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If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 8:41 am
by Magpie

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 8:53 am
by hks_kansei
At the end of the day a pair of twin throat webers would essentially be no different to quad throttles.

The main difference would be the accuracy of the tune, where injection tends to be easier to get right since it's just punching in numbers.

When tuned right carbs can be just as good (just not as flexible)

Especially for a track car where as long as the tune for high revs/speed/throttle is good, the idle and low speed stuff isn't really a concern.

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 8:59 am
by Magpie
hks_kansei agreed.

I just like that they used aluminium/sheet metal instead of carbon fibre to keep costs down, Simply what can be achieved on a budget. Made me rethink my intentions for WTAC 2016.

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 9:28 am
by StanTheMan
don't all those cars in the US that go around the oval circuits all run on carbs as they can tune them better for high RPM on carbs?

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 9:52 am
by rascal
you can get the same amount of power out of carbs compared to quads. There's almost no difference to peak power outputs.
The difference is that carbs will only be accurate at the time it was tuned, and any change to temp, humidity afterwards would alter the requirements with no way to change it, other than retuning again.
Having an ecu and sensors allows you to adjust fuel/spark on the fly to suit changing conditions, meaning you can always run optimal settings

I previously ran a twin webered car and whist it could make good power, you always had to de-tune it a little to cater for worst case so it didnt hurt itself when conditions weren't perfect.
So you end up giving away some power to protect your engine, as changing jets/tweaking timing before each session on the track isn't much fun.

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 10:20 am
by Magpie
My motorbike has 4 x carbs and yes I agree that the tune is always a compromise.

In the past I spent a lot of time tweaking the carbs on a two stroke bike drag racing in Darwin. But what worked in the morning was different to the afternoon and the evening.

The article is about simplicity and how the owner/driver achieved just that.

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 10:39 am
by slug_dub
This car is just plain cool. I love the aero, I love the colour scheme, I love the design choices for racing. Would love to see some video, but they don't seem to have any on their site.

I don't see why the Speedhunter article even has to mention anything about the builders needing no justification... its like it was written by an emo millennial. :|

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 11:26 am
by hks_kansei
StanTheMan wrote:don't all those cars in the US that go around the oval circuits all run on carbs as they can tune them better for high RPM on carbs?


Used to.

From memory they went to injection sometime within the past couple of years.

Worth noting that the injection setup they use is actually a carb body with injectors in it from memory so they can all utilise the same manifolds etc, just instead of jets and needles they plug in a computer.

Visually though it looks like a carb still.

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 11:42 am
by Lokiel
"His passenger is a little custom-made aluminium fuel cell, which carries just enough gas for a few hot laps around Tsukuba."

- I'm surprised this is legal, even though it's a track-only car surely the risk of rupturing a fuel line, or leaking fuel cell, is too high in the cabin?

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 12:34 pm
by hks_kansei
Lokiel wrote: surprised this is legal, even though it's a track-only car surely the risk of rupturing a fuel line, or leaking fuel cell, is too high in the cabin?


Japanese racecar safety standards are sometimes a bit lax compared to here.

Look at all the cusco cages held into cars with tiny foot plates bolted down, and the cage itself being held together with bolts rather than proper welded joints.

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 12:40 pm
by OurCognitiveSurplus
1:01 is very fast for a n/a car around Tsukba Circuit. Good on him.

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 1:59 pm
by Magpie
Have to try and find a way for work to send me to Japan.

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 5:02 pm
by manga_blue
Nothing beats the sucking, hissing and snarling from webers. That and the instant throttle response that you get from having acceleration pumps.

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 6:38 pm
by madjak
It's a pretty crazy car. He's done heaps of work on it and I think it looks the part.

Half of me wants to go all out with the aero on my car... the other half of me wants to keep it fairly stock. It's hard to find a good compromise between the two and I don't think there really is. Once you start taking the buzzsaw to body panels it's a slippery slide. I took a photo of my car on the weekend without the front splitting and it almost looks factory. Start it up though and you know it's not.

I think whilst I'm only at 200whp there isn't a lot of point in a massive aero package. When I drop on a Rotrex and go for crazy power I'll need Hoosier slicks, which means flared guards and a real big rear wing so that I can get traction. Once there I may as well start chopping the guards behind the tyres, vents into the bonnet for cooling etc. I don't think it would ever be as crazy as this car though and probably target more of a race styling that time attack.

Still, I like it. There are a few nice ideas there.

Re: If he’s happy, who is anyone to criticise?

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 6:43 pm
by StillIC
I am more concerned about the exposed cam belt and cam wheels. The owner has obviously not yet experienced a rock caught between the wheel and belt. The 2.0L SuperTourers covered all their cam wheels and belts after at least one engine was destroyed from a rock getting caught in there.