Search results

So he knew the steering wheel was "wobbly", he even showed you, but he did nothing about it, then was surprised when it fell off in the middle of a corner. Right.

OK, ignoring the actual numbers, what was damn good about that torque curve was the way it jumped at about 3000 rpm. You'd normally expect a steadier increase in torque, not a huge jump then a fairly flat peak. Getting nearly 130 lb ft of torque at 3000 rpm on an engine that peaked at 150 lb ft...

Having just looked at the Clio Sport's gearbox ratios I'd suggest that there's so big a gap between first and second that you might actually get best acceleration by letting first gear go all the way to the rev limiter. If you don't when you change into 2nd the engine's actually below the point...

The more power your engine is producing the faster it can accelerate. The power curve - how much power through the rev range - is like a hill. The closer you can keep the engine to the revs at which the hill's peak occurs at the faster you can accelerate. So on a car where the peak is at 6,000...

1680x1050 Widescreen is better. The only thing you buy 4:3 for these days is word processing.

What width are the new wheels? It'll be on them somewhere. Something like 7JJ16ET45. The width is the first number. But if they're 16" diameter wheels, and they've already got 195/45x16s on them its almost certain 205/45s aill fit.

I have a similar project planned for some future hypothetical time when my finances are better. Back in the 80s Suzuki sold a tiny little front-wheel drive utility in this country as the Mighty Boy. They only weight just over half a tonne, and a couple of people have done electric conversions...

I had this problem when the car got to about two years old that when it was cold and only when it was cold it never starting on the first try, but always on the second. I complained to the dealer when it was being serviced. They said they fixed it by replacing the TDC sensor. That surprised me...

In case anyone who doesn't know what it is is wondering why its called "fly by wire", its that it came from the aircraft industry. Planes used to have direct linkages between the cockpit controls and the control surfaces on the wings and the tail. Then they moved to hydraulics, like hydraulic...

The technical advantage of fly-by-wire is that it allows traction control by simply reducing the throttle opening from what you right foot is asking for. That's healthier for the engine and the emissions than the alternative of killing the ignition or cutting the fueling. And it makes cruise...

I was going to say that. That's more to my local Dyno Dynamics said my 172 produced. I then when down the road to the drag track and did a 15.0 on the first run without even trying to figure out how to launch right or change at the right revs, showing there's nothing wrong with the engine in...

Turn on the ignition with the button on the end of the wand pressed, and cycle through until it tells you how much fuel you've got left. That's one reading that you can rely on to be accurate. Figure out from that how many miles you can safely go before you run out.

So has anyone in the Renault tuning business thought about how they could use the vvt hardware that's on the engine to get more horsepower?

The ECU does NOT detect higher octane fuel and adjust to take advantage of it. It detects lower octane fuel and adjusts to prevent detonation. So there's a programmed-in maximum octane level beyond which you get no further advantage. In racing that maximum would be set very high so you could...

It not unusual in the tyre business to have tyres of the same brand, type and size made in different countries to quite different specifications. There's usually a way to tell them apart, but you have to be in the know to even know that you need to be able to.

So, take your pick, they're either soft and sticky and generally fantastic other than that they wear out really quickly, or they're hard, have no grip and last forever.

Ask yourself why a seller would tell you about the "wobble". He'd only be telling you because its serious enough that you'll notice and he can then say "I told you about that and you bought them anyway". For an alloy wheel to have either enough run out or enough out of roundness for it to be...

Mine's a Mk2 Ph2 172, which got delivered in this country (Australia) with 15x7 wheels and 195/50 tyres. Does anyone know how much smaller diameter wheels will physically fit? I'm asking for track day use where smaller rolling diameter tyres would be better. They'd lower the car and lower...

The lack of precision was why when other Mk2 Clios got electric power assistance on their steering the 172 and 182 kept hydraulic power assistance. Electric power assistance is getting better, but you clearly feel it hasn't got there yet. They can't fix the gear ratios, because of the...

The spring rate won't change, but the springs will settle, meaning the car will ride lower.

In psychology its called the fundamental attribution error. When other people screw up we attribute it to their personal shortcomings, but when we screw up we blame in on factors outside our control. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

The RX8 (211 Nm) has about 5% more torque than the 172 (200 Nm), but its also got about 25% more weight (1340-1360 Kg) for that torque to drag around. So he's going to be disappointed in that department. And in outright acceleration its a matter of whether its a manual (170 Kw) or an automatic...

Measured on bathroom scales, ie to nearest 0.5 kgs. Wheel plus tyre = 16 Kgs ....... spare Wheel = 8 Kgs ..................... I have one I damaged Therefore Tyre = 8 Kgs.

I would have thought you could recover them by taking the surface layer off somehow and starting again. Pulling them out and putting them in a milling machine would sort them out real quick. I'm not sure how many weeks of easy driving it'd take though. Probably easier to get another set.

Edde, how about this for an alternative: convert your Clio Sport to natural gas. We have a company here that's trying to get a natural gas (or LPG) power setup onto the market. It feeds the signal from the car's ECU to its petrol injectors to a computer that converts it to the right size and...

OK, if yours was driven for 25 minutes to the shop then scrap that theory. Five minutes idling on a cold engine isn't enough, but it should be after a 25 minute drive. The dyno shop I took mine to was only 200 meters down the road. I've still got the Superchip in the car (I think). I was never...

About two years I had Superchips agent in Adelaide rechip my car. There wasn't anyone around then here to set up the map for a particular car. So its a generic map. And I had it dynoed afterwards on a DynoDynamics dyno. And it produces about the same power as yours, with a similar power curve...

Its the same in both the intake and exhaust systems. A b-i-g pipe gives you the maximum horse power by restricting flow the least. But a big pipe means the gas is flowing so slowly at lower revs that when the pressure pulses that occur as the valves open and close travel out the pipes you get...

http://www.powertecengineering.com/v8_index.php But, seriously, there's not a lot of width across the Clio's engine bay. There's be a problem fitting most engines that are better than the standard one in. There isn't even the room to fit the Nissan 6-speed gearbox from the 197 in to replace...

It is bizarre, but ethylene glycol has to be diluted in a ratio of 6 parts anti-freeze to 4 parts water. (Two parts anti-freeze to 1 part water produces almost as good a result.) Pure anti-freeze only has a freezing point 10C below water's. But when you dilute it with water in the correct ratio...