Nov issue is rad

I've been reading GRM longer than I can remember. The latest issue is one of the best IMO. 

I liked the camaro article, really liked the air filter flow article, and loved the delta wing article. I've read it twice. 

Great work guys!!!!!

I really miss 90s car craft when they did practical tech, low budget stuff, neat investigative journalism, and practical car guy (but not car) articles. 

You guys did it better than them with this issue. Read it twice already. 

Carl Heideman said:

Thanks for the kind words about the intake story.  I've just started using a flowbench and I love it.  Those of you know me, know I love to measure things.  I've got thousands of dyno pulls on file, a book full of corner weights from lots of cars and parts, chassis dimensions from lots of cars, and now I've got flow bench data to add to my book of weights and measures.

By the way, Tom, Tim and I were at the Runoffs with Steven Cole Smith a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about the Deltawing story at dinner.  Of course there's even more to the story than the story and it was great to hear more from Steven.

Just read that, and it was really good.

But it also highlited one thing that is a constant problem here in the US.  Units.

There was a part in the article pointing out what pressure differential or base pressure was used for the flow, and the pressure was listed as XX inches.  Inches of what?  Given one of the units, it was probably inHg, but the other easily could have been inH2O.   And this is a unique problem in the US, as the rest of the world would use Pa, or more likely kPa- and the base of that unit, there's no question.  I kind of wish magazines would move to SI units and that their readers adopt them, too.  I hate still working with US units at work, as they are still confusingly mixed.

When talking about engineering or science, units matter a whole lot.

It's interesting that it came up in the flow article.  And I'm not faulting the article- it was great.  Just the accidental use of non complete units.  Which was unintentional, I bet.

JG Pasterjak said:

And, yeah, if any of our stories ever get optioned for a feature film, that Deltawing story could do it. I'd see the hell out of that.

 

Would you guys watch the Live show if we could get the Deltawing in the Studio one day?

Um, yes!

Everything about this issue was amazing. I've developed an odd attachment to the ramp truck saga, the Deltawing story was super interesting, the Camaro is artwork. Plus everything else.

I really enjoyed Tim's column this month too. If you guys were going to do a show I vote "Garage Squad" GRM style.

We all submit our project cars GRM shows up with a small budget some tools and a crew of experts then film an episode.

I'm in a funk where I haven't been able to read any magazines lately. Honestly I haven't done more than glance at GRM when they come in the mail since Per left. I've sat down and tried to read this one but just couldn't get into it. Maybe it's because playing with cars is not any way relevant to my life right now. I don't know. Maybe I'll give it another shot this weekend.

alfadriver said:

Carl Heideman said:

Thanks for the kind words about the intake story.  I've just started using a flowbench and I love it.  Those of you know me, know I love to measure things.  I've got thousands of dyno pulls on file, a book full of corner weights from lots of cars and parts, chassis dimensions from lots of cars, and now I've got flow bench data to add to my book of weights and measures.

By the way, Tom, Tim and I were at the Runoffs with Steven Cole Smith a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about the Deltawing story at dinner.  Of course there's even more to the story than the story and it was great to hear more from Steven.

Just read that, and it was really good.

But it also highlited one thing that is a constant problem here in the US.  Units.

There was a part in the article pointing out what pressure differential or base pressure was used for the flow, and the pressure was listed as XX inches.  Inches of what?  Given one of the units, it was probably inHg, but the other easily could have been inH2O.   And this is a unique problem in the US, as the rest of the world would use Pa, or more likely kPa- and the base of that unit, there's no question.  I kind of wish magazines would move to SI units and that their readers adopt them, too.  I hate still working with US units at work, as they are still confusingly mixed.

When talking about engineering or science, units matter a whole lot.

It's interesting that it came up in the flow article.  And I'm not faulting the article- it was great.  Just the accidental use of non complete units.  Which was unintentional, I bet.

Only two kinds of countries in the world: those that use the metric system, and those that have landed on the moon.

In reality though, it's probably important to point out (and I think it was in the article), that with any kind of testing the actual numbers matter less, because they rarely apply to other situations, but the relationship is what is important. And if you are only looking at relationship, units don't matter anymore.

Ie one hp on one car one Dyno very rarely = one hp on a different car different Dyno, but if you just tune for the highest Dyno number (irrelevant whether that is 50 or 2000), then you are on the right path.

In reply to Robbie :

While that may be true, if you are going to put out units, then you can't leave people hanging.  Be complete.  Remember, at that point of the article, the point was to describe different ways of flow testing, where you are looking at a specific delta pressure for the procedure.  And there's a big difference between 1-3 in HG and 1-3 in H2O- both of which are ok to use.   So the units mattered for the proper procedure.

alfadriver asked:  "Inches of what?  Given one of the units, it was probably inHg, but the other easily could have been inH2O. " 

It's inH2O.  You're right that it was an unintentional omission, but  I agree that one word would have made it a better story.  When we're putting these stories together, we're trying to make them informative, technical enough without being boring, and keep the word counts down low enough to fit everything together.  Sometimes a key word or two falls out unfortunately. 

In reply to Carl Heideman :

Interesting that kPa is much shorter than inH2O.  

I wonder if we can start a movement where GRM can lead the technically leaning magazines to start using SI units....  Would be very useful in the long run.

Why do so many articles about the DeltaWing ignore what an abject failure it was to it's ORIGINAL design goals?  It was supposed to compete against LMP1 with half the horsepower and half the fuel use.  In it's original guise, it couldn't outrun the LMPC class cars.  This went on for three years, before they just started throwing bigger and bigger motors in it.