinary air mass for a higher quality (more oxygen-rich) gas supplied under high pressure. So it is is in essence a form of increasing mass flow)

2011-02-04T16:45:00.001-08:00

PREPARE FOR THE RELAUNCH!
Hydra and Cammie are gone. And there's a "new sheriff in town . . . ."

2010-11-22T07:26:00.000-08:00

FLOP GEAR: LEADEN AMERICAN "TOP GEAR" PREMIERS

Special Report by the "HDTV Stig"

After a half decade of failure and months of hype, the Americanized version of "Top Gear" finally premiered last night on the History Channel.

On a cramped set with a studio audience of advertiser-coveted 24-35 year-olds (apparently automatons borrowed from a nearby infomercial) Adam Ferrara, Tanner Foust and Rutledge Wood slouched into a pale "Yank" imitation of the legendary BBC motoring program.

Great television it wasn’t.

If Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May are motordom’s version of The Beatles, then Ferrara, Foust, and Wood are the garage band down the block covering The Monkeys. They were as flat and fake as Coy and Vance Duke – the scab replacements for Bo and Luke on the "Dukes of Hazzard." They had the panache of Charles Rocket and the forgotten cast of Saturday Night Live’s disastrous 1980-81 season (the first season after the original "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" left en masse). They were as exciting and unpredictable as a "Car of Tomorrow" NASCAR race on a cookie cutter 1.5 mile oval.

It appears that "Top Gear" America fits in well with our history of bland, homogenized remakes and absolute fakery. The Ferrara, Foust and Wood interpretation of "Top Gear" had all the genuineness of Kevin Cosner playing Robin Hood. It seemed as "real" as the ersatz New York skyline on the strip in Las Vegas. It exuded the same hollow fakery as a strand of cubic zirconia adorning a empty-headed, siliconed bleach blond. It was as tacky and useless as the chintzy gold-tone badges on your nerdy neighbor’s Toyota Camry. It was as blandly pretentious as those old 1970s Ford Grenada commercials comparing the reboxed Falcon to a Mercedes Benz.

Jay Leno did himself a favor by skipping this abortion.

It wasn’t as if the BBC’s American cousins didn’t try. They used many of the "Top Gear" tropes and trademarks. The intro was a version of the Allman Brothers’ "Jessica." They drifted around and did lots of gratuitous smokey doughnuts in exotic cars (a Viper and a trio of Lamborghinis). They had occasions of over-exposed landscape photography and "art" screen shots. They had a ridiculous challenge that obviously disfavored the automobile (evading an attack helicopter around a generic Southern town). They even made use of airport test strips for the speed driving and the "Big Star in a Small Car" segment (Why they didn’t borrow the "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" title is a mystery probably rooted in not offending some hypersensitive advertiser). Even the wedding-day-white-clad Stig appeared incognito to wring out the exotics on power laps.

But the whole result came off as flat and tasteless as a day-old truckstop pancake. Ferrara, Foust and Wood had all the chemistry together of three blokes picked at random out of an unemployment queue five minutes before filming started.

Foust at times seemed to be shooting just another episode of "Supercars Exposed," although not quite as annoyingly obnoxious. About the only real difference was he swapped his advertising-clad fire suit for some scruffy "Abercombie and Fitch" rags. Foust seems like the import-tuner’s version of NASCAR’s five-time champion cypher Jimmy Johnson: technically proficient but just not very interesting.

Ferrara was underused and generally upstaged. Although one or two flashes of New York swagger accidentally seeped through, he bumbled through the episode without establishing much of any persona. Ferrara’s interview of Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin prior to his lap in a hideous Suzuki CUV seemed detached and listless at times – as if both men were just following a scriptto get the segment over with as soon as possible.

Wood’s annoyingly over-the-top "NASCAR on Speed" persona was dialed back to the point of making him mostly irrelevant and interminably bland. In the Viper segment, Wood was supposed to "navigate" Foust through the generic Southern town (apparently Rutledge’s home town). But he did nothing remotely entertaining or useful. He seemed to be in "prevent defense" mode – just trying not to screw up.

Ferrara, Foust and Wood do not have the gravitas to even be guests on the "real" "Top Gear," much less the collective ability to carry an Americanized version of it. They apparently do not have the inherent literary skills necessary to turn any memorable phrases. They provided us with only the most obvious of insights. They lack sufficient chemistry between themselves to make us care about what happens to their group. Unlike the "real" "Top Gear," I repeatedly checked the time to see when the show was going to be over.

Sarcasm, irony and playing against type were wholly absent.

"Top Gear" America came with such high hopes. Yet all they’ve accomplished so far is to "throw a lot of revs," dump the clutch, and stall the engine at the starting line. The
"Top Gear" franchise deserves so much more.

2010-11-16T14:45:00.000-08:00

HEY HEY, MY MY. NEIL YOUNG'S LINCVOLT IS A CRISPY FRY.

Rocker Neil Young's LincVolt in happier times.

By Cammie

Linc-Volt, Neil Young's electric hybrid 1959 Lincoln, has caused an extensive fire at Young's archival warehouse, according to news reports.

LincVolt rose to fame as an off-beat early entrant in the Progressive Automotive X Prize competition. Although it failed to win, many vintage car and green enthusiasts were stoked by the effort at blending 1950s style and size with futuristic hybrid electric power.

The famous car and much of Young's rock & roll memorabilia was damaged in the fire. I suspect this is one time when it's not "better to burn out than to be forgotten."

Hey Neil, don't let it bring you down . . . the damage is done.

I suspect a lot of hybrid car skeptics will "hope Neil Young will remember" a roddin' man don't need hybrid cars around any how." But some of us hope that LincVolt powers up again to be shockin' the Free World another day.

But for all those Willie Wiredhands who believe that Reddy Kilowatts are the future of motoring, this is a smokey lesson: "Hey, let's be careful out there!"

2010-11-11T08:21:00.001-08:00

GM IPO: WILL "GOVERNMENT MOTORS" BECOME THE "PEOPLES' REPUBLIC OF GM?"

By Cammie

Stock market wonks and bargain-hunting investors are anticipating the "initial public offering" for the new stock in "Government Motors" (nee General Motors). And according to one report, one of the most interested potential investors is another "government motors" outfit -- China's SAIC.

So now we've "saved" GM just so a cadre of "godless communists" can get their mitts on what's left. We're a long way from the days of "Better dead than Red!"

To be fair, GM and SAIC have been "fellow travelers" for a while now.

And undoubtedly every one of GM's revolving chain of recent bosses, from Rick Wagoner to "Dial Tone" Ed to boastful IPO wonk Dan Akerson, realizes that the Peoples' Republic of China is the growth market for the future, as well as America's main financier these days. (What was that quote about "capitalists selling the commies the rope they'll hang us with?" Apparently the capitalists will make that rope on "red" credit.)

So, the "Government Motors" bureaucrats likely see an equity tie-in with a Red Chinese government carmaker as a "win/win." And neither they, nor our CINC are going to miss a tee time worrying about any negative implications.

What a mess! Isn't globalization (a/k/a the looting of America) fun?

And it just keeps getting worse and worse. Autoextremist is reporting that Chip Ganassi has blown off Ford's courtship in favor of a deal with "Government Motors" that will include a GM-badged twin-turbo V6 for Indy Car racing.

Oh joy. The Indianapolis 500 is about to become a contest between Japanese and Sino-American carmakers, fought with the horrible noise of "buzzin' half-dozen" engines.

Oh for the days when the hallowed confines of the Brickyard reverberated with the sound of turbocharged Ford V8s! How the mighty have fallen!

At least Ford will have its utter domination of NASCAR (losing) to console itself.

2010-11-09T08:50:00.000-08:00

"GOVERNMENT MOTORS" FIRES MR. GOODWRENCH

By Cammie

After spending nearly thirty years and probably billions of dollars building the "Goodwrench" brand, "Government Motors" is giving Mr. Goodwrench a pink slip next February 1.

"Goodwrench" is going the way of Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer in order for G.M. to focus more on its four remaining (struggling) brands.

And they pay marketing geniuses big money to come up with stuff like this . . . . Perhaps it would be cheaper just to shovel the money directly into a big bonfire.

2010-11-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

VOTE TODAY! IT'S PAYBACK TIME FOR THE"CASH FOR CLUNKERS" FIASCO!

We saw this today at Car Craft.com, and we agree completely!

If you're not at the opening of the SEMA Show today, please remember to get out and VOTE!

Sure, Car Crafters tend not to be into politics. But the politicians elected today will be deciding our automotive future. They'll decide whether "cap and trade" and big hikes in Corporate Average Fuel Economy will doom our beloved V8s! They'll decide emissions laws, energy policy, highway funding and even laws that will make it harder to keep our race tracks open. Voting today is particularly important in the battleground states of California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Washington, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin, Indiana, Louisiana, New Hampshire and North Carolina.

But even if you don't live in a battleground state, your vote to protect our Automotive liberty and freedom to Car Craft is vital.

But who should you vote for? Vote Automotive!

Vote for the candidates who are most likely to oppose EPA/DOT/CARB power grabs. Vote for candidates who recognize personal liberty. Vote for candidates who opposed schemes like "Cash for Clunkers" -- an expensive mess destroyed hundreds of thousands of V8s that Car Crafters, restorers, and gearheads could have used (even after SEMA-SAN stopped the car haters from crushing pre-1984 classics).

The "Cash for Clunkers" vote is a good bellweather for whether or not a politician "gets" Automotive freedom or not. In case you forgot how your local politician voted, here's the list: THE 298 ENEMIES OF AUTOMOTIVE FREE MARKETS IN THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WHO VOTED FOR THE "CA$H FOR CLUNKER$" BAILOUT BILL ON JUNE 9, 2009: Abercrombie, Ackerman, Adler (NJ), Altmire, Andrews, Arcuri, Austria, Baca, Bachus, Baldwin, Barrow, Barton (TX), Bean, Becerra, Berkley, Berman, Berry, Bilbray, Bishop (GA), Bishop (NY), Blumenauer, Blunt, Boccieri, Boren, Boswell, Boucher, Brady (PA), Bright, Brown (Corrine), Brown-Waite(Ginny), Burton (IN), Butterfield, Buyer, Calvert, Camp, Campbell, Cao, Capito, Capps, Capuano, Cardoza, Carnahan, Carney, Carson (IN), Cassidy, Castle, Castor (FL), Chandler, Childers, Clarke, Clay, Cleaver, Clyburn, Coble, Cohen, Connolly (VA), Cooper, Costa, Costello, Courtney, Crowley, Cuellar, Cummings, Dahlkemper, Davis (AL), Davis (CA), Davis (IL), Davis (TN), DeFazio, DeGette, Delahunt, DeLauro, Diaz-Balart, L., Diaz-Balart, M., Dicks, Dingell, Donnelly (IN), Doyle, Dreier, Driehaus, Edwards (MD), Edwards (TX), Ehlers, Ellison, Ellsworth, Emerson, Engel, Eshoo, Etheridge, Farr, Fattah, Filner, Foster, Frank (MA), Frelinghuysen, Fudge, Gerlach, Gingrey (GA), Gordon (TN), Grayson, Green (Al), Green (Gene), Griffith, Grijalva, Guthrie, Gutierrez, Hall (NY), Hall (TX), Halvorson, Hare, Harman, Hastings (FL), Heinrich, Higgins, Hill, Himes, Hinchey, Hinojosa, Hirono, Hodes, Hoekstra, Holden, Holt, Honda, Hoyer, Inslee, Israel, Jackson (IL), Jackson-Lee (TX), Johnson (GA), Johnson (IL), Johnson (E. B.), Kagen, Kanjorski, Kaptur, Kildee, Kilpatrick (MI), Kilroy, Kind, King (IA), Kissell, Klein (FL), Kosmas, Kratovil, Kucinich, Lance, Langevin Larsen (WA), Larson (CT), Latham, LaTourette, Lee (CA), Lee (NY), Levin, Lipinski, LoBiondo, Lofgren (Zoe), Lowey, Luján, Lynch, Maffei, Maloney, Manzullo, Markey (CO), Markey (MA), Massa, Matheson, Matsui, McCarthy (NY), McCollum, McCotter, McDermott, McGovern, McHugh, McIntyre, McKeon, McMahon, McNerney, Meek (FL), Meeks (NY), Melancon, Michaud, Miller (MI), Miller (NC), Miller (Gary), Miller (George), Minnick, Mitchell, Mollohan, Moore (KS), Moore (WI), Moran (VA), Murphy (CT), Murphy (NY), Murphy (Patrick), Murphy, Tim, Murtha, Myrick, Nadler (NY), Napolitano, Neal (MA), Nye, Oberstar, Obey, Olver, Ortiz, Pallone, Pascrell, Pastor (AZ), Payne, Pelosi, Perlmutter, Perriello, Peters, Peterson, Petri, Pingree (ME), Pitts, Poe (TX), Pomeroy, Price (NC), Quigley, Rahall, Rangel, Reichert, Reyes, Richardson, Rodriguez, Roe (TN), Rogers (AL), Rogers (MI), Ros-Lehtinen, Ross, Rothman (NJ), Roybal-Allard, Rush, Ryan (OH), Salazar, Sanchez (Loretta), Sarbanes, Schakowsky, Schauer, Schiff, Schrader, Schwartz, Scott (GA), Scott (VA), Serrano, Sestak, Shea-Porter, Sherman, Shimkus, Shuler, Sires, Skelton, Slaughter, Smith (NJ), Smith (WA), Snyder, Souder, Space, Speier, Spratt, Stark, Stearns, Stupak, Sutton, Tanner, Tauscher, Teague, Terry, Thompson (CA), Thompson (MS), Tiberi, Tierney, Titus, Tonko, Towns, Tsongas, Turner, Upton, Van Hollen, Velázquez, Visclosky, Walden, Walz, Wasserman Schultz, Waters, Watson, Watt, Waxman, Weiner, Welch, Wexler, Wilson (OH), Woolsey, Wu, Yarmuth. THESE 298 FREE-SPENDING, POWER-MAD REPRESENTATIVES ARE ENEMIES OF GRASSROOTS MOTORSPORTS, AUTOMOTIVE LIBERTY, THE AUTOMOTIVE AFTERMARKET, AND THE COLLECTOR CAR HOBBY!

Remember, the entire HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES is up for election today(although a few unopposed representatives have already been reelected). If the name of your representative is on this infamous list, punish them today at the ballot box!

THE 60 ENEMIES OF AUTOMOTIVE FREE MARKETS IN THE U.S. SENATE WHO VOTED FOR THE "CA$H FOR CLUNKER$" BAILOUT BILL Akaka (D-HI), Baucus (D-MT), Bayh (D-IN), Begich (D-AK), Bennet (D-CO) Bingaman (D-NM), Bond (R-MO), Boxer (D-CA), Brown (D-OH), Burris (D-IL), Cantwell (D-WA), Cardin (D-MD), Carper (D-DE), Casey (D-PA), Cochran (R-MS), Collins (R-ME), Conrad (D-ND), Dodd (D-CT), Dorgan (D-ND), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Feinstein (D-CA), Gillibrand (D-NY), Hagan (D-NC), Harkin (D-IA), Inouye (D-HI), Johnson (D-SD), Kaufman (D-DE), Kerry (D-MA), Klobuchar (D-MN), Kohl (D-WI), Landrieu (D-LA), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Lieberman (ID-CT), Lincoln (D-AR), McCaskill (D-MO), Menendez (D-NJ), Merkley (D-OR), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Nelson (D-FL), Pryor (D-AR), Reed (D-RI), Reid (D-NV), Rockefeller (D-WV), Sanders (I-VT), Schumer (D-NY), Shaheen (D-NH), Specter (D-PA), Stabenow (D-MI), Tester (D-MT), Udall (D-CO), Udall (D-NM), Voinovich (R-OH), Warner (D-VA), Webb (D-VA), Whitehouse (D-RI), Wyden (D-OR). THESE 60 FREE-SPENDING, POWER-MAD SENATORS ARE ENEMIES OF GRASSROOTS MOTORSPORTS, AUTOMOTIVE LIBERTY, THE AUTOMOTIVE AFTERMARKET, AND THE COLLECTOR CAR HOBBY!

While many of these senators are not yet up for reelection and some have retired, there are several opportunities in battleground states (especially California, Nevada, Washington, Arkansas, and Ohio to send a message).

2010-10-26T13:03:00.001-07:00

FORD BOOKS BIG PROFIT . . . AND GETS "HOSED" AGAIN BY "CONSUMER DISTORTS"

By Cammie

The business world is a-buzz with Ford Motor Company's slam-bang third-quarter profit. Ford's profits are based on increased transaction prices, healthy new model launches and cost cutting.

"We’re not buying share at the bottom of the food chain,” George Pipas, Ford’s sales analyst, said in an interview. “People buying Fords today are generally more educated and affluent and they want and are willing to pay for nicer Fords.”

But Ford still has abysmal "blue state" market share in on the West Coast (10.8%) and the Northeast (10.4%). Fords market share is still terrible (but improving) among 18-24 year olds (12%) and 25-34 year olds (11%). Ford's bread and butter is in "real America" (the South, the heartland, the midwest and among consumers old enough to realize that buying American matters).

Part of Ford's problem remains a certain "Consumer" magazine that uses self-selected subscriber surveys and other controversial methods to "predict reliability" of new cars. Although Ford is now in the "top ten" among brands (and the only American nameplate in the bunch), the reader survey method still "hosed" Ford in favor of a host of Japanese nameplates . . . and Porsche.

Many coastal public school-educated kids (and selfish adults) simply lack the critical thinking skills and automotive savvy to look past the headlines and "drill down" into the flawed, self-selected, self-perpetuating methodology of these "predictions."

Thus some of the most mind-numbing and blandtastic vehicles around are lauded in these surveys as "most reliable." And the "appliance motoring" sheeple keep lapping it up. In other surveys, such as J.D. Power's Initial Quality Survey, Ford beats its Asian rivals.

Even better news is a fluffy "fun-to-drive" assessment by Yahoo, which places Ford's pavement-ripping Mustang at the top of the "won't break the bank" segment of their "Top 10" sporty cars.

2010-10-25T09:50:00.001-07:00

EPA & DOT PLAN "CAFE" ATTACK ON THE ENGINES THAT POWER AMERICAN BUSINESS

By Cammie
The American economy is a disaster. Millions of Americans want more jobs and fewer Federal government intrusions. Regulations and red tape are choking American innovation. The EPA and DOT have already hammered the auto manufacturing sector with billions upon billions of unfunded mandates.

So what do the absolutely clueless Obama bureaucrats do now?

They want to drop a harsh round of Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards on the hardest working vehicles in our economy. The Obamamaniacs want to jack up prices on everything to make another sacrifice at the altar of "global warming" by establishing a first-ever CAFE standard on big trucks, buses and work vehicles.

This is absolutely the wrong move to make at a time when transportation industries are struggling and demand for heavy trucks, buses and work vehicles lags. It's a hidden regulatory tax on all of us.

Perhaps no sector of transportation is more market-based than medium and heavy trucks. If the market demands radical and expensive fuel-saving technologies, they will be produced to satisfy "bottom-line-sensitive" customers without any Federal intervention.

But the Obama whiz-kids seemingly hate market-based approaches to anything. Instead, they want extract ever more costs from what's left of American industry. They want to gamble with our economy in order to serve leftist canards like "climate change" (the new name for "global warming" considering that no warming has taken place for a decade).

CAFE is a failed approach. So it's not surprising that a pack of failures such as Obama's bureaucrats want to expand the failure to our most esssential transportation sector.

What a mess!

Remember to vote against the liberal Obama/Pelosi/Reid Democrat powermongers and their henchpersons (any Democrat and even some RINO Republicans ) in Congress on November 2!(see sidebar list of the free-spending, big government liberals who voted for "Cash for Clunkers" and vote against each and every one of them)

2010-10-13T15:48:00.000-07:00

"WORLD'S FASTEST MOBILITY SCOOTER: PLUMBER CONVERTS VEHICLE SO THAT IT CAN HIT 69 MPH!"

By Cammie

Here's a "bloke" from the UK that deserves some "props." Read more and see the photos from The Daily Mail.

I guess if Tom Kruse at Hoveround(r) ever wants to start a racing team, we know who'll be his Colin Chapman . . . .

2010-10-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

FORD’S NEW PLAN FOR LINCOLN: JUST SHUFFLING ON A SINKING SHIP
By Hydra.
Lincoln is dead.

Only Ford doesn’t know it yet. So they’ve announced the outline of a plan to take on Lexus with fewer dealers, concentrated almost exclusively in urban markets. Nearly 1000 dealers are getting pink-slipped.

However a Fox News story points to the manifold failures of Lincoln that make these dealer moves meaningless shuffling.

Right now, Lincoln's cheapest model, the MKZ mid-size sedan, starts at $34,330, which is $2,000 more than a Lexus IS and a few hundred more than a Mercedes C-Class. Lincoln also has no sporty models like Cadillac's CTS-V coupe and no rear-wheel-drive offerings [except the long-neglected, unadvertised, underpowered Town Car that’s getting canned in August 2011], which some luxury drivers prefer for their handling and acceleration.

Just as with the emerging Police Interceptor debacle, Ford’s product bosses expect a MKT "Katy" wagon to pick up the slack in Ford’s lucrative "black car" and airport limousine fleet business.

(Ford photo)
Dream on.

Lincoln’s decline into irrelevance is emblematic of America’s loss of elegance and competitiveness. That the marque which once offered the incredible, true-classic K-series, the groundbreaking original Continental, the Carerra Panamerica-winning Lincoln Capri, and the luxurious Continental Mark II has been reduced to selling over-stuffed Ford Fusions and Edges under an alphabet soup of meaningless initials is evidence of how far America has fallen in the world.

Simply put, without any V8s, turbodiesels, or rear wheel drive, Lincoln is uncompetitive. While the coming Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards will put heavy pressure on all luxury marques, Lincoln goes into this tumultuous period with a weak reputation and a thin slate of almost badge-engineered products.

Certainly Lincoln builds some well-padded, gentile, near-luxury models. But none of them are milestone vehicles. They’re neuters. They’re automotive metrosexuals. They’re lukewarm tea. They’ll all be soon forgotten.

Until Lincoln restocks the product pipeline with prestigious, world-class performers, it will remain a distant also ran.

Just imagine if Lincoln dropped a Coyote V8 into a suitably luxurious, high-performing RWD chassis. Just imagine if Lincoln melded EcoBoost and electric hybrid technology with DOHC V8 power. Just think about what would happen if Lincoln benchmarked Autobahn and Nurburgring leaders instead of shooting for rental-car-fleet FWD snoozers laden with needless gadgets.

Just don’t count on it happening. The bean counters won’t let it. Alan Mulally doesn't "get it."

Under the current platform-cutting Ford mentality, don’t expect any legitimate moves on the product side that will truly correct Lincoln’s flabby reputation and woefully deficient product offerings.

And don’t expect Lincoln to be competitive with athletic brands such as BMW, Mercedes or even Cadillac anytime soon.

2010-10-01T16:28:00.000-07:00

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION WANTS "END OF THE WORLD" FOR V8 & HIGH-PERFORMANCE

By Cammie

Fox Business is reporting:

Passenger cars would have to achieve fuel efficiency of up to 62 miles a gallon by 2025 under an initiative the Obama administration is rolling out Friday in its newest push to control greenhouse-gas emissions.

As if the draconian 2016 35.5 m.p.g. CAFE wasn't bad enough. They've already jacked up the standard high enough to likely kill off high-performance V8 power for ordinary working folks. But 62 m.p.g. will kill off high-performance for everyone. Even the dangerous little rolling golf-cart cars will have to be neutered to pull that kind of average.

This is the kind of wimp cars that Obama apparently wants to force us into:

I'm counting the days until these power-mad, freedom-hating chumps are thrown out of office! Too bad Rahm can't take'em all back to "sweet home Chicago."

2010-10-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

SAY IT AIN'T SO! '60s BAT MOBILE (R) REPLICA: POWERED BY CHEVY.

By Cammie

A company named "Fiberglass Freaks" in Logansport, Indiana is building licensed Batmobile (r) replicas, according to an eBay listing and a news report.

The Fox News NY report claims that the nearly nineteen-foot-long replicas are based on a "1970s Lincoln Town Car." The eBay listing says that at least "1966 BATMOBILE® Replica DC001" will be poweredby a "GM 350 crate engine."

Of course the campy original 1960s "batsled" was George Barris' reinterpretation of Lincoln's Futura showcar. It packed a massive Lincoln V8. Studio duplicates were reportedly based on then-late-model Ford Galaxies.

To waste the dwindling supply of 1970s Town Cars and then defile them with uber-boring, belly-button-common small block Chevy engines is just plain wrong.

However, at an M.S.R.P. of a reported $150,000.00, there's probably not very many people that will be styling like Adam West anytime soon. And we can all be thankful for that!

And before everybody gets in a clinch and starts suing us, Batmobile (r) is a registered trademark of DC Comics. It and all of the other trade and service marks appearing in this blog are the property of their owners. They are not affiliated in any way with "Truth with Hydra and Cammie" and are used herein under the "fair use doctrine." (At least that's the way that grouchy legal aid lawyer scribbled it down on the Post-it (tm) Note).

2010-09-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

HAWAII FIVE-0 MISFIRES WITH MCGARRETT CAMARO
By Cammie
It didn’t take long for CBS’s new HAWAII FIVE-0 to "jump the shark."

To be fair, I joined "Five-0" in progress. The bureaucratic British Broadcasting Company’s BBC America has finally seen fit to allow us "Yanks" to see "Top Gear" in its original sixty-minutes of glory (eighty minutes when all of the American advertising and BBC America promos are added in). That meant I didn’t "surf" in to CBS until twenty minutes past the hour.

And now I wished I hadn’t.

The new Steve McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) may not own a suit and subscribes to the plan for shaving twice-a-week, whether he needs it or not. And he apparently learned the Bill of Rights, interrogation techniques, and police procedure from Mark Furman and Jack Bauer.

But what’s really bad is that the scruffy "McGarrett lite" drives a CHEVROLET CAMARO.

A CAMARO?

Yep. In a triumph of product placement over tradition and good taste, the "rebooters" have shoveled the latter-day Five-0 boss into the cartoonish new "Government Motors" Camaro.

And according to the bow-tie wonks who actually care about new Camaros, it’s a V6 . . . .

Now the new McGarrett has fully joined the "metrosexual" ranks of such sloppy wimps as NASCAR’s Jimmy Johnson, Jeff Gordon, and your local methamphetamine dealer. Who knows? Maybe next week they’ll show the new McGarrett’s pad (which, because he’s a Camaro driver, is probably a decrepit mobile home).

And it’s a good thing that Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim) is pocket-sized, because they crammed him in the back of the claustrophobic Chevy coupe for a good part of the shark-jumping second episode.

(If the "rebooters" ever decide to reshoot the classic "Hawaii Five-O" episode "Cocoon",
they can just have Wo Fat trap the new McGarrett in the back seat of his car to save on production costs! No need for a sensory deprivation chamber . . . .)

Mercury may have been killed, but that’s no excuse for McGarrett to completely change teams.

Next week? Maybe I’ll just watch the "Top Gear" encore . . . .

2010-09-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

GM'S LIMITED RETURN TO RWD PUTS FORD & LINCOLN FURTHER BEHIND
By Cammie

As Ford is killing off its only remaining North American RWD sedan platform (the beloved Panther . . . Just imagine how awesome a Coyote V8-powered Panther would have been) and moving everything but the Mustang and F/E-Series into too-small-for-V8s FWD platforms, "Government Motors" is apparently regaining a little "mojo."

According to the Automotive News:

GM revives rear-wheel sedans for Chevy, Cadillac
DETROIT -- Plans for a sporty, rear-wheel drive Chevrolet sedan have been revived at General Motors Co., Motor Trend reports in its upcoming November issue. The program had been mothballed over a year ago as GM was heading into bankruptcy.
Additionally, a low volume, rear-wheel sedan planned for Cadillac is expected to carry a price of around $130,000 . . . .

That's bad news for Ford. For a time in the 1990s, Ford was the only Detroiter to offer RWD in anything other than sporty cars and trucks. And Ford has been the only American OEM to continuously offer RWD.

But after the idiotic decision to kill off Ford's Panther takes effect in 2011, Ford will be the only American company NOT to offer a RWD sedan in America. Even Hyundai is going to have more RWD competitiveness than Ford!

That's just bone-headed.

In light of Cadillac's agressive moves (including the incredible the 556 h.p. CTS-V, with a blistering 0-60 time of 3.9 seconds and a Nürburgring laptime of 7:59.32) Lincoln is becoming less and less relevant as a luxury marque.

How long will Ford sit back and let GM steal the American RWD market?

2010-09-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

“BOOK’EM DANNO!” OLD-SCHOOL MCGARRETT MERC & NEW 5.0 IN “HAWAII FIVE-0" REBOOT

By Hydra
"Hawaii Five-O" . . . make that "Hawaii Five-0" is back.

In a nostalgic homage, the pilot episode (aired September 20, 2010) for this “reboot” of the classic “5.0" franchise returned the names Steve McGarrett, Danny “Danno” Williams, Chin Ho and Kono to the small screen. Also catching the wave was a fairly faithful remix of the original theme music and a brief cameo by a black 1974 Mercury Marquis (not the classic ‘68 McGarrett Merc , but a cheaper insider reference to Steve’s season 7-12 Mercury )
. This was a nice gift to vintage Five-O fans (although I’d almost hoped that the new McGarrett would whip a
back-in-black 2003 Mercury Marauder while “on-the-job.”)

The new McGarrett and Danno are more of a younger, beef-cakey buddy team than their legendary 1960s counterparts.

Alex O’Laughlin is no Jack Lord, but to his credit, he’s doesn’t try to imitate Lord’s McGarrett. O’Laughlin brings sort of a “young James Bond” swagger to the part. Sadly, O’Laughlin’s McGarrett apparently bums his slouchy street threads from Goodwill, not Saville Row And the new McGarrett seems more of a reckless, impulsive, ends-justifies-the-means maverick than the original Five-O group.

Danno makes the scene in a new 5.0 Mustang. The engine sounds alone should entertain many viewers. Yet the 5.0 badge on the iconic Mustang is almost totally ignored in the cinematography, so probably only hard-core Mustangers even noticed it.

Danno and Steve also make the scene with a lot more domestic drama. The original Five-O seldom pried into the private lives of its cops. But apparently today’s CBS focus groups wanted a fair share of “Oprah” melodrama mixed in between frequent shootouts and UFC-style beatdowns. Whether all of that “family filler” will wear well remains to be seen.

But for now, at least there’s a real 5.0 and even a few seconds of a big, black Mercury in "Hawaii Five-0."

2010-09-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

FREAKMOBILES WIN PROGRESSIVE AUTOMOTIVE X-PRIZE
By Cammie
The long slog toward the first Progressive Automotive X-Prize is over. And no, the Neil Young's Lincoln didn't win. Nor did anything that looks remotely like a production car.
The three winners followed high-mileage conventional wisdom - freakish hyper-aerodynamics and light weight. Nothing too revolutionary there. Here are the class winners:

1. "Mainstream" (four seaters) :Edison2's Very Light Car No. 98.
2. "Side-by-side" (two seats): Li-ion Motors Corp.'s Wave II.
3. "Tandem" (two seats): X-Tracer Team Switzerland's E-Tracer No. 79.

So what did we really learn from the X-Prize competition?

A. Despite all of the pre-competition claims, high m.p.g.e cars pretty much look like wingless aircraft or enclosed motorcycles. (Just imagine the streets filled with look-a-like aerodynamic blobs)
B. Electrification and electric hybrid technology are not the only ways to achieve high efficiency (the winning "car" used a small internal combustion engine, not electricity).
C. Surprisingly, the Old American South is apparently a hotbed of Automotive fuel economy research (two of the three winners were from south of the Mason-Dixon Line, not Silicon Valley)
D. A obvious motorcycle with a pair of retractable wheels is a "car." (That is until you take it to the DMV or EPA/NHTSA)
E. There's no substitute (yet) for light weight (a fact that will confound the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)

After all of this, I can't say I'm too excited about "the future."

2010-09-15T07:22:00.000-07:00

USED CAR CRASH: PRICES UP & SUPPLIES DOWN

By Hydra

Somebody in the business sent me an e-mail link to an Automotive News blog lamenting "changes" in the used car market.

The short version: since the economic crash of 2008, car dealers have been struggling to find enough quality used car "inventory." Consequently, prices are up, supplies are down and quality suffers.

At Gerald Jones Honda in Augusta, Ga., owner Andy Jones says used models are
becoming alarmingly scarce. "I normally sell 200 used vehicles a month," Jones
says. "Lately it's been hard to find that many. . . Jones recently traded
for a 2004 Buick Century with 70,000 miles. The dealership paid $6,000 for it,
installed new brakes and tires and made a few minor changes and is now asking
$8,500 for it. Says Jones: "Three years ago, that would've been a $2,500 car."

You don't suppose that senselessly scrapping of a million late-model vehicles in the idiotic "Cash for Clunkers" program hasn't contributed to the used car shortage? Remember: "supply and demand."

2010-09-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

SVT RAPTOR BECOMES MORE PRACTICAL WITH A SUPERCREW CAB
By Cammie
Hydra and I kicked back a little after Ashley Force Hood's big win at the "BIG GO" (NHRA MAC Tools U.S. Nationals) over Labor Day weekend.
Now, back to business . . . I forgot to comment on Ford's new SVT Raptor SuperCrew.

Now, Ford's hot off-roader is a bit more practical for those who want to combine work with play. The standard mill is Ford's BOSS SOHC 6.2, slamming out 411 h.p.

And if 4-1-1 isn't enough, tuners such as Hennessey can bump up the power.

Sadly, there's no manual transmission option in any of Ford's F-series light trucks, including the SVT Raptor. That's just wrong.

Considering how smokin' hot the performance diesel segment is, it's also too bad that Ford doesn't build a PowerStroke turbo diesel with the Raptor's incredible suspension. That would make it even more of a Swiss Army Knife of sport trucks.

2010-08-26T06:38:00.000-07:00

CASH FOR CLUNKERS MORON BETTY SUTTON "IN REAL TROUBLE (HEH, HEH, HEH!)"

By Hydra

Here's one for Speedy . . . the car-hating loon Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) (or is that "DOH!") apparently has a CLUNKER'S CHANCE of being reelected! According to a Politico story (linked from the Drudge Report . . . do you really think I'd read Politico otherwise?) V8-killer Betty Sutton is in "real trouble." YEAH, BABY!

Rep. Sutton carried the water . . . err . . . sodium silicate solution . . . for the Obamamaniacs in the huge, debt-funded giveaway that senselessly destroyed hundreds of thousands of useable V8s and other post-1984 special interest vehicles last year.

Without a doubt, Sutton is another free-spending, freedom-hating, bailout-loving liberal. She deserves to be turned out of office in November. I'm sure Speedy's lovin' it! (see sidebar for the names of other jerks who voted in favor of C4C)

2010-08-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

TWO WAYS OF MAKING AUTOMOTIVE NOISE
By Cammie

The Toyota way:

Home market Prius to be fitted with a whirring under-hood speaker.

That's hardly a new idea.

(I wonder if 'Yoda's new speaker could reproduce the sounds of John Force's AA/FC?)

The Ford way:
440 h.p. 2012 Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca!

Ford Racing’s emissions-legal 2.3 liter supercharger kit for 2011 5.0-liter 4V TiVCT V8 Mustangs!

2011 F150: 360 horsepower 5.0-liter 4V TiVCT V8 and 411horsepower 6.2-liter SOHC Boss V8!

You already know which way we prefer . . . . Varoom, Varoom!

2010-08-06T11:03:00.000-07:00

STINK BUG: METHANE-POWERED VW HITS THE ROAD

By Hydra

Researchers in the UK have engineered a Volkswagen New Beetle that runs on refined human waste.

Whether or not this "feces flyer" technology will waft over to the States remains to be seen. But if it does, it's good news for flatulent folks like my sister Cammie. She's got enough to power the Daytona 500!

Loose the DEUCE!

2010-08-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

SMOKEY YUNICK’S HOT-VAPOR "TEASE" IS BACK

By Cammie

Smokey Yunick’s legendary (or some say mythical) Hot Vapor Cycle engine has long been of interest to Truthseekers at this blog.

Now the September 2010 issue of Hot Rod Magazine reinvigorates the legend with the so-called "Story Behind Smokey’s Hot-Air Engine.

According to HRM, the keepers of the Hot Vapor flame are engineer Ralph Johnson and ISCA show car builder Tony Allers.

Johnson claims to have built the first Hot Vapor engine at GM back in the days of the Blue Flame Corvette. Allers picked up Smokey’s Fiero prototype engine at Yunick’s estate sale and recreated Smokey’s infamous Fiero. HRM reports the recreated Fiero is now in Don Garlits’ drag racing museum in Ocala, Florida.

Of course HRM’s story is another big tease. Allers and Johnson don’t really explain how to build a Yunickmobile at home. And the story suggests that Yunick took some of the "secrets" to the grave. HRM does suggest that big corporate money has picked up the research (perhaps under the guise of the trendy Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) theory.

But for grassroots hot rodders, "hot vapor" remains just so much "hot air." That's sad. Imagine where the technology would be today if secrecy and greed weren't factors.

Here’s a potpourri of links to discussions about Yunick’s engine:

Skeptical engineers speculate on how it works (or doesn’t) here and here.
Background research on Smokey and the Hot Vapor Engine.
The story behind Tony Allers’ Fiero is here and here.
A test drive of Tony Allers’ Fiero.
Hot Vapor Engine presented to the Smithsonian.

2010-07-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

THE $200,000 PARKING SPACE!

By Cammie

In a cautionary tale for homeowners' associations everywhere, a Florida court has upheld a man's right to park his own Ford F-Series Super Duty in his own driveway!

It only cost about $200,000 in legal fees. The nosey neighbors group - the "Eagles Masters Association" -- reportedly will have spent $300,000 in their futile attempt to stop him. That's more than a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS wasted over where to park a pickup truck on a man's own property!

(I wonder if the "Eagles Masters Association" homeowners' dues are about to go up?)

The plucky homeowner who wouldn' t take "no" for an answer is A.J. Vizzi. He's a real hero in my book!

This story has the makings of a great commercial for Ford F-Series trucks.

2010-07-28T12:48:00.000-07:00

JACK ROUSH CRACKS UP . . . AGAIN

By Cammie

Jack Roush's horrible 2010 got even worse Tuesday night. According to several media reports, Roush suffered a non-fatal airplane crash yesterday evening at the 2010 Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture "Fly-in" in Oshkosh,Wisconsin.

Jack can't buy a win Sprint Cup competition this year. And now he'll have lots of time to think about that as he recovers from another aircraft mishap. Roush was almost killed in 2002 when an aircraft he was piloting crashed.

Hydra and I hope that Jack makes a speedy recovery.

[By the way, this is post number 500 to this site. This is a sad way to mark that milestone)

2010-07-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

HOLY KILOWATTS! A "SHOCKING" MSRP FOR CHEVY'S VOLT (AND A LEASE WAR WITH NISSAN)
By Cammie

Back in the early days of of the automobile, electric cars were the most popular "girl's cars" around.

But they "shorted out" in the marketplace because they didn't have enough "juice" to compete with cheaper, more practical petrol burners.

Fast forward eighty years. Now we've got another push for battery-powered motoring. Nissan and "Government Motors" are set to fight it out in the initial salvo.

And not much has changed. Electrics are still too expensive. For example, yesterday, Chevrolet announced that the M.S.R.P. of the gas/electric Volt will be a high-Amp $41,000!

That's a lot of coin for a few killowatts. But "Government Motors" is banking on serious tax credits and environmentalist guilt trips to jump start sales of this lead . . . er . . . lithium-ion sled.

Nissan's all-electric Leaf(blower) will sell for about eight grand less. But the Obamaians in the Ren Cen have pledged to match Nissan's lease price of $349-per-month.

Can't you just feel the electricity? Yawn. Zzzzz.

For that kind of money, I'd rather have a 400+ horsepower (298+ KW) V8!

2010-07-27T11:03:00.000-07:00

IS MARCOS AMBROSE DUMPING TOYOTA FOR A RICHARD PETTY FORD (AND IS "DIRTY HARRY" REID NUTS?)

By Cammie

It's "sayonara" and "G'day, mate" to JTG Daugherty Racing for former Aussie V8 Supercar star Marcos Ambrose. http://www.onenewsnow.com/AP/Search/Sports/Default.aspx?id=1102200

Considering all the good that Marcos did in a Ford Falcon "in the land of wonder, the land down under," it would be good to see'em back in a V8 Ford.

Speaking of Ford, the embattled and hapless U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has apparently claimed that the Detroit automaker bailouts "probably" saved Ford Motor Company. I guess old Mr. Searchlight must have forgotten that FORD DIDN'T TAKE THE MONEY!

2010-07-27T06:50:00.000-07:00

HELIO . . . DANCING WITH THE GUARDS
By Hydra

Of course you didn’t see it.

It was in Canada. On some tiny, nobody’s-ever-heard-of-it cable channel called Versus. Probably fewer saw it live than were in the mostly empty grandstands at the Brickyard 400.
And now it’s a You Tube sensation.

The scrumptulicious Penske shoe Helio Castroneves was leading at Edmonton on the final restart. Then, according to IndyCar series boss Brian Barnhart, Helio blocked teammate Will Power. The stewards told Helio to lift, but he didn’t have the willpower to do so. So they handed the win to Team Target Ganassi’s Scott Dixon.
Cue that fiery latin temper . . . .

Okay, so the NASCAR nuts will say that it was no where near the Donnybrook of "Cale ‘n Donny" at Daytona in ‘79. And the pocket-sized Castroneves hardly threatened any kind of a Jet Li smackdown to that smiling security guard (talk about a teacup Chihuahua going after a Doberman). But it’s still fun to see some unscripted passion erupt in motorsports.

No doubt that Helio and Penske got robbed. And IndyCar’s lack of proper television coverage, competing engine manufacturers and American drivers all contribute to its near invisibility. Still, for all its faults, Helio did put on a show last Sunday.

2010-07-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

FORD EXPLORER AND THE DEATH OF HOT RODDING
By Cammie
The automotive world is abuzz with the formal debut of Ford’s Taurus-based Explorer.The old truck-based Explorer was the vehicle that made SUVs mainstream. It was the antidote to mini-van-induced soccer-mom boredom.

To Ford dealers, the "truck" Explorer was a "cash cow." A profit machine.

To trial lawyers salivating over the Firestone tire debacle, the truck-based Explorer facilitated adding a new wing to their McMansions.

To sports car enthusiasts, the Explorer was often a moving chicane or a luxury crew vehicle.

And to hot rodders, V8 Explorers were another source of inexpensive junkyard parts.

To environmentalists and other "car haters," the Explorer was only exceeded by larger SUVs as an emblem of automobility and consumption gone amuck.

Although the "truck" Explorer was never a hard-core 4x4 off-roader, consumers often perceived it as a having more than a little "macho" swagger under a preppy, Eddie Bauer veneer.

Now Explorer is basically a Volvo car distilled through Alan Mulally’s style shop. So what does it really mean?

1. PAY MORE, GET LESS: It’s a given that the future of anything above the commodity level of motoring in this "green-obsessed" world is going to be smaller and more expensive. The new "car" Explorer is no exception.

Repackaging a Taurus X into some semblance of an SUV means slashing towing capacity, killing off the V8 option, and plugging in a tiny EcoBoost four-cylinder engine. Because Ford can’t make a turbo mill – even a direct-injected one – hold up using pot-metal internals, turbocharged engines will certainly be more expensive. Likewise, as Nash discovered decades ago, unitized construction tends to increase costs and hamper design updates in the long run. All of that extra cost will be passed on to the consumers.

Ford’s PR machine is crowing (almost ad nauseam) about how the new micro-mills are pounding out more power than the previous V8. But Ford’s pre-Coyote modulars (at least in non-SVT form) were such underachievers that it doesn’t take much to beat them. And it’s unlikely the new powerplants will produce the torque and delicious sounds of a proper V8.

2. IT’S WORTHLESS FOR HOT RODDERS: Ford has built millions of "Tauri" since 1985. After they’ve wheezed into America’s junkyards, they’ve provided virtually nothing of value for hot rodding. In contrast, whole drivelines of "truck" Explorers have attracted hot-rodding "love." And somebody someday might just figure out how to rebody "truck" Explorers into something more sporting.

While some lust after the near-microscopic turbochargers used in the EcoBoost system, the new "car" Explorer likely will provide nothing useful for building hot rods. And it probably won’t be very attractive as a hot rod platform. Like most other transverse-engine FWD-based vehicles, it will be hard to work on and too complex for the average hot rodder.

As Ford has systematically killed off traditional RWD vehicles, the supply of inexpensive "raw material" for hot rodding has almost dried up. The "car" Explorer is another huge "chip from the edifice."

3. IT’S PROBABLY EVEN MORE WORTHLESS FOR SERIOUS OFF-ROADING: While nobody expected the new "car" Explorer to be a five-door, seven passenger SVT Raptor, it now joins the pretentious "CUV" class of fakes. Too bad someone like "Top Gear’s" Jeremy Clarkson probably will not expose what a wretched off-roader a tall, tarted-up Taurus station wagon with cartoonish all-terrain tires makes. Not much real exploring will likely be possible with this one.

4. IT’S A POSTER CHILD FOR THE NANNY STATE: The Explorer "brand" was savaged by the Firestone rollover mess. Its forgotten progenitor – the narrow, tippy Bronco II – flipped over with even more verve and regularity. While the later IRS Explorers apparently have tamed down the tip-over risk, for some "Explorer" is probably still a synonym for unwanted adventures with the shiny side down. Sales are currently down to only a fraction of their pre-Firestone crashfest peak.

The new "car" Explorer will be so packed with electronic nannies and passive safety do-dads (such as inflatable seat belts) that it might almost repeal the laws of physics. Of course enterprising drivers and texting teens will still be able to rotate the "car" Explorer around its roll axis. But most drivers will be reigned in by all of the expensive techno-nannies.

5. IT DULLS THE EDGE AND PERPLEXES THE FLEX: The early photos make the new "car" Explorer make it look like a bloated Edge with a Taurus-inspired grille. And how exactly is the "car" Explorer functionally any different from the boxy Flex? At first glance, it appears some of the "Cars-splorer’s" biggest competition will be in Ford’s own showrooms.

6. IT WILL LIKELY GUARANTEE NO FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF A REAL MIDSIZED SUV: Just as the 1986 Taurus that the Mulally-ites worship killed development of any future RWD midsize sedans, the "TAURUS-PLORER" will stymie any future development of a real midsized SUV. The reason is that those who "bet it all" on the "crossover" plan won’t want to be shown up by a cheaper and tougher truck-style SUV. So if you want to bash the Rubicon or tow a real load someday, you probably won’t be doing it in a smallish Ford SUV.

I can’t get very excited about the new "car" Explorer. Whether all of the not-so-rugged "individualists" (posers) who buy SUVs to "profile" on America’s boulevards will now flock to it remains to be seen.

2010-07-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON’S NEW WAR OVER FUEL ECONOMY

By Cammie (the SANE, CHASTE, AND SOBER LIFTER SISTER)

(I’m taking the high road by ignoring Hydra’s cheap shots from yesterday. There’s more important things to discuss. Such as what Speedzzter would have called another “attack on our automotive liberty.”)

Apparently none of our elected officials or the overpaid executives in the boardrooms of the major auto makers trust in the free-market. Instead they want big government to tell us what we can drive with “draconian” fuel economy regulations, such as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (C.A.F.E.) standards and harsh limits on “carbon emissions” (that evil stuff that all of us exhale).

President Obama, having trashed the U.S. health care system and vandalized what's left of our financial sector, now wants to move on to wrecking our national energy policy on the false altar of "global warming." Not content with the awful burden of 35 m.p.g. C.A.F.E. in 2016, the OEMs and the freedom-hating pols are gearing up for another round of telling us what we can drive and how we can fuel it.

Here’s a quick and dirty summary of what the free market-haters propose (based on a report from the “inside Congress” reporting of “The Hill” (given what fecal matter usually comes out of Washington D.C. these days, perhaps it should be renamed “The DUNG Hill”)

1. THE DETROIT APPROACH: Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) reportedly have been asked by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers to push for a low-carbon requirement for fuels. This, of course, would drive up the price of automotive fuels and is an unfunded mandate on the oil companies, instead of more fuel efficiency requirements on the automakers.

Stabenow and Levin have also been asked to "codify federal authority to enact fuel efficiency standards beyond the existing authority that runs out in 2017" (READ: More rounds of market-distorting C.A.F.E. standards; more peanut-sized, low-performance cars) and to provide federal handouts to car makers for “advanced vehicle technologies” that the marketplace doesn’t support (if drivers wanted them, they wouldn't require any government subsidies).

2. THE ANTI-DETROIT COUNTER-ATTACK: The Consumer Energy Alliance — which includes the five biggest U.S. oil companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, major airlines represented by the Air Transport Association and manufacturing and other big energy users – argues that imposing carbon restrictions on the industry is "too much" on top of current unfunded renewable fuel mandates. They’re going to spend a million dollars to sway public opinion against Detroit's “low-carbon” fuel plan.

3. THE SMASHMOUTH C.A.F.E. APPROACH: Liberal Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) [all worthless, liberty-grabbing chumps that should be shown the door ASAP] want to force the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Transportation to use “existing authority” to jack up automotive fuel economy standards between 6 to 7 miles per gallon annually from 2017 to 2030.

(Enter the "Shelby GT 105," and "Corvette Z03" . . . each FWD micro-machines, powered by 1000cc 3-cylinder electric hybrid drivetrains . . . Yawn, Zzzzzz)

They say it will maximize “oil savings and greenhouse gas emission reductions.” I say it will destroy thousands of lives lost in highway crashes and demolish what little is left of automotive free choice in America. Sports cars and muscle cars as we know them would be legislated out of existence. An endless future of deadly, low-performance, boring micro-mini wheezeboxes would be assured.

4. THE REPUBLICAN-IN-NAME-ONLY C.A.F.E. APPROACH: RINO Sens. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) [three more worthless chumps that should be turned out of office, PRONTO] want more 4 percent annual increases in fuel economy standards and new fuel economy requirements standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks starting in 2017.

All of these “options” are HORRIBLE for those of us who value unfettered high-performance motoring. Whatever happened to “let the market decide?” Whatever happened to freedom in America? What a mess!

2010-07-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

FORD LIMITS SHELBY GT500 PRODUCTION(AND WHY SO FEW GOOD CARS ON TV)

By Hydra (the HOT Lifter Sister!)
Cammie, my plain and tall wallflower of a sister loves to drone on endlessly about her aging Shelby GT500. As far as I can tell, she's wearing it out wheeling it to prayer meetings. And she'll be more heart broken than when she sat out her senior prom to learn that her heros at Ford are limiting production of the 2011 Shelby to a paltry 5,500 units.
Back in the old SVT Cobra days, they used to build almost that many coupes every year.
Here's FoMoCo's social media press release:

Customer demand for Ford’s new 2011 Shelby GT500 is growing nearly as fast as the world’s fastest production pony car. More than 3,300 orders have been placed for the new Shelby GT500. To ensure exclusivity, U.S. sales of the 2011 Shelby GT500 will be limited to 5,500 units.The 2011 Shelby GT500 is powered by a new aluminum-block 5.4-liter supercharged V8 engine, which produces 550 horsepower and 510 lb.-ft. of torque, a 10 horsepower increase over the 2010 model. The engine is 102 pounds lighter than its predecessor, delivering a better power-to-weight ratio, improved fuel economy, acceleration, handling and steering precision.
The new engine uses a state-of-the-art Plasma Transferred Wire Arc (PTWA) liner coating, a process that applies a 150-micron composite coating that contains nanoparticles on the internal surfaces of engine cylinder bores, replacing cast-iron liners typically used in aluminum engine blocks. The Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation honored the inventors of the Ford-patented PTWA technology with the 2009 National Inventor of the Year Award.Customers are showing an appreciation for the GT500’s performance on and off the track, as well as its many features. Learn more about the performance features and interior options.

(Of course I'm wondering how all the engine-building "Bufords" are going to deal with PTWA . . . which I suspect will be a PITA come overboring time. )

Jamming down the GT500 numbers will preserve the "gougefest" that Ford's dealers enjoy on the Shelby. And it will keep used Shelby values artificially inflated.
But then, times are tough in supercar land. Government Motors only sold 13,934 Corvettes in last year and sales are down 15% so far in 2010. The bankrupts over at Government Motors recently announced that for $5,800, buyers can travel to GM's performance engine facility in Wixom, Michigan, and help assemble the engine to their new Z06 or ZR-1.

I guess we'll have to revise that sign around the shop:

LABOR RATES

$75/hour

$125/hour if you watch

$5,800/hour if you help

Of course, if the horribly weak slate of cars currently appearing on U.S. TV programs are any indication, who'd want to "help" work on them?

2010-07-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

PROGRESSIVE AUTOMOTIVE X-PRIZE ENDING WITH A FEATHERWEIGHT THUD

By Cammie.

Only one team survived "knock out qualifying" for the $5 million Progressive Automotive X-Prize. And it wasn't an electric car or a hybrid. Instead, the 100 m.p.g. "future" seemingly belongs to an 800-pound, 250 cc, E85-fueled streamliner.

Now that's a . . . yawn . . . future that I can't get very excited about.

2010-06-16T07:17:00.000-07:00

HERE'S WHAT'S ABOUT TO HAPPEN TO FORD'S COP CAR BUSINESS

see more

Hydra here.

I figured I text in a blog entry for Cammie. She's on her way to the annual Mid-America Ford and Team Shelby shindig and who knows where that chump Speedzzter is.

Anyway, in between wrecker calls I was surfing Drudge and ran across this story about how some hunkalicious computer geek has wrangled up a phat bank roll as a blogging distributor of humor photos.

(Who knew you could make any money blogging?)

And when I saw the Ford Police Interceptor photo on http://thatwillbuffout.com/, it seemed like a perfect illustration to the fail that emerging with Ford's switch to the Taurus-based PI.

STEVE SALEEN ON THE S7-R VICTORY IN GT1 AT LEMANS

Last weekend, they ran this quaint little race over in France called the 24 Hours of Le Mans. (Considering that about the only "French" that most American NASCAR fans know is Chevrolet and a little choice sailor talk, the idea that "Le Mans" is anything other than a ancient Pontiac is probably news to many of you)

Anyhow, a Saleen S7-R snagged the win in the GT1 class. The S7-R was built long ago during happier times at Saleen . . . before Steve left and formed SMS Supercars.

So even though the winning S7-R was not technically built by SMS, Steve Saleen couldn't resist crowing a bit about the Le Mans win.

Steve Saleens' S7R Takes The Win @ the 24 Hours of Le Mans

Almost 10 years after the debut of the S7R, it is still proving itself to be a fierce competitor on the global racing scene as a S7R took the win at the 78th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans over the weekend.

As the last Le Mans race featuring the LMGT1 classification, Jack Leconte's Larbre Competition S7R will forever be known as the final winner of the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Immediately following the win, Steve Saleen, the man who founded Saleen Inc., and the creator of the S7R, released a statement congratulating the team on their victory.

Says Steve Saleen: "The S7R is the most successful production based American car to win the most significant race in the world for manufacturers. After having won at virtually every major race track in the world, the win at Le Mans represents the crown of motor racing. We would like to congratulate Jack Leconte and his drivers Roland Berville, Julien Canal, and Gabriele Gardel on this extraordinary achievement. The almost entirely trouble-free race for the S7R underlines the excellence of this almost ten year old design."

The S7 was launched in August of 2000 at Pebble Beach by Steve Saleen as the world's fastest road car of its time. The S7R race version was introduced shortly afterwards, winning in 2001 all of the four championships which it competed in: the driver's championship of the American and European LeMans Series', the American Grand Am Series and the FIA GT Championship. Since then, the S7R has competed in numerous races and championships and has won at least once in every year since. This year, team Larbre Competition competed in LeMans with the S7R in the GT1 class, where it won against the 2nd placed Corvette C6, an Aston Martin DBR9R in 3rd as well as the Lamborghini Murciélago and the Ford GT. Further information about the S7 and the S7R success can be found on Steve Saleen's website www.smssupercars.com.

HOW TO DRIVE YOUR FORD "IN A WRAPPER"

Ford periodically sends out "social media press releases" to pump up various money-making schemes and corporate image-building. Most of them are more sleep inducing than Al Gore droning "sweet nothings" to Laurie David.

But this shameless moneymaker for the local dealers caught my eye.

Hot Wheels in Your Driveway

A new website is making it easy, cost-effective and fun for Ford owners to turn their car or truck into a unique personalized ride with vinyl graphics that offer the look of a custom paint job at half the price.

[Ford has a creative commons pic of a Mustang that's more flamin' than Jeff Gordon, but I'm just too lazy to mess with it]
The website – www.fordcustomgraphics.com – launched in November with vinyl wrap designs for the new Ford Fiesta is now expanding to include graphics for two of the most customized cars in the country – the Ford Mustang and F-150 – and later will offer customization options for all Ford vehicles.

Approximately 50 designs were created specifically for each vehicle. All are available in a variety of colors and sizes and were designed with the target customer in mind.

People interested in the hip, new Ford Fiesta, for example, can choose from cool, fun designs like bubbles, arrows, dots and flowers. Mustang and F-150 customers will have an entirely different portfolio to choose from.

Ford Custom Graphics offers customers the look of custom-painted designs, but without the expensive price tag. In addition, all of the custom graphics feature 3M Scotchprint® On-Demand quality vinyl. They are professionally installed at Ford dealerships and include a three-year/36,000-mile limited warranty.

Learn more about Ford Custom Graphics.

I wonder if they have a BP (Barack Petroleum) wrap that I could get for Cammie's Shelby?

2010-06-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

THE FORD IN SHORTEST SUPPLY IS LINCOLN'S TOWN CAR

By Cammie.

According to Forbes.com America's Hardest-to-Get Ford is a Panther on death row: Lincoln's RWD Town Car The average day supply of Town Cars in inventory is 26.

While I find it hard to believe that the Town Car is in shorter supply than SVT's Raptor and Shelby GT500, I'm not surprised that there's still life left in the last of the "real" Lincolns. To many, there is simply no substitute for a properly-refined, anvil-tough RWD, body-on-frame (BOF) vehicle. Lincoln Town Car has long been the preferred vehicle for the urban "black car" commercial trade, as well as the only choice for fans of traditional "American" luxury cars.

Alan Mulally and Billy Ford's CAFE-driven "green" makeover of Ford has been hard to take for lovers of traditional cars. Mulally and Ford have denied Lincoln's "Townie" any advertising. They've refused to offer Marauder DOHC or Coyote engines. They've kept the same styling for what seems like eons. And after starving it, they've slated it for extinction.

Ford seems to have learned nothing from GM's mid-1980s debacle. Back in the Reagan years, GM decided to kill off almost all of its RWD BOF cruisers in search of profits and CAFE efficiencies. This myopic mistake drove thousands of customers to Lincoln-Mercury.

Ford's mismanagement of the Panther is soon to pay analogous dividends. The irony is that the Volvo-derived six-cylinder D3s that are replacing the storied Panther really don't yield much better economy or performance than could be achieved with a properly set-up RWD BOF. The Taurus-derived replacements are too heavy, too complex, and much more diffcult to repair. Even as RWD remains the preferred standard in the luxury class and among many fleet buyers, Ford is moving head-over-heels away from it. That's just stupid.

The last of the "real" V8 Lincolns is in short supply. Get one while you still can.

2010-06-02T07:34:00.000-07:00

WHERE IS SPEEDZZTER? REQUIEM FOR A FOMOCO BLOGGER

By Cammie of the Lifter Sisterz

Some of you may be expecting to see another commentary on Ford Motor Company by Speedzzter in this space.

So was I.

Yet weeks went by without anything new from Speedzzter. Even Speedy’s occasional gig over at Bangshift.com has fallen silent.

I wondered why. So in a few moments when I wasn’t covering for or trying to find my goldbricking sister, I decided to look into Speedzzter’s mysterious disappearance.

I ended up with Speedy “pitching me the keys” (so to speak) to this site. I watched Speedy’s V8 Mercury roar off into the West. The last thing Speedy mumbled was something about writing a proper sequel to “Two-Lane Blacktop.”

I don’t really know why Speedy quit. Maybe Speedy realized the meaninglessness of vanity blogging. Maybe Speedy realized that Ford’s “Glass House Gang” could care less about what old V8/RWD-loving hot rodders wanted. Most likely, Speedy just gave up on the future.

So how did it all begin?

Best I can tell, Speedy started musing on the internet about automotive topics on Car Craft’s massive “So were not rich but we arent stupid” [sic] message board thread. That thread was mostly about “politically incorrect” grassroots turbocharging of big V8 engines.

In actually, Speedy was one of several “personas” written by the same person on the CC Board. Speedy once explained all of this to CC’s head honcho Douglas Glad a couple of years ago:

[David] Freiburger triggered "our" "turbo-project-in-CC" campaign when he quipped in his first editorial as CC's Editor-in-Chief that "turbos were for diesels." I read that closed-minded slam in the mid 1990s as [a] cash-strapped . . . student who couldn't even afford a set of spark plugs, much less the V8 turbo project I'd been studying, engineering, and planning since high school.
When the CC forum started in 2003, . . . I still didn't have the time, place, or financial resources to build that V8 turbo.

Writing on the forum became a way to escape . . . stress, drudgery, and disappointment . . . . At times, it was a Walter Mitty-esqe exercise in "playing" a hot rod journalist.

At some point, various on-line "personas" developed to add divergent voices and perspectives . . . to spice up the discussions and potentially make them more entertaining (and to make bumping the "were not rich" thread less repetitive):

--Turbo Ted -- the sarcastic humorist with a reserve of technical knowledge about turbocharging;

--MrFoMoCo -- the old-fashioned brand advocate (based on growing up in the 1960s brand rivalries and my . . . experience as a . . . parts counterman/tire salesman)

--Chevysxz -- a failed experiment with urbanized hip-hop-based dialogue and extreme anti-Chevy partisanship based in imaginary street racer trash talk.

--Speedzzter -- the voice of legislative concerns and warning of the impending end of the Second Supercar Era (based on the horrible, pretentious "Truth With Speedzzter" blog).

I came to enjoy writing some of these characters as much as many novelists enjoy writing various "voices" in works of fiction. When I'd sit down to post, I often wondered which character might best voice a thought I'd had. . . .

Perhaps this has all been nothing more than "talking to . . . [my]self" in a series of vanity posts, but I suspect that many other readers have been entertained and, perhaps, even informed by these characters. After all, the "Were not rich" thread has more than 50,000 hits (and they couldn't all be from my IP address).

And after all these years, I still haven't gotten that turbo big block project much past the design phase. Too few resources, too little time.

A Google search shows that Speedy was also a sometimes prolific commentator on other blogs and news sites. Mostly, Speedy’s comments were about politics, religion or automobiles. That’s a much broader range of interests than I expected to find. In fact, the earliest posts on this blog from 2005 are about confirmation of a U.S. Supreme Court justice (a subject Speedy’s been surprisingly silent about this time around).

But Speedy’s wheelhouse during the past five years was mostly occupied by commentary on Ford Motor Company. It is obvious that Speedy loved FoMoCo. But Speedy didn’t shrink from criticizing Ford’s mistakes (see sidebar). Speedy blogged with the naive and pretentious hope that Ford would learn something from its storied past. Speedy was an unabashed advocate of motorsports, rear wheel drive and V8 power.

In a world where more than half of American consumers buy imports and believe that Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards should be raised to more than 50 miles per gallon, Speedy was clearly an anachronism.

Speedy was a nostalgic throwback to a distant era of American industrial hegemony – a time when ordinary blue-collar workers could realistically expect to move up into the middle class and to buy on credit powerful V8 Fords with supercar acceleration . . . a time when average Americans fixed their own cars in their driveways and even bolted on speed equipment . . . a time when people actually cared who won the Indianapolis 500 . . . a time when there was some “stock” left in “stock cars” . . . a time when “real men” shifted manual transmissions and even wore neckties. And it was a time when Ford’s “Total Performance” factory racing program dominated everything it touched.

That America is apparently dead.

Next year, the only V8 Ford car left will be Mustang. And with 35+ M.P.G. C.A.F.E. on the near horizon, the Coyote may be an endangered species.

Next year, Ford will offer no RWD sedans or traditional full-framed passenger cars.

There will be no manual transmissions in Ford’s 2011 Super Duty. And Ford’s lone V8-strength manual transmission is reportedly assembled in Communist China.

New Fords are increasingly “tamper resistant.” and working on them is mostly beyond the skill set of weekend home mechanics.

Ford cannot seem to buy a win in the non-stock, common-template abortion that NASCAR has become. Ford continues its lengthy absence from Formula One and Indianapolis. Before too long, the Glass House Greeniacs and bean counters will likely plunge Ford back into the post November 1970 “dark ages” of factory motorsports abandonment.

And now the gigabite-wasting, text-messaging, Twittering, know-it-all “Autoblog experts” say that Mercury must go the way of Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Plymouth.

It’s not that Speedy left FoMoCo. FoMoCo (and America) left Speedy.

And now it seems that after 489 posts Speedy’s left blogging.

I’m not sure what Hydra and I are going to do with this blog. Well, actually I’m sure that Hydra probably won’t do much of anything. But I suppose there probably still some bandwidth out there for commentary on Ford and the declining state of America’s automotive liberty.

Godspeed, Speedzzter.

2010-04-29T13:05:00.000-07:00

HERE’S WHERE ALL THE VINTAGE “HARDTOP” STOCKS FROM NORCAL WENT: AUDI R8 (BEAUTY) VERSUS THE BEASTS

Comment: Frankly, the vintage coupes look more fun that the R8.

Here’s how Autoblog ripped the ad: “This Audi commercial for the R8 Spyder has a tagline that sounds more like two spies verifying each others' identities – ‘Mirror. Signal. Outmaneuver.’ – and it has a supporting cast stranger than a man in a nuclear-powered suit.”

It really isn’t that confusing. Audi is attempting to say that the R8 is more modern, elegant and maneuverable than the “unloved” obsolete cars competing for space on traffic-clogged roads.

BITCHIN NEW FORD RACING VIDEO FEATURES HISTORIC AND CURRENT FOOTAGE

Comment: A well-edited, hard-rocking montage of Ford’s racing past and present.

J MAYS PRESENTS THE FORD START CONCEPT

Comment: J, tuck in that shirt and find a tie, you slacker!

TEAM BEYOND RACING FORD SIERRA “BUYS IT” AT MALLORY PARK

COMMENT: You know you’re having a bad day when they bring back your race car on a sling threaded through the front windows. Sadly, the crash sequence in this video isn’t live action.

2010-04-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

FORTUNE: DON’T MUFF IT MULALLY!

(Get the latest "Truth With Speedzzter" here)

What do the Whiz Kids, Lee Iacocca, Donald Petersen, and Jac Nasser (not to mention Henry Ford) have in common? They all blew big leads and squandered away prosperity. Alex Taylor III, writing an “open letter” for Fortune Magazine cautions FoMoCo honcho Alan Mulally to learn from history and not engage in the “bone-headed decisions” and “eye off the ball” myopia of past Ford bosses.

Taylor’s letter echos some of the historical Ford criticism appearing on this site. See e.g. Ford Motor Company has Wasted Mustang's Period of Exclusivity and Is High-Performance Important to Ford?

Hopefully, the brush with death of the entire American auto industry has hardened the Glass House Gang to the reality that they're in a brutal, smashmouth game of survival for the foreseeable future. The survivors will be those who produce and sell enough high-quality products to overcome the horrific capital demands of the next couple of decades.

2010-04-28T11:42:00.000-07:00

VINTAGE FORD STOCKS ROCK SPEEDWAY 95 IN BANGOR, MAINE

The action starts heating up around the five minute mark of this heat race.

CAN YOU REALLY HAVE A OVAL TRACK RACE WITH JUST TWO CARS?

No, this isn’t a prediction about the “green, white, checker” finish at next fall’s Talladega race. The ranks of the NorCal Vintage Hardtops Series were reportedly thinned out by the filming demands of an Audi commercial in the U.K. But that didn’t stop a couple of vintage sedan (not hardtop) racers from running a “trophy dash” and an “A Main” last weekend at Ukiah, California.

MOSCOW, RUSSIA: VINTAGE CAR RALLY

According to English-language Russian TV, driving a vintage car is the only way they’ll give you respect on Moscow’s streets. Although this news report doesn’t feature Ford action (not counting a pre-Ford Jaguar saloon or two) it does have an entertaining mix of Western automobiles.

2010-04-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

FORDS AND MAZDAS TO WATCH IN THE 2010 TIRE RACK ONE LAP OF AMERICA

(Get the latest "Truth With Speedzzter" here)

Motor Trend’s highlight reel from 2009's One Lap

Tire Rack’s One Lap of America kicks off in a couple of days. Truth With Speedzzter is a little disappointed that more Fords aren’t competing in more categories. Here’s a list of the Fords and Mazdas entered in this year’s event:

31 SSGT2 Big Bore
2006 Ford Mustang GT
Russell Vester - Cincinnati, OH USA
Phil Munschauer - Terrace Park, OH USA
Sponsors: VeinSolutions.com, ProfessionalRadiology.com

32 SSGT2 Big Bore
2006 Ford Mustang GTS
Mark Blaha - Canton, MI USA
David Rothert - Pontiac, MI USA
Sponsor: Powerworks Performance

33 SSGT2 Big Bore
2011 Ford Mustang
Greg Hagopian - St. Charles, MO USA
Enrique Ramirez - Lodi, WI USA
Sponsor: Ford Motor Company

93 Truck/SUV
2001 Ford F-150 SVT Lightning
Brian Healy - Easton, MA USA
Thomas Healy - Easton MA USA

43 SSGT2 Small Bore
2001 Mazda Miata
Joe Woodward - Mishawaka, IN USA
Rich Woodward - Lexington, NC USA
Sponsor: Tire Rack Street Survival

45 Vintage Foreign
1987 Mazda RX-7
Walter Krueger - Leicester, NY USA
J.C. Krueger - Granbury, TX USA
Sponsors: Mount Morris NAPA, Blum Brothers, RaceQuip, KphotoDesign, Blu Do

124 Truck/SUV
2010 Mazda Mazda5
Richard Fisher - Glencoe, IL USA
Jason Saini - Cresson, TX
Sponsor: The Autobarn Mazda of Countryside

2010 HURST FORD RACING MUSTANG CONVERTIBLE CHALLENGE PACE CAR
Sure, the Hurst Mustang’s debut at VIR is old news, but we still like this video.

MUDFEST FORD ACTION: SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE

The challenge to this mud drag race was not getting stuck.

JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD: STRANGE "MUNSTER-ESQUE" MODEL T LIMO AT THE WESTERN STREET ROD NATIONALS

Toward the middle of this short video is quite possibly the strangest Hemi-powered T-Bucket street rod in the history of man.

2010 FORD F-150 SVT RAPTOR 6.2-LITER V-8 DYNO AND FIRST DRIVE

SO YOU WANT TO SELL FIESTAS? HERE’S HOW THEY’RE TRAINING THE SALESPEOPLE IN MONTANA

Ever wonder how all those know-nothing car salespeople "school up" on new iron? Here's "feature, function, benefit" walkaround by a sales trainer on the new Fiesta.

2010-04-27T13:08:00.000-07:00

THE THREAT WORSENS: GM PERFORMANCE PARTS ANNOUNCES MANUAL TRANSMISSION E-ROD PACKAGE
(Get the latest “Truth With Speedzzter” here)

Comment: FoMoCo simply must address the E-Rod threat more vigorously. If it does not, Ford’s reputation in grassroots motorsports and on the streets will suffer the indignity of an increasing number of pre-OBD II Fords repowered with GM engines. That’s simply unacceptable on many levels.

While Ford Racing Performance Parts’ Windsor-based Boss program and its modular V8 offerings are slowly improving, Truth With Speedzzter is unaware of a factory Ford systems approach to emissions-legal retrofits. Ford should not concede the emissions-legal repower battleground to Chevrolet.

GM TO INVEST $890 MILLION TO BUILD CLEANER, MORE FUEL-EFFICIENT ENGINES

Five plants receive work: Tonawanda, N.Y.; Defiance, Ohio; Bedford, Ind.; Bay City, Mich. and St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

Investment creates or retains about 1,600 jobs

New engines to save more fuel through direct injection technology and advanced combustion system design

DETROIT – General Motors will invest more than $890 million which will create or retain more than 1,600 jobs in five North American plants to produce a new generation of fuel efficient small block truck and car engines. The investment consists of the following:

Two plants will support the engine production:
Tonawanda, N.Y. – an investment of $400 million resulting in more than 710 jobs
St. Catharines, Ontario – an investment of $235 million resulting in approximately 400 jobs (click here for Canada release)
Three plants will support engine casting and component production:
Defiance, Ohio – an investment of $115 million resulting in up to 189 jobs
Bedford, Ind. – an investment of $111 million resulting in about 245 jobs
Bay City, Mich. – an investment of $32 million resulting in over 80 jobs

The investments include facility renovation and installation of new, highly flexible engine machining and assembly equipment and special tooling designed for manufacturing efficiency and engine quality. At the casting facilities, investments include expansion of semi-permanent mold and precision sand casting technologies that result in a high degree of dimensional accuracy and material strength properties needed to support the newer, more efficient engines in GM’s product portfolio. . . .The next generation small block engine family will have unprecedented fuel efficiency through direct injection and an all-new advanced combustion system design. The new engine family will rely exclusively on aluminum engine blocks, which are lighter and contribute to the improved fuel efficiency. In addition to being E85 ethanol capable, these engines are being designed with the capability to meet increasingly stringent criteria emissions standards expected throughout this decade.

Comment: What exactly GM will be getting for the taxpayers’ $890 million remains to be seen. That’s not really enough money to make huge changes.

Presumably, the “next generation” small block will retain pushrod-operated overhead valves and wide bore centers. Bore center width is the principal technical advantage GM’s LS-series engines have over Ford’s modular family. While a wide-bore-center DOHC Ford (i.e. DOHC Boss) would decimate GM’s antediluvian two-valve OHVs, Ford has not seen fit to match GM cube-for-cube in high performance applications.

However, GM’s apparent commitment to a new generation of “small blocks” probably means that Ford must up its game beyond the quick Coyote V8 “fix.” Direct injection, on-demand ethanol boosting, cylinder deactivation and forced induction will be necessary to balance government-mandated fuel efficiency with competitive size, torque and horsepower. Just relying on EcoBoost V6s and fours won’t be enough.

ADVERTISING FROM FOMOCO’S 1980S RESURGENCE

A video at Bangshift.com of a television ad showing a former Ford ally whipping a fox-body LTD around a road course prompted a quick trip down memory lane . . . back to the days of Phillip Caldwell and Donald Petersen’s commands in the Glass House. Back when “Have you driven a Ford lately” introduced America to a new type of lithe, aerodynamic Ford. (And yes, we’ve spared you the ad of Sir Jackie Stewart pounding out laps in a Tempo)

FLASHBACK: SIR JACKIE STEWART WHIPS A 1984 TURBO COUPE AROUND MONACO

FLASHBACK: TV AD SERIES: 1987 FORD MUSTANG GT , THUNDERBIRD TURBO COUPE

FLASHBACK:1987 FORD THUNDERBIRD TURBO COUPE COMMERCIAL

2010-04-27T07:31:00.001-07:00

COPS VERSUS CROOKS: WILD FOX-BODY 5.0 CHASE ACTION

(Get the latest "Truth With Speedzzter" here)

Anybody who has ever "rolled" in a Fox-body 5.0 knows the meaning of power oversteer. It's a combination of weight distribution, high torque, and the bind-prone GM-style four-link suspension geometry. Thankfully the current Mustang's live axle is much better located.

Mix in a little rain and a felon fleeing from a phalanx of P71 Police Interceptors and there's a wildly fishtailing Ford (and a reservation at the graybar hotel) in somebody's future.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4168181/car-slips-and-slides-fleeing-cops

2010-04-27T07:02:00.000-07:00

FORD POSTS FIRST QUARTER 2010 NET INCOME OF $2.1 BILLION AS STRONG NEW PRODUCTS FUEL PROFITABLE GROWTH
(Get the latest “Truth With Speedzzter” here)

Ford reports first quarter net income of $2.1 billion, or 50 cents per share . . .Ended the quarter with $25.3 billion of Automotive gross cash, with operating-related cash outflow of $100 million. Ford ended the quarter with $34.3 billion in Automotive debt. . . .Increased U.S. market share by 2.7 percentage points to 16.6 percent and a 14.1 share of the retail market . . . .

Comment: Better news than expected. But there’s still a lot of debt on the books. And energy prices, a jobless U.S. economic recovery, 2016's 35.5 m.p.g. Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standard as well as the Greek Financial crisis are all clouds on the horizon. Still it’s fun to celebrate a little good news.

Ford is clearly getting some base hits on the product side, as well as benefitting from Toyota’s recall headaches.

NOT FOR AMERICA: UK’S NEW FIESTA S1600

Comment: The S1600 looks like a fine basis for a Fiesta GT in America. But alas, it’s mostly a decal performance car, with a modest 20 h.p. boost over stock. Put those stripes on an EcoBoost or twincharged Fiesta and FoMoCo might have something.

On the other hand . . .

ANNALISTS SPECULATE U.S. FIESTA MAY BE TOO “PRICEY”

"My concern about the car is that it is priced too high for the Ford nameplate. A fully loaded Fiesta costs more than a fully loaded Focus right now," said Jim Hall, managing director of 2953 Analytics.

George Peterson, president of AutoPacific called the Fiesta "a little bit pricey but it has an excellent presence and driving dynamics."

Comment: Ford cannot afford to build a cut-rate B-Car. It would be better to err on the quality side than to chase the import invaders on price.

CIRCLE TRACK ACTION! ROCKIN' FORD DEALER AD FROM TEXAS

Comment: Although the editing could be a bit tighter, this spot is much better than standard local dealer fare. Well done!

FORD'S SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITIES AT THE 2010 BEIJING AUTO SHOW

Comment: Ford certainly is pumping up the social media arm of its outreach. Somebody in the Glass House thought this video was important, but we’re not sure why.

DYNO ACTION! 712-H.P. SHELBY GT500

ROUSH-FENWAY AT TALLADEGA

Comment: Roush-Fenway may not have won Talladega . . . Okay, they weren’t really even very close, new FR9 engines notwhithstanding. But at least their videographer shot some cool tape for the company scrapbook.

IN-CAR ACTION! CATERHAM SEVEN "ALL OUT" ON A ROAD COURSE

Comment: While a four-cylinder Caterham might not have much appeal to afficionados of 800-h.p. Mustangs or NASCAR fans, there’s some big fun happening here. Maybe the Eco-Boost four-popper future isn’t so bad after all. Of course it would be even better with a V8 sound-track!

WHO NEEDS PAVEMENT? HOT RALLYCROSS ACTION FROM ESTERING

Comment: We need more rallycross in America!

TRAIN ‘EM UP IN THE WAY THEY SHOULD GO . . . .

Comment: Muscle car fever in Grevenbroich? At least the goof in the Camaro finally got out of the way . . . and the kid spun some tire!

2010-04-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

PRESS DAY HIGHLIGHTS OF FORD AT THE 2010 BEIJING AUTO SHOW

Comment: Ford execs "polish the oval" . . . mostly in English. An 84% increase in sales in one quarter is worth bragging about. But YEACH! The front end of that new Focus still needs some work.

HOLY RANCHERO! 150 M.P.H. RDP MOTORSPORT USA FORD XR8 UTE RIPS ZMAX RACEWAY AT 2010 PINKS ALL OUT

900-HORSE FORD GT DYNO RUN

Another reminder of why we miss the GT . . . .

266 MPH: HOFMAN MOTORSPORTS & HEFFNER PERFORMANCE TWIN TURBO FORD GT - EXOTICS RALLY 4-25-2010

Comment: Now that's a supercar!

2010-04-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

FOMOCO HOPES TO LEVERAGE S. AMERICA, EUROPE GAINS IN CHINA
(Get the latest "Truth With Speedzzter" here)

Comment: While "Truth With Speedzzter" would rather see FoMoCo investing more in America, (e.g. new large and small RWD platforms, "right-sized" EcoBoost and twincharged DOHC V8s), it’s understandable that the Glass House Gang is looking to Latin America and China for growth.

HERE’S ANOTHER REASON WHY WE ALL MISS FORD’S BRILLIANT GT

FORD MAY REPORT $1 BILLION PROFIT ON HIGHER VOLUMES, PRICES

Comment: Market share back over 17 percent and four positive quarters – could it be that Ford has finally turned the corner? Or is it too early to tell? Before celebrating too much, let’s see how the Fiesta, new in-house PowerStroke, Police Interceptor, and Coyote Mustang launches go.

THE NEW B-CAR KING? U.S.-SPEC FORD FIESTA WOWS AUTOBLOG TESTER

If there's any overarching sensation in the new Fiesta, it's the exceptional
feeling of solidity from behind the wheel – most of the competition feels
like cardboard boxes left to rot in the rain by comparison.

Comment: Too bad Ford doesn’t have a EcoBoost or Twincharged "Fiesta GT" ready for U.S. launch. And Truth With Speedzzter wonders if the Fiesta will be "Kugelized."

MITSUOKA GALUE CONVERTIBLE – HOW TO RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD MUSTANG

Comment: Although some believe that the Mustang platform would be a great basis for a high-performance RWD "Mark IX" Lincoln, the Mitsuoka Galue conversion ought to be a cautionary tale. While it’s not as awful as a Zimmer, it does stand for the proposition that no Mustang should ever be fitted with a "pimpmobile" stand-up grille.

GM COULD BE IN HOT WATER WITH FTC OVER TRUTH IN ADVERTISING

Comment: Did "Dial Tone" Ed repay the bailout loans with TARP money? The truth may be more complicated than "Ed said" in his Texas twangy thirty-second spot. And it’s likely that Campbell-Ewald won’t be the ad agency to sort this emerging mess out

CARMAKER UNIONS MAY NEED MORE TAXPAYER MONEY

Within five years, they will have to pay $15.7 billion into the carmakers' union pensions to comply with federal funding requirements, ($12.3 billion to GM’s pensions, $3.4 billion to Chrysler’s plans), according to the GAO report.
Comment: Bankruptcy may have "pushed the ball" a little further down the court, but UAW VEBA obligations are still hanging around the necks of the Detroit automakers. Of course this is but a tiny fraction of the trillion-dollar "pension debt bomb" that faces the U.S.

TALLADEGA: NOT SO "PERFECT" FOR FORD

A NASCAR record 88 lead changes among 29 drivers. But when it came down to the checkered flag, no Fords were seriously contending for the win. NASCAR is STILL DEAD.

FORD INCREASES PARTNERSHIP WITH GRAND-AM

Ford is on a roll in Grand-Am, with two of the top three Daytona Prototype finishers at Virginia International Raceway powered by Ford! Hopefully contingency money and more promotional tie-ins will improve things both on and off-track.

2010-04-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

ALLEGED HOPHEAD J.C. FRANCE SKATES ON A TECHNICALITY
The cynics said that France, a member of NASCAR’s nearly omnipotent ruling family, would walk on drug charges. According to this Associated Press report, they were right.

J.C. France being interviewed in happier times. Perhaps appropriately, he’s standing in front of a "Rum Bum" banner . . .

FORD RECALLS 33,256 VEHICLES ON SEAT COLLAPSE RISK

Comment: Unlike the allegations against the Evil Empire (Toyota), Ford got out ahead of NHTSA and the ambulance-chasing lawyers on this alleged safety defect. Way to be proactive, Ford!

Still, it’s a cold splash of negative news on quality right when the momentum all seemed to be flowing FoMoCo’s way.

JEEPERS CREEPERS, STEERING WITH YOUR PEEPERS? GERMAN CAR LETS YOU STEER WITH YOUR EYES

Comment: Those crazy Germans! How are young drivers going to text message while motoring with that thing?

OFFICIAL PROGRESSIVE AUTOMOTIVE X-PRIZE TESTING TO BEGIN APRIL 26, 2010 IN MICHIGAN

Comment: The run-up to the Automotive X-Prize has been so lengthy that it seemed like we’d never get to "put up or shut up" time.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: PATE AUTOMOBILE COLLECTION TO BE AUCTIONED

Comment: Although Pate Museum of Transportation in Texas spawned the huge Pate Swap Meet, the museum collection was never one of America’s best. Still it’s sad to see another collector’s life passion being "cashed out" by heirs.

2010-04-23T07:09:00.000-07:00

HOW TRUTH WITH SPEEDZZTER "CELEBRATES" MICHAEL MOORE’S 56TH BIRTHDAY
(Get the latest "Truth With Speedzzter" here)
Massive millionaire socialist propaganda film maker Michael Moore is 56 years old today. Moore shot to infame and liberal superstardom through his sophomoric 1989 "mockumentary" "Roger & Me."

"Roger & Me" attacks General Motors plant closings Smith’s hometown of Flint, Michigan, mostly through selectively documenting Moore's ridiculous, self-promoting efforts to interview GM head honcho Roger Smith on camera.

But the film ignores most of the real structural problems at the heart of Detroit’s problems in the 1980s. Detroit was hammered by huge unfunded mandates from Washington, D.C. 1930s labor laws allowed unions to score vastly above-market compensation and benefits in "pattern bargaining" extortion, as well as hugely expensive work rules (none of which the foreign invader "transplant" assembly plants had to bear). Inflation and interest rate problems in the late 1970s and early 1980s demanded Detroit to slash costs, which ultimately hurt product quality. Unfair trade policies allowed Asian automakers to protect their home markets and dump exports in the U.S.A.

In short, Smith’s analytical skills are superficial at best. Yet he used "Roger & Me" as a springboard for a highly lucrative career shilling for extreme leftist "social justice" causes (redistribution of wealth, reductions in personal liberty, abdication of personal responsibility) in slick, sometimes witty propaganda films. He is a slouchy, plus-sized Leni Riefenstahl of the left. Only in America . . . .

So in denigration of Mr. Moore’s 56th birthday, Truth With Speedzzter looked for a video that might be the polar opposite (at least in an automotive sense) of the barren, central-government-controlled World Moore apparently pines for:

2010-04-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

CNN: DETROIT AUTOMAKERS . . . "TRADING JABS LIKE JUNIOR HIGH BOYS" OVER HORSEPOWER RATINGS ON FUEL-EFFICIENT V6 PONY CARS?

(Get the latest "Truth With Speedzzter" Here)

Comment: You mean not everybody agrees with Joe Oldham?
Here’s our choice for who wins the "Battle of the Buzzin’ Half-Dozen" in 2011:

Here’s how most junior high schoolers (and to be totally honest, Truth With Speedzzter) would evaluate the 305-horse V6 Mustang . . .

Over at Bangshift.com, there’s more support for the V6s than you might imagine.

However, Truth With Speedzzter would rather see small DOHC V8s in the 2.0 to 4.0 liter range, not V6s, carry the banner for "entry level" pony car muscle in the future. With technology such as EcoBoost (tm), Ethanol Boosting Systems’ on-demand direct ethanol injection , start-stop, variable-geometry intake manifolds, and cylinder deactivation, V8s could achieve spectacular performance with startling fuel efficiency.

FUTURE SHOCK: FORD START CONCEPT CAR WITH 3-CYLINDER ENGINE PREVIEWS TINY FUTURE

Comment: Nobody will get "Start" confused with a Shelby GT500. A one-liter, three cylinder EcoBoost (tm) engine isn’t exactly the stuff of dreams . . . unless you live in Bangladesh. And without any traditional headlamps, Start looks half-asleep. Still, its design is cleaner than Fiesta. And although it beats a moped or riding a bus, it will be a sad day when "Ford" becomes synonymous with tiny fruit cups like Start. Now if it had a 1.0 liter EcoBoost (tm)V8 and RWD . . . .
FREEP: LET OUR TECHNOLOGY CREATE A GREENER WORLD, FORD ASKS

Comment: William Clay "Li’l Billy" Ford, Jr. accepted his green leader award from the FREEP in style.

Yet the idea that Michigan will emerge as some sort of green technology leader may be a bit wishful. Advantages similar to the catalysts that made Detroit an automotive manufacturing leader a century ago (abundant iron ore, timber, timber baron money) seem to be absent this time.

FORD’S 2011 FLEET VEHICLE LINEUP LAUNCHES WITH 100 PERCENT SUSTAINABLE POWERTRAIN TECHNOLOGY

"Ford, the industry leader in commercial and government fleet sales, will offer 100 percent of its fleet vehicles this year with fuel-efficient powertrains and other sustainable technologies – including battery electric, hybrid, natural gas, propane, E-85, biodiesel (B20) and EcoBoost – making the Blue Oval the industry’s greenest full-line fleet provider."

Comment: Too bad FoMoCo won’t ever build a EcoBoost Coyote V8-powered electric hybrid P71 Police Interceptor.

YOU’VE GOT TO KNOW WHEN TO HOLD IT: JERSEY GOV. CHRISTIE SHUTS HIGHWAY TOILETS TO SAVE MONEY

Comment: $270,000 to operate two restrooms? Of course some New Yorkers would probably quip that the whole "Garden State" is a big toilet . . . .

HOLY MOLEY, MARIA MOPAR! CHRYSLER’S MARKET SHARE MAY DROP TO SEVEN PERCENT AS DETROIT MOVES ON FROM THE BANKRUPTCIES

Comment: Not even Iacocca had to face such market-share headwinds. And that’s before they start trying to sell Americans FIATs. Who knew that when Chrysler bought American Motors that they'd virtually BECOME AMC.

COMMUNIST CHINA: NUMBER ONE IN AUTOMOBILE SALES

Comment: With a billion people and a manipulated currency, it’s not surprising that the CHI COMS have slingshot past the U.S.A. in auto sales. But sales per capita and ownership rates lag far behind the U.S.A. Despite America’s over-taxed and over-regulated auto market and a myriad of assaults on automotive liberty, the U.S.A. is still a better place to be an automotive consumer than China.

JALOPNIK: TOP GEAR USA: WHAT TO EXPECT

COMMENT: A show with all the essential elements of the BBC/UK’s "Top Gear" . . . except Clarkson, May and Hammond . . . A BBC-sized budget on basic cable . . . "absolutely and brutally honest" evaluations of test cars. No kowtowing to automotive sponsors.

R-I-G-H-T. What we’ll likely see is three obnoxious young frat-boys engaged in a mindless, weakly-scripted succession of demolition derbies, gratuitous burnouts, and tired, sophomoric jokes on a show with the production values of a midnight infomercial. Of course, if it’s even that good, it will be a "Fast and Furious" hit.

2010-04-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

HOW TRUTH WITH SPEEDZZTER CELEBRATES EARTH DAY
(Get the latest “Truth With Speedzzter” here)

Forty years ago, this Earth Day madness was thrust upon us. Of course there are better ways to celebrate 1970. . . .

Short of burning a stack of tires along with an “ecology flag” or two, Truth With Speedzzter recommends the best way for every automobile enthusiast “ to celebrate” Earth Day is with a few full-throttle blasts in your favorite high-performance vehicle.

If your taste runs more towards vintage stock cars, Bangshift's linked to some good Historic Grand National Stock Car Association action.

AAA NEW JERSEY AUTOMOBILE CLUB CELEBRATES EARTH DAY 2010 WITH THE AAA GREAT BATTERY ROUNDUP®

Comment: Aren’t most batteries recycled already?

CONSUMER REPORTS (tm) (ACTUALLY TOM TOM) BLOWS THE LID OFF OF AMERICA’S “MOST POLLUTED ROADS”

Comment: Of course among the free-range-chicken-eating, hemp-wearing, Naderites at “Consumer Distorts,” the principal component of human breath (Carbon Dioxide) is “pollution.” Thus, the “most polluted” roads are also some of the slowest. While Truth With Speedzzter is all for reducing traffic jams with better high-speed expressway designs, this “most polluted roads” angle seems a tad overblown.

SENATORS DANCE AROUND THE GAS TAX ISSUE

Comment: Those who value our motoring freedoms should love Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK). When the vast majority of Washington politicians seem willing to enrich big government with liberty-killing carbon taxes (under the guise of preventing “climate change”), Senator Inhofe has staunchly stood for a fact-based, common-sense approach to energy policy. Senator Inhofe points out again how “bait and switch” politicians try to hide their true intentions (i.e. taxing our automotive liberties out of existence to placate the liberal green lobby) with semantic shell games and misrepresentations. YOU GO, JIM!

AUTOBLOG GREEN’S GUILT GRAPHIC

[Source: Auto Insurance for Autoblog.com]

Comment: Truth With Speedzzter wonders why those who lament American exceptionalism and our First World standard of living simply don’t move to one of those idyllic places that doesn’t use as much energy per capita, such as . . . say . . . Afghanistan . . . .

WILLIE WIREDHAND, MEET REDDY KILOWATT: LARGEST GROUP OF TESLA ROADSTERS MEET IN NOR CAL

Comment: “And she’ll have fun, fun, fun when Daddy takes the battery charger away . . . .” A bunch of Bay-area computer geeks displaying their Lotus-based Autobahn golf cars next to the chilly Pacific Ocean is hardly the pinnacle of automotive fun.

EARTH DAY 2010: DETROIT

Comment: While some would argue that Detroit was already in trouble on Earth Day 1970, the ensuing four decades have brought it to the brink of ruin. 400 liquor stores and only eight grocery stores . . . acres of abandoned land . . . a city in shambles.

Liberals, see what your imports and your jihad against American-made automobiles has wrought. For a more in-depth look at how Detroit has suffered in the “Ecological Age of Aquarius”, see the Fabulous Ruins of Detroit.

WILLIAM CLAY FORD, JR. EARTH DAY HONOREE

Comment: Sure, Truth With Speedzzter has been unflinchingly hard of “Li’l Billy” at times. He’s to auto execs what the Detroit Lions are to football. Still, Ford’s current ability to capitalize on greeniac madness is attributable, at least in part, to Bill Ford’s dabbling in environmentalism. And on a day when Detroit honestly should have little to celebrate, Bill Ford is being celebrated (by some) as one of Michigan’s “green leaders” (no double entendre intended).

ROUSH-FENWAY GOES GREEN: ACTIVATES SOLAR ELECTRIC PANELS AT CONCORD, NC HANGAR

Comment: Although the Roush-Fenway's solar install probably makes no sense from an economic standpoint, it's probably great public relations. Still, the hard-core auto racing haters won't be happy until the race cars and aircraft are parked and Ol' Jack is worshiping a tree somewhere.