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AutoNotes #6, 11/01/92 copr. 1992, Dave Williams
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BIX: 'dave2' CIS: 72571,3542 [email protected]
The Courts of Chaos BBS, (501)985-0059
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Remember electric power steering? Back six or seven years ago GM
was going bananas over electric steering and brakes. The units were
going to be lighter, cheaper, and more compact than standard hydraulic
power steering or HydroBoost power brakes. An electric unit was slated
for the defunct Fiero, but I'm not sure if it was ever shipped or not.
A mid-engined car, the Fiero needed power steering about as much as it
needed a forklift attachment, but, hey, how can you sell a car without
power steering? Anyway, Ford, Chrysler and (get this) Honda are
talking with TRW about electric power steering.
Rumor has it Oldsmobile is to get a new Rocket V8, based on Cadillac's Northstar DOHC unit. The Rocket will use Northstar tooling, but will be effectively a different engine, much like the variants of the basic Buick 215 V8 thirty years ago.
The movie TimeRider was about a high tech Silicon Valley dirt biker who got thrown back into the 1800s. Other than a Then-Came-Bronson style fuel tank that never ran dry, one of the few interesting parts of the show was the exotic heads-up display in the guy's crash helmet. All done with special defects, of course.
Now a British company is providing the Lotus Formula 1 team with HUD units showing RPM and other data. The unit appears to work much like the "Private Eye" headband displays you sometimes see. A simple, logical arrangement. The developer? A company called Frazer-Nash. I kid you not.
Springing ahead to 1995, the next incarnation of the Jeep Wrangler is supposed to get coil over shocks to replace its leaf spring setup.
Ford's Taurus SHO used Yamaha-designed cylinder heads. A new variant of the Villager is to use Nissan's 190hp V6. Ford basically doesn't have a good V6 of its own - the 2.9 dates back to the 1950s, when it was designed as a V4 for a Ford light car project that never made it. The 3.8 never has been worth much. Oddly, Ford has never tried sawing a couple of cylinders off the 302 or 4.6 SOHC motors.
Walker Manufacturing (the muffler people) have "invented" a double wall exhaust pipe that insulates the engine compartment from excess heat and the necessity for heat shields, allows faster convertor light-off, etc. Amazing. Motorcycles have been doing that for twenty years, mainly so the chrome on the outer pipe doesn't turn blue from the heat.
'93 Callaway Corvette buyers will be able to take an option to eliminate the spare and jack and fit the car with Bridgestone run-flat tires. Cost estimated to be around $5000. Since the Corvette spare goes up underneath like a pickup truck you wouldn't gain any space, and I would have guessed a Callaway owner would be more concerned with the hot tire of the month than run-flat. BTW, the Bridgestones use a proprietary rim design similar to the old TRX - that's right, if you have a flat, the shop will have to airfreight a tire in for you.
During the 1960s, Mazda licensed the rotary engine from Felix Wankel. At this time rotaries had severe problems in all areas - fabrication, durability, oil sealing, power, economy. Mazda appointed engineer Kenichi Yamamoto to the task of making the rotary practical. Though NSU beat them into production by several years, Mazda still makes rotary powered cars. NSU doesn't.
Now Yamamoto is chairman of Mazda, but a career spent developing the Wankel makes him *the* foremost authority on rotary engines. And he's saying the developments for lubrication-free seals and other technologies Mazda invented specifically for the rotary give the engines a serious edge in durability and power over conventional piston engines when the engines are run on hydrogen. I don't doubt it a bit. However, I think the debut of a hydrogen-powered vehicle at your corner Mazda dealer is rather unlikely.
In the movie Cannonball Run, a Japanese rally team used an infrared system to drive without normal headlights. Now GM is spending wads of money to develop similar infrared night vision systems. Why? Nobody seems to be exactly sure.
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Ford of Great Britain, the largest carmaker in England, is in deep bleep.
Sales have dropped so low Ford's plants are only working three days per
week. Now Ford is talking about shutting down entirely.
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Mercury Marine boat motors are Chevrolet, not Mercury. They also built.
the Corvette ZR-1 four-cam motors. OMC uses Ford engines. Chrysler Marine
uses Chrysler engines.
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