| Discussing the finer points of automobiles | Thursday, 7 December 2023 - 4:58 |
There is a number of cars throughout history that seem so strange or bizarre that I honestly cant believe they reached production – let alone what they were thinking when they designed them. There is a few exceptions, but virtually all of them came from GM. Lets take a look at these unusual cars and appreciate the risk and brazenness that had to take place for these cars to hit the assembling lines.
Recently at a Cafe, a young couple sitting next to me were taking about turbos (what are the odds!). Thinking that this conversation was right up my alley, I got talking with them and they asked me a question that caught me off guard: why are there no naturally aspirated diesel engines?
Its that time again, when my tiers are worn out and they need to be replaced. This time around, I thought I’d try some cheaper tires because I simply drive my car to and from work and really don’t need anything special. I stumbled upon a number of cheap brands and most of those had really bad reputations. But then I found these MuchoMacho tires under the brand Cosmo.
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I have always wanted a turbo engine. Now that my engine is at the end of its life I now have the opportunity to build one from the ground up. This gets into a whole mess of other issues that connect back to my earlier post about the limitations of the Gen 1 Chevy Small block, but forget about that for now, instead, lets explore the nature of turbos and why some turbos might not work for a given engine.
The SCCA and other sanctioning bodies typically have a rule that separates race tires from street tires for classing purposes. Currently, a treadwear rating of 200 is what this rule is based on. Any tire that is equal to or greater than 200 is considered a street tire, while everything below is a race tire. But there is a problem with this; the treadwear rating number, also known as UTQG (Uniform Tire Quality Grading) is arbitrary and means absolutely nothing.
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