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Out of Tune
16 years ago
General
Mostly a motoring journal. Skip to the end for fur.
A few weeks ago, I had my JDM drift van modified (again) by the Works team. It ruined it. It's now mostly un-driveable. When I recently took it out to do a quick photo shoot, I had to put my camera on my lap, because anywhere else I could have put it, be it the dashboard, glove box, even the passenger seat, would probably have broken it. That's how uncomfortable it is. It got me thinking about tuning. My tuned BMW is a work of art, because I thought about how all the parts I was changing would affect all the other parts I was changing. When I replaced the steel screws in the light units, the front lights got titanium screws, and I put tungsten ones in the rear light units, so that about 1/50th of an ounce of weight got moved from the front to the back, for better weight distribution. It was seriously geeky stuff, but after driving my newly ruined van, I'm glad I put the thought in. I was further asssured that my geek sreak had done a good job when I was given an AMG SL65 Black to test and review.
***
Sometimes, making improvements to something doesn't make them improve. Last Sunday, I was about to enjoy a lovely beef steak meal with some acquaintances, including some from the oldest generation, one of which offered me something that looked like a good gravy. "Try some of this sauce on your beef there, Faramisz, it'll make it taste delicious."
So I did. Through initial curiosity, politeness, blind faith, and as I would later dicover, sheer stupidity, I covered my beef in the sauce. Still optimistic, I asked "what's in it?" and was horrified by the reply. "Onions and leek."
I cannot eat onions. I've tried, I can't do it. They simply do not respect my wish that my gullet is a one-way system, and no matter how hard I try, anything with even a small amount of onion never wishes to fly via Berlin, or Beijing, or my bowels. My meal was ruined. But food isn't always about having one thing that kills everything else. Sometimes, it's simply an incorrect balance of ingredients that can make something taste unfavourable. Like ravioli. Great ingredients, but somehow it's all just wrong.
Tuning cars is much the same, and I have no doubt this is why the term "tuning" is applied. Because a car can be out of tune, even with itself. The Mazda MX-5 is a perfect example of a car that is completely in tune with itself. It isn't much of anything, short most noticeably on power, but it doesn't matter, because it's a perfect blend. The engine works so well with the gearing, and that power delivery is perfectly matched to the the behavior of the suspension, which is perfectly sprung and damped for the weight and that chassis. It shows, even at low speeds the MX-5 is a delight to drive, and has been the best selling roadster since the British car industry went West. To try and tune an MX-5, unless you were supremely qualified in mechanics, physics, aerodynamics, material properties, mathematics, etcetera, would just be to spoil this balance, and the car. Like ravioli.
The SL65 Black is also a ruined meal, although at first it seems it's more of an onion-covered steak. The engine is very powerful. The torque generated is huge. Even in the low end of the power band, the forces that drive the car are immense. No matter how hard you try to swallow that onion, it'll be inside you. If you're driving this car, the engine is impossible to forget.
AMG have done a great many things to reign in the power, large clutch, big differential, huge wheels, and so on. They made a lot of things bigger. The suspension is also rock solid, there's almost no body roll, and they've made the front end more precise, and the tail a bit more slack. These improvements, coupled to an engine so powerful that I haven't even bothered to try and describe it, all sounds pretty awesome. It is, but, it also isn't.
The sharpened steering and the loose tail can be fun, but also makes the car likely to throw itself away on a tight turn-in, especially if you enter the turn on the brakes, or before reapplying a little power, and because steering lock is hugely reduced in comparison to the standard car, catching the slide isn't always guaranteed. In these moments, the differential also doesn't help. Because the suspension is so harsh, it sometimes seems to sucker-punch the chassis, which was designed by Mercedes-Benz to be at least a little be comfortable. It's like this through the whole car, wherever things have been designed to make improvements, they haven't been designed to work with the other improvements. Even the stiff seats don't really work in a car that still has signs of Mercedes-Benz luxury inside.
The sound works just fine on its own, and so do the almighty brakes. The car also does work rather well on a racetrack, where there are no bumps to unsettle the chassis, no surprise corners or other road hazards that require emergency braking-and-steering measures, and probably no ladies to complain about those awful seats. It's both fun and serious in equal measure, and that's seriously fun.
Anywhere else though, driving to work, taking a cruise, even on open highways, that engine is a great big dollop of onion and leek sauce, and in order to try and make it palatable, AMG have only turned the rest of the car into ravioli.
***
I got a FurSpace account. I'm not sure why. For a start, age, gender and location are mandatory, they have to be displayed, and I don't really like that. I'd rather be enigmatic, and let people get to know me for who I am, before they reject me, instead of just looking at my vital statistics, and rejecting me. I think I'm also supposed to have friends.
Most recently I've been on to a trick used by those that send out the demonstrator models of cars. Tyre pressures. Just a little bit more or less air can massively affect handling, because the whole everything of going, stopping, changing direction, and journeying, is all done on the thin bands of rubber that are the surface of the tyres. Change that, and you change everything.
I tried FurSpace. Didn't like it. The system wasn't really very well designed. It's just a cheap MySpace clone with dozens of removed features and poorly executed ones. There's not enough to do there for users other than chat with complete, utter strangers or friends. Serves little purpose though since people have instant messaging for that purpose, Live Journal for life updates for those willing to update such things. I just stick with Fur Affinity and Furocity. Works great for what it's made for. Furocity however, is still in its developmental stages. It'll grow though.
This convinced you to get Forza Motorsport 3?
Soon I will be the only person in the world without it.
Yeah, I'm lazy. Only been trying hard to get a 360 for three years.
Things have balance, and no matter the factors, they must be in sync... Every action has an opposite and equal reaction.... people dont seem to get this...
But Very good post ^.=.^ and sorry to hear about your dinner... what a waste of steak..
Smaller wheels are better for acceleration and for cornering. The reason bigger wheels are the modern thing is for aesthetics, the obsession with grip (as opposed to handling) and because it's more stable and less likely to roll when cornering fiercely. My BMW is tuned to have tiny 14" wheels, and it would upset the balance of everything to put 15" on.
Also the normal SL65, so I had a point of reference for comparison.
A proper stable job for a single magazine would be a dream come true. At the moment I'm writing for anyone that'll have me; everything from special interest monthlies to tabloid dailies.
"The only important mod is how big your spoiler is, how much your rims spin, and how much light is underneath your car. Also how many PSPs you have on a conveyor belt in your boot."
My JDM drift machine, mentioned there at the top, has had just about everything except a major power increase, yet it's still ruined.
Nope. It'll go faster now than before, but I have to drive it slower, because it's so uncomfortable. Because it's based on a ladder chassis, the rule of "harder the better" doesn't apply as it usually does with a sports coupé, the suspension has to be more suitable, rather than just better. If I can find some money, I'll give it softer springs, and shocks that are quick enough to absorb quick shocks, such as road bumps, but keep it driftable by fitting big heavy anti-roll gear to keep it flat in corners.
With low power though (gotta be low power, or insurance prices will explode) it's difficult to make it kick out. In a muscle car, roly-poly suspension is okay, because the engine serves up so much torque.
It has about as much torque as one of those little hand-held fans. But it only weighs about 600kg, so it doesn't need muscle.
Yep.
Because the Exige has to deal with more than twice the power, under racing conditions. the components have to be heavier to cope. Granted, it's better materials, but it's still a little heavier. The little van is designed to carry a load, so the components are more hardy than they would normally be for a vehicle of that weight, but they still only need to deal with 90bhp or so. There's a lot less on the van too, I know the Exige doesn't exactly carry excess fat, but the van is made of almost nothing too, essential things only, to keep it cheap.
There's loads of light cars. Almost all of them English, though the Toyota Sports 800 comes to mind, which is lighter weight as the van, though it's about half the power too. Caterham's CSR has to carry a 2.3 Cosworth engine, deal with 250bhp, and handle ferocious cornering, yet it's just 550kg.
Not the Exige. Mid-engined is the most stable format. Fantastic as the Sports 800 is, it's also a little underpowered for maintaining a slide. The CSR has the engine up front, loads of power, miles of handling once the grip runs out, low centre of gravity, and so is pretty well placed for drifting, most especially if the suspension is set up to be loose, rather than for road holding.
Too much rear-end grip? I've never drifted a 911.