The Gun Counter

Just some gripes I have with some people who talk and modify some vehicles of theirs who clearly don't know what their doing.

Forum talk:

-Anyone who mentions horsepower per liter as a relevant stat at all
-Anyone who mentions Corvette leaf springs as traditional leaf springs
-Not being able to tell the difference between power from the crank from power to the wheels


Real life modifications:

- Using big alloy wheels or low profile tires without giving it bigger brakes ESPECIALLY on a truck.
- Changing the ride height without purpose (Giving a truck extremely high ride height and never use it off road. *It rarely ever need it anyways*)
- Doing almost anything to a Honda Civic (Globally the problem of many bad modifications below)
- Tuning the exhaust of almost any non turbo 4 cylinder car. It's not a V8 or even a V6, stop wasting your money and no one wants to hear it.
- Insisting on tuning an engine that is FWD well over 200 BHP.
- Giving rear spoilers to FWD cars giving less grip to the wheels that are actually moving the car.
- Putting on gigantic powerful speakers that are loud and sound like crap quality wise
- Aftermarket body kits (Just no)
- Putting badges that don't belong on your car (Like putting ///M3 or ///AMG badges on your car ESPECIALLY when it's not from the same manufacturer. And if you put a hybrid badge on a car that isn't one, I will find you and hunt you down.) The exception being if you made your own interpretation of what a Civic Type R is out of a tuned Civic, or what a Porsche GT3 is out of a 911 Carrera.

I saw a Dodge Ram on the high way with a rear wing on the back. Whats with people and trying to make trucks into sports cars? But it's all cool right?

My pet peeve and source of hilarity are the acne faced teenagers that drive their lowered civics over speed bumps. Cool grating sound effects ensue!

Meh, I don't mind it much. It's along the same obsession as some gun nuts. It is a way to soothe an itch. A catharsis.

bubblewhip wrote:- Using big alloy wheels or low profile tires without giving it bigger brakes ESPECIALLY on a truck.

Except when choosing tires for older vehicles, you can generally only choose from what is available, not what used to be available or what you would like to be available. If I wanted to autocross my MG and be competitive (don't laugh, a fellow MG forum member used to spank stock Miatas with his stock MGA until his race tires were discontinued), I would almost certainly need to get new wheels and go to lower profile/wider tires. Simply because the competition would be on race tires, and they haven't made race tires in my stock size for years. And if I ever have to buy new tires for my pickup truck I will also have to get new rims and tires of a different size, because the tire industry had decreed that the 16.5" rim size is no longer fit to exist.

- Changing the ride height without purpose (Giving a truck extremely high ride height and never use it off road. *It rarely ever need it anyways*)

Again, you can only use parts that are available. I don't need a 2.5" lift for my Jeep, and I certainly had no trouble getting to the same places I go now with the stock suspension. But I DO need to carry a lot of equipment, recovery gear, skidplates, armor, fuel, etc. And all of that crap weighs a LOT. The stock suspension wasn't cutting it anymore and I was bottoming out every time I hit a pothole on the 60 mile, lane and a half dirt road (with occasional protruding railroad ties) that I drive on a regular basis. And as far as I can tell, nobody makes stock height replacement springs of the rate I needed. So, I am running a 2.5" lift with the heaviest springs that Old Man Emu makes in the rear, and they work very well. I did not want or need the additional height (because it can cause other problems), but you do what you have to do.

- Doing almost anything to a Honda Civic (Globally the problem of many bad modifications below)

Because no well-built "cheaper" car, well driven, ever embarrassed a poser driving a more expensive, or powerful car...

- Tuning the exhaust of almost any non turbo 4 cylinder car. It's not a V8 or even a V6, stop wasting your money and no one wants to hear it.

Total bullshit. A four can actually get more relative benefit from a tuned exhaust than a six, because the timing of the exhaust pulses can be used to achieve better extraction.

- Aftermarket body kits (Just no)

There are lots of nice rigs that would no longer exist if nobody made an aftermarket body that can be used to save them.

And if you put a hybrid badge on a car that isn't one, I will find you and hunt you down.

My 10mpg truck is on its fourth engine, second transmission, fourth paint job, and the only original body panel remaining is the hood. It runs a completely different ignition system from stock, along with a lot of intermediate year parts that I had to seek out to make different bits work with each other. If it isn't entitled to wear a hybrid badge, I'm not sure what is. But if you insist on hunting me down, be advised that I am able and willing to arrange for your airfare to Alaska, so you can attempt to carry out whatever it is you are implying. Please do not be offended when the ticket that arrives is only good for one-way travel.

I saw a Dodge Ram on the high way with a rear wing on the back. Whats with people and trying to make trucks into sports cars? But it's all cool right?

Maybe he wants it that way, or maybe it's a fairing to direct airflow over his trailer. Who cares? It isn't like you have to drive it. And besides, my Jeep has embarrassed more than a few "sports" cars that tried to get frisky at the stoplight. They usually overtake me after a ways, but with 3.73 gears, 10.5" wide tires, and limited slip in both axles, six months out of the year they are my bitch off the line.

I realize what I posted is too general and broad stroking in order to make passing judgements on people 100%, but I feel like any of the above modifications only a very few amount of people are using it properly.

I do know there are FWD hot hatch backs and race cars that utilize a rear spoiler, but I believe what I specifically meant is the use of a rear spoiler without a front splitter or front downforce to go with it. Downforce is important, but you want downforce on the proper wheels which is the front for an FWD car. You can over do it, and cause the rear wheels to loose grip or the balance gets all out of wack in cornering and that's when you use a rear wing to compensate for that and give the whole car more overall downforce. But you still want the front of the car to increase in weight under high speed straights and corners.

I somehow doubt the vast majority of wing users understand what it does.

What I said about low profiles specifically was wrong. You can't increase brake size when the size of your wheel is the same. I guess I meant it more for a looks sort of thing, I personally think it looks stupid to extenuate your alloy wheels while having tiny drum brakes inside of them. And like Chris said about trucks, it's just plain stupid to have low profiles on a truck.

Lows and big wheels do increase sidewall stiffness for better handling and responsiveness but I believe there are several things to upgrade WELL before thinking about low profiles such as brakes, suspension settings, and above all proper sport tires.

As for BHP/Liter stat, yes for stuff like GT racing it's a rule you have to abide by, but people throwing around that a car does 100 bhp per liter isn't really helpful. I don't even know why racing has limits on engine liters and then decide to ban stuff that actually proves it's irrelevance like the rotary engine.

Can I add my peeve about the Civics with fart cans that make them sound like over-grown mosquitoes?

Well, among other things, HP/cu.in, is a form of bragging rights for an engineer. And, as I recall*, its one of those areas where there is a determinable, physical limit on what can be developed, so its a means of bragging about how close to ideal your motor is running.

*Its been "awhile" since thermodynamics in engineering.

bubblewhip wrote:I realize what I posted is too general and broad stroking in order to make passing judgements on people 100%, but I feel like any of the above modifications only a very few amount of people are using it properly....I somehow doubt the vast majority of wing users understand what it does.

I understand where you are coming from in regard to the wings and body kits. The VAST majority of imports driving down the road are doing it for looks and nothing more. The "body kits" most are using do nothing for aerodynamics(some are far worse, not to mention the weight gain) or down force, as are the majority of "big wing" kits. Those people are ricers and will never learn. There is a huge difference between ricer crap and a tuner car. Most ricers think they are tuners but regularly get beat by stock versions of their car.

bubblewhip wrote:What I said about low profiles...it's just plain stupid to have low profiles on a truck.

It depends on your definition of low profiles. You can get 35" tires for a 20" rim that have an aggressive tread pattern. If you are referring to the "high performance" low profile street tires on 22's, I agree with you. But there are a whole lot of people whose 4X4-SUV will never see dirt. The low profile "off-road" tires however still allow use of the off road capabilities while improving street handling Ever drive a truck on bigger than 35x12.50x15's? they wander quite a bit. That same truck on 35x?x20's will track much straighter and corner better due to less sidewall flex. Are they optimum for hard-core off-road use? No, you want tires you can air down and flex the sidewalls on for that. But if you need the ground clearance and use your truck to tow a heavy trailer they are great(up to a point, lower profile tires provide a higher load rating).

bubblewhip wrote:Lows and big wheels do increase sidewall stiffness for better handling and responsiveness but I believe there are several things to upgrade WELL before thinking about low profiles such as brakes, suspension settings, and above all proper sport tires.

First of all, almost no one thinks about the brakes until they come close to crashing. I'm not talking about those that build real performance cars/truck, but the average "hot-rodder". Go to an autocross event and you will see plenty of upgraded brakes. You are less likely to see them on the street, as people who build cars for such use rarely drive them on the street except maybe once in a blue moon. Serious use cars tend to ride badly. While you can turn a shifter cart on a dime, the very stiff(non existent) suspension would make you pee blood if it was your daily commuter. The same goes for serious drag cars. Things have improved greatly over the years with the introduction of "drag" radials and better suspension design, but drag cars really only do one thing well. They go straight really really quickly. They tend not to turn so well, making them tiresome to drive on the street(needing to pre-plan every turn and lane change).

bubblewhip wrote:As for BHP/Liter stat, yes for stuff like GT racing it's a rule you have to abide by, but people throwing around that a car does 100 bhp per liter isn't really helpful. I don't even know why racing has limits on engine liters and then decide to ban stuff that actually proves it's irrelevance like the rotary engine.

100hp/liter is old news. It was a big deal when the S2000 was introduced as there were very few cars that could do it, let alone at a reasonable price. Where hp/liter does come into play is weight. A 2.0 making 200hp is(generally) going to weigh far less than a V6 of the same output. The new Scion FR-S makes 200hp out of a 2.0 boxer 4. That rivals the output of a mid 80's 911 carrera(a 3.2liter H6). Reducing the weight of the engine, while maintaining the power output allows for better weight distribution, and that is one of the biggest places to gain cornering performance. If you remember, the lowly Porsche 944 was dubbed the best handling car they had built up to that time. The reason was the almost perfect 50/50 weight bias due to a front mounted(lightweight) engine and rear mounted transaxle.

As to the rotary proving the "irrelevance" of HP/liter, not quite. The rotary in naturally aspirated trim is not all that special. It just has a very high redline. The old 12A's were a joke and the 13B needed to be put in a very light car. That is why most N/A 13B's you will see are in Starlets and old Corollas. They need lots RPM and the gearing to keep them there. Up the weight of the car and the lack of torque becomes readily apparent. It would be like putting a Hayabusa engine in an S10. The non-vortec 4.3 put out less HP but the 'Busa engine would die trying to move the truck(although they are fun in the Smart car). The Subaru boxers however(even in N/A trim) are quite popular swaps for VW buses.

I used to Rally Race a '78 and a '79 Honda Civic. It was a ton of fun and went like thunder.

CombatController wrote:I used to Rally Race a '78 and a '79 Honda Civic. It was a ton of fun and went like thunder.

Aha. That explains a great deal about your driving!