Cobb Tuning Socal - First Thursday
By Khiem Dinh
On the first Thursday of every month, Cobb Tuning Socal located in Fountain Valley hosts a gathering open to any gearhead willing to stop by and visit. Not only do they open up their showroom and garage area to visitors, but they provide food and drinks too! The Cobb Tuning Socal staff is very friendly and the First Thursday gathering provides a great atmosphere to hang out with like-minded gearheads. So if you're in the Socal area and it's the first Thursday of the month, stop by Cobb to check out some cool cars, eat some grub, and hang out with other cool gearheads.
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When Car Parts Attack - Drag Racing Safety Equipment
Racers push everything to the limit and often times beyond in their goals of being the fastest. To be the fastest, you have to make power. The more power you make, the more stress you apply to parts causing them to fail. If you want to test the durability of a part, put it in a race car and take it out to the track. What happens when a part does fail? Often times, those parts are spinning really fast meaning they have a lot of kinetic energy. When these parts fail, that energy gets released in every direction. If safety precautions are not taken, a lot of damage and death can be the result. Drag racers are particularly apt at breaking powertrain and drivetrain parts, so we’re going to examine a little bit of the physics and have a look at some of the safety measures.
Sneak Peek: A Look Inside Modular Mustang Racing’s Drag Mustang
To go fast in the quarter mile, it's hard to beat some good ole American muscle. Greg Seth-Hunter hailing from Simi Valley, CA drives this Mustang built by Modular Mustang Racing out of Camarillo, CA. This drag car might feature traditional domestic power, but it eschews the old mainstays of the drag strip of superchargers and nitrous for turbo power. Here’s a peek at a six second quarter mile dragster representing a new trend in domestic power.
Physics Lesson - Calculating Torque and Power From Datalogs
The motion of cars is ruled by physics, so using some basic physics and data enables us to calculate cool things. Everyone likes cool things right? The modern automobile has electronics that gives us the ability to gather useful data letting us calculate useful things. In this case, we're going to calculate torque and horsepower making ourselves a virtual dyno.
Karting: Staying Sharp
I got a call from Dan Gardner of DG-Spec/Scion Racing to go karting. Gardner's 25 Hours of Thunderhill teammate Craig Stanton had invited a number of people out to the kart track at Autoclub Speedway for a little bit of fun. Craig Stanton has raced everything from trucks in the Baja 1000 to a GT Porsche in The Grand-AM Rolex Sports Car Series. Most recently, Stanton has been named the lead driver and team development manager for MBBS Racing which will field an AMG Black Series in the2012 World Challenge GT Series. With a career spanning over two decades, I wasn't going to miss this opportunity to gain some knowledge.
Project S2000 – Hondata KPro Gives More Power and Better Power
Power delivery is an important characteristic in being able to go quickly; just ask any motorcycle racer where they only have one tire contact patch to put down the power. The S2000's one fault is a poor power delivery curve due to the VTEC engagement. I hate the VTEC engagement and the resulting torque spike which hurts drivability. It is not fun being WOT coming out of a corner and having the torque spike hit. Therefore, my goal was to reduce the spike by changing the VTEC engagement point to smooth out the torque curve and I needed a way to tune the car to meet my goal. The Hondata KPro system met my requirements for the job.
Turbo Tech: Compressor and Turbine Map Details
We have previously covered compressor wheel technology and also how compressor and turbine maps are generated. Now we are going to dive a little deeper into the details of the compressor map and all-mysterious turbine map. Furthermore, we are going to see how compressor wheel and turbine housing A/R changes affect turbine flow and efficiency.
By Khiem Dnih
It started off like any other chat conversation (note: actual words may have been modified from the original text in order to fit the screen and time allotment)
Khiem: Yo Martin, what's happenin man?
Martin: Workin. What's up with you?
Khiem: I need to take the S2k out for a track day in cold weather.
Martin: Oh yeah? I need to take the SE-R out. Speed Trial USA has a day coming up at Streets.
Khiem: Perfect! How much power does that SE-R make...
The Rock Store - Motorcycle Haven
For those who love everything with an engine, you already know about Cars and Coffee. However, SoCal being the mecca of twisty roads, year-round moderate temperatures, and very few days of rain lends itself to a very specific type of gear head: the motorcyclist.
As a motorcyclist, a great day consists of riding some windy roads in cool temperatures (gearing up in the leathers can get toasty) with a few stops along the way to chill with your fellow riding buddies. The mandatory stop in Malibu: The Rock Store.
Turbo Tech: Generating Compressor and Turbine Maps
Compressor and turbine maps are the spec sheets for a turbocharger. They characterize the performance of a turbocharger allowing engineers to properly choose the correct combination of wheels and housings for their particular application. Compressor and turbine maps for a turbocharger are the equivalent of a dyno sheet for an engine; the maps and dyno sheet provide performance information over a wide range of operating conditions. In the same way engines need specialized equipment to get a dyno sheet, turbochargers also need specialized equipment to generate compressor and turbine maps.
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