USAF gas bill

[Weta43]

Pilotasso pretty much summed it up - after the war Europe & America both wanted improved performance (& ride).

The Europeans threw technology at smaller motors & Detroit threw cubic inches at the problem.

(Europeans expect a car they can throw round corners, Detroit built coaches for cruising interstates)

Here in NZ we traditionaly drove cars built by Ford & GM - till the era of impalas & galaxys, then locally designed cars in a similar vein.

Many of us drive 30 miles to work (at least people in the suburbs around Wellington & Auckland do) and it's part of the culture to get in the car at any excuse, drive for a day or so & for a trip.

 

My first car was a local mid sized GM produce that I put a small block chev into when my mate put a bigblock in his old impala.

Guzzled petrol

Now I own a mitsubishi - I've put a couple of hundred thousand k's on the clock, but it still runs great, handles better, goes almost as well - will cruise all day at 75mph and gets 50% better mpg.

I'm old enough to remember when Japanes cars started to replace US / European cars on the roads here (Japan also drives on the left & has a licensing system that forces cars off the road at a couple of years old so when the government removed protections for the local car assemblers container loads of cheap 3 year old Japanese cars started pouring into the country). Everyone scoffed with pretty much the same attitude displayed above - toy cars that won't stand up to the hard driving & driving conditions in NZ. But they do. They go till they're falling apart with rust, & they're hugely reliable mechanically

There's nothing to stop the US from still having cars that fit their idea of luxury (though those huge SUV's are just an obscenity on wheels), but they could do it with smarts not cubic inches.

There's no excuse for GM & Ford to still be pushing out big block pushrod V8's. It's 60's technology - from an era when - again as Pilotasso said - Gas consumption was seen as good for the economy ( & cigarettes were sold as cures for respiratory ailments)

 

Time to move from "bigger is better" to "smarter is better"

[bflagg]

Pilotasso...

 

no worries.. just arguing because I can.(:argue:) ....sorry if I came a bit "off".....

 

 

Weta... my grandson sees these POS 4 cylinder cars his eyes just widen and think they are cool..

But get your butt in 8bangin 350 (any remember 454?) and step on the gas from a stop.

 

Nothing beats that raw H.P. feeling...... :shocking:

 

So now America due to economics is being switched to 4/6 cylinder 89-180hp POS and it's being marketed as the cool thing to have...

 

I really miss that "loving feeling" ....

 

 

Which reminds me of a amusing little piece..

 

I remember having a piece of junk Cadallic Seville (a '74 i think - 10cyl). Back in 1983,

I was on my way to vegas from LA when 3 cylinders died while I'm in the middle of the desert.

It didn't even faze that engine.

But I do vividly remember getting to my destination .. taking out the key...and the car kept running

for 15 minutes...chugga...chugga...chugga... bang!...phszzt...chugga... chugga bang (repeat for 15min)!!

 

I got in it 2 days later (didn't do a thing to it ) and drove back to LA. .. guess what happened

when I got home in LA..... you guessed it..

chugga...chugga...chugga... bang!...phszzt...chugga... chugga bang!!

NOW it blew a head gasket.....

 

try that with some wussie ( :baby: ) 4 banger!!!

[Weta43]

I love V8's - but the reality is:

I had a friend who had a car he used place in shows with - 350 chev smallblock squeezed into a ford Zephyr. I remember him coming in to work all pissed off 'cause he'd just sat at the lights with a porche & tried to drag him off. He said for about the first 10 meters they kept pretty even, then the porche just drove away......

2.7 litres of turbocharged german engineering kicks 5.4 litres of detroit heavy metal's ass (forged pistons, tunnel ram & all) :-) & did it using less petrol.

 

We've have a class of saloon car racing between Australia & here for about 15 years. V8's, ford versus GM. They've got to be homologueised (sp? be released road cars) & they have traditionally been 300 and 350 cubic inches.

Holden (GM subsidiary) took a car to the European touring car circuit & kicked ass maybe 7 years ago (TOCA (?) handicapped them out of the running. GM USA is presently importing the same Monaros from Aus to the states as a performance option sold badged as Chevs - they're not bad cars for V8s).

A few years ago Nissan entered some dinky little 4 wheel drive turbo charged 6 cylinder thing & left them all for dead (partially because in our races - like in Europe - and like on our roads! - we have corners, which means pure torque & raw HP don't cut it). After 2 years they changed the rules to only allow V8s, which are the only circumstances they can dominate in.

It's the same with American motor racing - Funny cars, nascar, even open wheelers (CART ?) put a big motor in & either go in a straight line or round & round a banked oval.

European (F1) - small engine putting out huge specific power ( huge power for that matter) insane grip, amazing brakes..

 

(That said - I actually get what you mean about putting your foot down in a V8, but all round, considering how often you get to do that (?) & the crap handling, and the cost in petrol & pollution of a V8 make the (slightly) lessened acceleration rush and better handling of a mid sized turbo a better thing all round.)

[Pilotasso]

European (F1) - small engine putting out huge specific power ( huge power for that matter) insane grip, amazing brakes..

 

Just a note here. F1 engines are undersized for their power and after each race the engine is trashed. The likes of the RPM's and shear HP power gives them massive wear. Sometimes they dont even last the whole race. Ferrari had always had the worst problems here for example.

[bflagg]

I love V8's - but the reality is:

I had a friend who had a car he used place in shows with - 350 chev smallblock squeezed into a ford Zephyr. I remember him coming in to work all pissed off 'cause he'd just sat at the lights with a porche & tried to drag him off. He said for about the first 10 meters they kept pretty even, then the porche just drove away......

 

Apples and oranges.. the porches are designed for this type of acceleration.

Not only that..different weight class. And technology for those year types will be different.

 

The thing that catches my eye.. he put in a chevy engine in a ford?

Now that's funny..

In all my years.. I've never seen that... leave it to a aussie to mixbreed polar opposites.

[169th_Crusty]

The thing that catches my eye.. he put in a chevy engine in a ford?

Now that's funny..

 

That is funny... Now, all this efficiency/common sense/future of the

planet stuff... is nice... to talk about. For a simple knuckle-dragger

that likes to go off-road once in a while and happens to know someone

that owns a Hummer (H2) just for that purpose and when I and few other

friends do go off-road, we usually take a nice .50 Barret with us (jk):lol:

Yes, I`m one of those that refuse to "grow up" and when kids

like me get hold of some cash!:D :thumbup: ...

When the time comes... I`ll be happy to drive an anti-matter fuelled Hummer,

if I`m still around... and there`s any cash left:noexpression:

[Weta43]

bflagg - apples and oranges was my point.

If you want to go fast, use more technology, not more petrol ...

It's a whole approach to car design.

Why take the 4000 lb big block doing 18mpg approach at all when 2000lb turbocharged 6 will get you a better result & maybe 30mpg

Which will actually get you from A to B quicker - a new Mustang or a new Mitsy Evo ? & how much gas will they use ?

 

(yes, formula 1 engines have a life expectancy of 1 - 2 races, but then again so do top drag car engines - & they tend to hemorage after about 3 seconds...)

 

Oh yeah - Not only was there a chev motor into a ford, the original owner had put Holden (GM) suspension & the front & rear light sets off a Holden Premier (Holden being GM's local design wing). It was a nice car (we were both doing our Fitting, Turning and Machining apprenticeships at the GM plant in Trentham, so the choice of Chev parts was a no brainer). When he sold it he bought a VW that someone had fitted a big block into - less the engine & trany, & put a 350 chev into that. It was a bit of a thing then - I had a mechanic mate put a 327 & a 2 stage auto into his Viva (anybody remember them ?). Every so often he'd take it (drag) racing.

Hooning around in V8's - lots of fun - like doing donuts on a football field - lots of fun for the driver, not so much for everybody else in the world.

 

Crusty - If you want to go off road you've got to have the gear & if you chose a hummer - great. Makes perfect sense to me. I have a friend who runs an off road tour company around the coast here & he'd look a bit sick doing it in my Legnum :-)

Buying an original version Hummer to commute 30 miles a day on a motorway at 15 mpg, where the biggest bump it will ever go over is the divider between carparks at the supermarket - that doesn't make any sense.

[ALDEGA]

Every foreign car, vw, bmw, saab, renault I have owned here just can't hold up to the continuous straight high speed highways we have here.

You're right, you don't have corners in the USA. ;D

 

Btw, don't forget that certain VW's that are sold in the USA were not made in Germany (or other western European country), but rather a South American country, like Brasil. This shows in the quality.

 

The cars produced in Germany (and Western European countries) by brands like VW Group (incl. Audi), BMW, Mercedes are of excellent quality. They may not be the cheapest, but they are decent.

 

"high speed highways" - what with 55 mph(~ 90 km/h) speed limits? :) . I don't know Brett but even in my little micro-country we have motorways criss-crossing the country with speed limit of 120 km/h(75 mph).....which BTW is (grossly)exceeded by most people driving on them :D. I believe Germany still has autobahn stretches without any limits at all :)

120 km/h is a normal highway speed for most European countries, which isn't extremely fast. 60 MPH (~100 km/h) is like standing still ;)

 

In Belgium, when a speed sign says 120 km/h, it actually means about 130 km/h, or 140 km/h ... it depends on the situation and the presence of (mobile) speed cameras, cops ... :D

[Weta43]

From the NYTimes today:

"Finally Feeling the Heat

By GREGG EASTERBROOK

Washington

 

...

Yes: the science has changed from ambiguous to near-unanimous. As an environmental commentator, I have a long record of opposing alarmism. But based on the data I'm now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to convert.

 

Once global-warming science was too uncertain to form the basis of policy decisions — and this was hardly just the contention of oil executives. "There is no evidence yet" of dangerous climate change, a National Academy of Sciences report said in 1991. A 1992 survey of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society found that only 17 percent of members believed there was sufficient grounds to declare an artificial greenhouse effect in progress. In 1993 Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, said there existed "a great range of uncertainty" regarding whether the world is warming. Clearly, the question called for more research.

 

That research is now in, and it shows a strong scientific consensus that an artificially warming world is a real phenomenon posing real danger:

 

The American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society in 2003 both declared that signs of global warming had become compelling.

 

In 2004 the American Association for the Advancement of Science said that there was no longer any "substantive disagreement in the scientific community" that artificial global warming is happening.

 

In 2005, the National Academy of Sciences joined the science academies of Britain, China, Germany, Japan and other nations in a joint statement saying, "There is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring."

 

This year Mr. Karl of the climatic data center said research now supports "a substantial human impact on global temperature increases."

 

And this month the Climate Change Science Program, the Bush administration's coordinating agency for global-warming research, declared it had found "clear evidence of human influences on the climate system."

 

Case closed. Earth's surface, atmosphere and seas are warming; ocean currents are slowing; ice shelves are melting faster than projected; spring is coming ever sooner; rainfall patterns are changing; North American migratory birds are ranging father north; the ability of the earth to self-regulate to resist warming appears to be waning. While natural variation may play roles in climatic trends, overwhelming evidence points to the accumulation of greenhouse gases, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, as the key.

 

Many greenhouse uncertainties remain, including whether rising temperatures would necessarily be bad. A warming world might moderate global energy demand: the rise in temperature so far has mostly expressed itself as milder winters, not hotter summers. Warming might open vast areas of Alaska, Canada and Russia to development. My hometown of Buffalo might become a vacation paradise. (Buffalo lakefront real estate is cheap. Here's a tip: buy some now.)

 

But it seems likely any global-warming benefits will be offset by unwanted trends. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that in the coming century, sea levels may rise by as much as three feet. Tropical storms may continue to increase in number and fury. Diseases now confined to equatorial regions may spread father north and south.

 

The greatest worry is that climate change will harm the agricultural system on which civilization is based. Suppose climate change shifted precipitation away from breadbasket regions, sending rain clouds instead to the world's deserts. Over generations, society would adjust — but years of global food shortages might occur during the adjustment, likely causing chaos in poor countries and armies of desperate refugees at the borders of wealthy nations.

 

Scientific substantiation of a warming world is not necessarily reason for gloom. Greenhouse gases are an air pollution problem, and all air pollution problems of the past have cost significantly less to fix than critics projected, and the solutions have worked faster than expected.

 

During the 1960's, smog in America was increasing at a worrisome rate; predictions were that smog controls would render cars exorbitantly expensive. Congress imposed smog regulations, and an outpouring of technical advances followed. Smog emissions in the United States have declined by almost half since 1970, and the technology that accomplishes this costs perhaps $100 per car.

 

Similarly, two decades ago a "new Silent Spring" was said to loom from acid rain. In 1991, Congress created a profit incentive to reduce acid rain: a system of tradable credits that rewards companies that make the fastest reductions. Since 1991 acid rain emissions have declined 36 percent, and the cost has been only 10 percent of what industry originally forecast.

 

Today no one can make money by reducing greenhouse gases, so emissions rise unchecked. But a system of tradable greenhouse permits, similar to those for acid rain, would create a profit incentive. Engineers and entrepreneurs would turn to the problem. Someone might even invent something cheap that would spread to the poorer countries, preventing reductions here from being swamped elsewhere. Unlikely? Right now reformulated gasoline and the low-cost catalytic converter, invented here to contain smog, are becoming common in developing nations.

 

President Bush was right to withdraw the United States from the cumbersome Kyoto greenhouse treaty, which even most signatories are ignoring. But Mr. Bush should speak to history by proposing a binding greenhouse-credit trading system within the United States. Waiting for science no longer justifies delay, as results are now in."