Another amusing automobile-related ad. Toyota milks their reputation of reliability with this advertisement.
Pretty confident heheh. But yeah, it’s not to say that they haven’t earned the reputation. Check it out.
Video is after the jump.
Click here to read the rest of Ever seen a broken down Toyota?
While BMW toils to prepare it’s new 4.0 liter V8 engine for the new BMW M3, Hartge has injected some well needed horsepower into the new BMW E90 3-series. Feeling that the top of the line 3 liter in-line 6 and the upcoming 3 liter turbocharged in-line 6 is inadequate, they’ve somehow managed to take the Formula 1 inspired 5.0 liter V10 engine from the E60 BMW M5 and stuffed it into the E90’s engine bay, lock, stock, transmission and barrel. Not feeling satisfied with the 504 horses that it already has, it performed some extra tweaking to it. Hartge’s engineers managed to extract 550bhp, about 46 horses extra from the standard engine. Maximum torque remains at 520 Nm.
To take the new horses, the E90 has been modified with a stronger rear axle and it has been given and upgraded fully adjustable suspension system. The Hartge H50 V10 also comes with a special stainles steel exhaust system developed to improve the aural note of the high-revving V10 as well as give it a little more breathing ability.
The speed limit has been removed, giving the Hartge H50 V10 a new top speed of 330km/h. Wheels are 245/30/ZR20 at the front and 285/25/ZR20 at the rear, wrapped with high-speed specification Continental tyres.
This is just some weird news. Happened in California today. Curtis Gokey’s car was hit by a Lodi city dump truck. And he’s suing the city hall for damages to his car. The only thing is, he is a city hall employee and he was the one driving the dump truck. After failing to sue himself to get the city council to pay, his wife Rhonda Gokey sued instead. The amount being claimed is USD$4,800.
The USA is certainly getting weirder each day. And I thought suing McDonalds for serving hot coffee was ridiculous enough.
Questions from beginner car enthusiasts on where to get blow off valves for normally aspirated cars are not uncommon as they don’t know what blow off valves are for, and how they work. It is not possible for you to install a blow off valve onto a normally aspirated car, they are for forced inducted engines. No matter how much you like the sound. Hehe. Click here to read the rest of What are blow off valves and can I put them on my normally aspirated car?
This is the hottest Ford Focus hatchback soon to hit the streets in April 2006. The Ford Focus XR5 Turbo. It’s powered by a 2.5 liter Duratec 20-valve 5-cylinder engine. I highly suspect this powertrain comes from Volvo. The 2.5L Turbo Duratec makes 222 horsepower at 6000rpm and 320Nm of torque at a nice low 1600rpm on a 1362kg hatchback. The engine is mated to a 6-speed manual transmission which drives the front wheels. Can you say “torque steer”? Top speed is 241km/h and it will take you from 0 to 100km/h in 6.8 seconds.
A nice contender for the Volkswagen Golf GTI indeed.
When you’re at a table with a few car enthusiasts, you’d hear them flinging around words like W211, E36, GC8, E90, EK, EG, SV4, H22A and 4G93 as if it were some alien language code. Some of those are car model numbers, and some are engine models. No self-respecting car enthusiast refers to car models by their years, they use the chassis codes. BMW has been using the E-code for their cars. The timeless 5-series is the E39. The hot make-you-wet-your-undergarments 3-series before the current Bangle-fied one is the E46, while the latest Bangle-fied 3-series is the E90, with the station wagon being the E91 and the soon to be released coupe being the E92. I’ve also blogged about the timeless E30 (picture above).
The E in the E-code stands for Entwicklung, which means evolution or development in German. Motor Trend reports that BMW will be dropping the E-code and using a new F-code as the E-code is already nearing it’s limits in terms of numbers since it’s reached 90 already with the latest 3-series. The 2009 BMW 7-series will be called the F01 and the L long wheelbase version (750iL?) will be called the F02. The next 5-series will be known as the F10. Note that facelifts do not entitle a new chassis code as it is essentially the same platform with a facelift.
Some BMW cars with their model numbers after the jump… Click here to read the rest of The end of the BMW E-code
Nissan is developing a safety feature for it’s cars to help avoid colliding with the vehicle in front in the case of a possible sudden brake situation.
In Nissan’s accelerator pedal safety system, a combination of radar sensors connected to a computer system monitors the car’s speed and the distance to the vehicle in front. If the vehicle in front suddenly slows down (like a jam brake situation) or there is any other possibility of a rear-end collision as calculated by the computer system, the gas pedal will automatically rise against the driver’s foot as a signal to step on the brake.
Once the driver lifts his foot off the accelerator pedal, the system does not wait for him to start braking, it automatically kicks in. Of course, the driver’s foot would go ahead and press the brakes anyway.
This makes me think, doesn’t this system require the use of brake-by-wire? Brake-by-wire’s benefits versus safety hazard is still being debated in the industry, though most modern brake-by-wire systems like Mercedes Benz’s Sensotronic Braking Control comes with a manual safety net.
As we all know, the combustion engine does not really convert the potential energy in fuel to kinetic energy to move the car efficiently. We lose alot of that power - roughly 76% - in the form of heat. BMW has tried to salvage some of this lost energy with their TurboSteamer system which harnesses heat from the exhaust flow and uses steam to power an expansion unit connected to the crankshaft.
Someone in the engine business has another idea. Bruce Crower, the owner of Crower Cams and Equipment Company builds camshafts, crankshafts and connecting rods, including titanium rods for Formula 1 customers. He lets his company run itself while doing intensive R&D work in his 13-acre backyard in Jamul.
And his idea is a 6-stroke engine. He calls it the Crower cycle engine. Click here to read the rest of Bruce Crower’s 6 stroke Crower cycle engine
This is for those who appreciate the technology that goes into a powertrain. How does the new 1.8 liter SOHC i-VTEC engine in the new 2006 Honda Civic achieve good fuel mileage (Honda claims 1.5 liter fuel economy during cruising) while producing a respectable 140 horsepower and 174 Nm of torque? Let’s have a look at some of the technologies that went into this new engine - the R18A1.
Click here to read the rest of 2006 Honda Civic 1.8 SOHC i-VTEC engine
Since Toyota’s 8.7% stake purchase in Fuji Heavy Industries which makes Subaru cars, there has been on-going talks on the usage of Toyota’s hybrid engines in Subaru cars. But this proved to be difficult due to Subaru’s unique symmetrical all-wheel-drive drivetrain which could not be mounted to the engine easily.
The next best thing would be to develop a new hybrid engine for Subaru. Toyota and Fuji Heavy Industries have signed an agreement on Saturday to co-develop a petrol-electric hybrid system together for use on Subaru vehicles. More details on this alliance will be announced tonight at 10pm Malaysian time.
