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AutoNotes #10, 12/03/93 copr. 1993, Dave Williams
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Ford says it'll kill off the 302, otherwise known as the 5.0 V8, in
1995. After that the modular SOHC and DOHC V8s will go into everything.
Hmm. Much as I like overhead cams and aluminum, I suspect Ford may
keep the 5.0 around a little longer. Despite being made out of
aluminum, the SOHC motor is heavier than the 5.0 and *much* larger.
It's also considerably more expensive to build and (now, at least)
the SOHC doesn't give a realistic performance advantage. As far as
smog, there's nothing about the SOHC engine's combustion chamber that
can't be duplicated by a few minor changes in the 5.0. Other than
induction and a couple of minor head variations, the 5.0 is the same
motor as the original 1968 302, which was just a stroked 1965 289,
which was just a bored 1962 260, which was just a bored 1960 221.
Compare that to the substantial '86 and '92 small block Chevy
makeovers.
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Renault and Volvo are merging. Sounds like a weird choice of
bedfellows, but their model lineups and market shares are considerably
different in Europe from what they are here in the USA.
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The new SAAB 900s are using an electric heater blade in the intake
tract to keep fuel vaporized on cold starts. The heater shuts off
after the engine is running, but the blade still obstructs airflow.
SAAB says they're compensating by upping the turbo boost. Frankly, it
looks like they should've spent some more time playing with the fuel
injector spray patterns.
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Digging through my old pile of magazines, I found a brief article in
the January 1970 issue of Popular Science. It talked about the new
Mangusta Mark II, which was to replace the Shelby Mustangs. The
Mangusta was Ford's (well, DeTomaso's) answer to the dreaded mid-engine
Corvette. The Mark II was originally to receive the BOSS 302 motor.
What finally shipped, of course, was the Pantera. By that time the
BOSS 302 was out of production, so Panteras came with 351C engines.
Not 351 BOSS, or HO, or even CJs, just plain old 351Cs. When Ford
USA stopped making the 351C, DeTomaso used Australian motors.
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Didya ever wonder where the rubber on your tires goes when they wear
out? More than a billion pounds of rubber per year gets used up. 1 to
20 percent leaves the tire as a gas, 80 to 99 percent are particulates
left on the road. Most of the loss is from simple abrasion, but a GM
study says up to 40 percent can be from the tire's rubber actually
decomposing in use. The particulates get washed to the roadside and
either break down in ultraviolet or are eaten by microorganisms.
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Well, air bags may be useful after all. Automotive Industries
Magazine reports traffic violators have taken to backing up into
police cars to set off the police cars' airbags. This tactic
originated on the West Coast is is likely to spread. Most PDs
consider a car to be officially out of commission after a bag
deployment, as if the officers could pursue with a lapful of air bag
anyway.
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The Chrysler/Lamborghini Formula 1 V12s experimented with pistons
".0001 under zero" clearance - that is, the pistons were an
interference fit in the bore. Patches of graphite bearing material
were sunk into the sides to prevent scoring. Chrysler engineers
tightened the fit to keep the piston from rocking in its bore after
they'd trimmed the skirts off for lightness. I presume they were also
able to reduce ring tension and get better thermal transfer from the
piston to the bore. Chrysler says the technology could show up in
production engines by 1995, but I think it'd be a cold day in hell.
You can get away with a lot of things in a race motor you can't get
away with on the street, and the problems of scuffing and temperature
distortion are likely to be interesting.
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Patent Pending: Delco is so impressed with the arrangement of the
tuner and volume control knobs on their new radios, they're actually
filing for a patent. It's not patentable, of course, but that fact
hasn't kept the US Patent Office from granting similarly invalid
patents on software. The Patent Office is evidently where the real
bureaucratic losers go.
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Stranger than fiction: my buddy Jay races a '90 Corvette. He also
likes RC cars. His driving style with both vehicles involves being
sideways most of the time. Since it's a little harder to recover from
a spin on the RC car, he added a gyro coupled to the steering servo
that automatically countersteers when the little car gets sideways.
From time to time he's commented it'd be handy on the Corvette too.
Bosch has been experimenting with "yaw control" on their ABS/traction control modules. By adding a gyro and steering angle sensor, the brakes can be used to minimize a spin. GM has been playing with prototypes. The test vehicle? The Corvette, of course.
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Chrysler is considering building their new PL in one form - loaded.
Their own studies, and one from Ford, show it's cheaper to build a car
loaded and sell it at the base price than it is to build several dozen
different options available separately. Ford's study was done on
the Escort, and ignored, as Ford has a lot of money and propaganda on
tied up in their "flexible assembly" lines, where they can crank out a
Mustang, a Thunderbird, and a Vicky on the same line, each car
completely different from the rest. A triumph of logistics and
assembly engineering, but expensive. The media are buzzing about this
"new" information that building one model can be cheaper, but Honda
was quite vocal about it... fifteen years ago.
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Pretty soon now you'll start hearing about the all-new five speed in
the smaller GM trucks. It's made by New Venture Gears, a GM-Chrysler
joint venture. Don't get too excited. The NV1500 box is basically
equivalent to the Borg/Warner T5, with a standard 190 ft-lb version
and a heavy duty 235 ft-lb version.
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