Random thoughts thread

In reply to Duke :

IMO GM has consistently made the best looking factory wheels on the road since the 60’s

Ever think about apples? Seriously. There's 200 kinds. None of them taste the same. Some taste similar. But they all taste like apples. Like...unless you get one of those berkeleyed up ones dipped in grape flavor, they all taste like apples despite not tasting like each other. 

Thought exercise.

Take a V8 engine, roughly 500lb-ish.

Let's say that the rod and piston assemblies weigh 3lb each, so 24lb.  Call it a 3.5" stroke.

Now, let's change the firing order from, say, 18436572, to "yes".  All eight fire at the same time.  The ultimate Big Bang engine.

Just for excrements and exhilations, let's also remove all of the counterweights on the crankshaft, too.

I figure the engine assembly is going to have a vertical shake you could measure with a ruler, and would probably rip apart any engine mounts.  Just all GOK GOK GOK GOK GOK *ded*

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

How do you translate the GOKs into rotational motion to turn a driveshaft? Something like a steam train piston/arm/wheel assembly? If you mounted the engine on its side with the piston tops facing forward you could extend the drive arm to the rear and drive a wheel directly, locomotive style. 

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

wouldn't you have to have seperate crankshafts for each piston? or else a genius crankshaft design

In reply to Dieselboss15 :

At the very least, to make it turn, I think it'd need a crankshaft journal for every rod.  

ultraclyde (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

How do you translate the GOKs into rotational motion to turn a driveshaft? Something like a steam train piston/arm/wheel assembly? If you mounted the engine on its side with the piston tops facing forward you could extend the drive arm to the rear and drive a wheel directly, locomotive style. 

Turn a driveshaft?

Heck no, this is just a silly thought exercise 

It's probably blow the mains out very quickly if it actually ran under load.

Dieselboss15 said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

wouldn't you have to have seperate crankshafts for each piston? or else a genius crankshaft design

90 degree split pins.

Almost all 60 degree V6s have 60-180 degree split pins.

2 crankshafts - one for each bank - counter rotating. When all 8 GOK at one time it pushes down, rotating the camshafts. These are run through a gearset to reverse rotation of one of them and spin the output shaft. Done. 

Also, this has been a very weird and somewhat disturbing day.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Thought exercise.

 

Take a V8 engine, roughly 500lb-ish.

Let's say that the rod and piston assemblies weigh 3lb each, so 24lb.  Call it a 3.5" stroke.

Now, let's change the firing order from, say, 18436572, to "yes".  All eight fire at the same time.  The ultimate Big Bang engine.

Just for excrements and exhilations, let's also remove all of the counterweights on the crankshaft, too.

 

I figure the engine assembly is going to have a vertical shake you could measure with a ruler, and would probably rip apart any engine mounts.  Just all GOK GOK GOK GOK GOK *ded*

Reminds me of the story I read of Ferrari developing some ridiculus 2500cc huge-bore 2-cylinder engine, thinking it was going to set the racing world on its ear. Not sure how true it is, but supposedly ol' Enzo invited the press for the very first startup, planning to really wow them, and pretty much as soon as they started it, it basically rattled itself to pieces from the absurd harmonics.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Thought exercise.

 

Take a V8 engine, roughly 500lb-ish.

Let's say that the rod and piston assemblies weigh 3lb each, so 24lb.  Call it a 3.5" stroke.

Now, let's change the firing order from, say, 18436572, to "yes".  All eight fire at the same time.  The ultimate Big Bang engine.

Just for excrements and exhilations, let's also remove all of the counterweights on the crankshaft, too.

 

I figure the engine assembly is going to have a vertical shake you could measure with a ruler, and would probably rip apart any engine mounts.  Just all GOK GOK GOK GOK GOK *ded*

So you want to gang together 4 Harley V-twin type engines, with everything set on the same TDC. Yes that might shake a little, but the torque impulse would be fantastic. What sort of nightmare started this line of thinking?

In reply to Subscriber-unavailabile :

Just because you can does not mean you should.

This is a character defect if you cant control the impulse to look at your phone.

Internet TV is no different than Youtube or porn

In reply to stafford1500 :

The 50,000RPM Jeep thread.

Idly thinking about something so horrendously out of balance that it would shred itself.

bentwrench said:

In reply to Subscriber-unavailabile :

Just because you can does not mean you should.

This is a character defect if you cant control the impulse to look at your phone.

Internet TV is no different than Youtube or porn

On my favorite news-aggregator website, I made a snide comment about smartphones, something along the lines of "I use a real computer, not some toy"

Some clueless n00b thought he could pwn me by replying something like "get out of your mom's basement"

I responded, QUITE eloquently I might add, that yes. I do leave "the basement".  I get out of my house and do things.  I don't need to have the security-blanket of a smartphone that takes "the basement" with me when I go off and do things.

No response.

Anyway, random thought:  Got to experience a late-model Mitubishi Mirage and it's actually a really nice car.  Istill think pushbutton start is completely stupid and lame,  but meh.

4 Harley engines would power a vintage aircraft just right.  Modern aero engines don't have the torque to swing giant vintage propellers. Tiny props are a dead giveaway you are dealing with modern engines.

Yes, I know a SPAD XIII has a water cooled Hispano-Suiza.

I can finally put this to rest. 
 

The egg came first. Roughly 8:30am. 
The chicken wasn't until 6pm. 

Whatever happened with The Boring Company's Not-A-Flamethrowers? I remember all the hubbub and excitement when they announced the preorder, and I fully expected a bunch of stories of people burning their E36 M3 down with them. But then I never heard anymore or saw any photos or videos of them

So, the escudo pikes peak has recently come back to light due to the spectacular pt cruiser lemons build circling the internet. Everyone knows this car from gran turismo 2. The lesser know but equally badass version of the car that was also included in the game, the cultus pikes peak. I have recently learned that the suzuki cultus from that era is known as none other than the geo metro. This has made so, so many bad ideas start brewing. 

In reply to Mndsm :

The M platform is variously known as the Cultus, Swift, Sprint, Metro, Firefly, Justy, Barina, Forsa, Amenity, Eleny, Esteem and Lingyang

I thought everybody knew that

In reply to Mr. Peabody :

The Swift GTi was a fun little car!  It was, what 100ish horsepower from a twin cam 1.3?

Yates and Bedard had a two page back to back argument over the car in their editorial pages, when it was new.

Mr. Peabody said:

In reply to Mndsm :

The M platform is variously known as the Cultus, Swift, Sprint, Metro, Firefly, Justy, Barina, Forsa, Amenity, Eleny, Esteem and Lingyang

I thought everybody knew that

I did not. I only knew about the swift and the firefly outside of the metro, and only knew about the firefly because of skinnyg 

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

It was a fun little car, and far greater than the sum of it's parts.

The chassis was not good. The motor, despite what people say, was really nothing special, (100HP/70Tq) and the car itself was a true econo box. The GT had a much nicer interior than the rest of them, but most performance minded owners ripped out a lot of it to lighten the car, something that, due to the exceptionally low torque of the G13, (what gave it the illusion of really wanting to rev) made a huge difference.

I had a number of GT's and factory turbo cars, probably two dozen or more. And having said all those bad things about it, If I saw any one of the variants, except a 'vert, for sale in good condition, for a reasonable price, I'd buy it in a second. 

At what price point does the risk of owning a MINI diminish? There have been a few sub-$3k MINIs on my local CL including a 2006 Just-a-Cooper manual for $2400.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Mr. Peabody :

The Swift GTi was a fun little car!  It was, what 100ish horsepower from a twin cam 1.3?

My buddy bought one new and stated it was fun but no aftermarket performance parts available.