Safe Speed Forums

Fog lights are annoying because they're so low down, that on a dual-carriageway or motorway, you can see the oncoming traffic's fogs under the armco. Headlights are, for the most part, obscured by said armco.

That, and they do not look at all, in least, remotely sporty.

Bloody Ford.

"Sporty Front Fog Lights"

*fume*

It is mostly people with naff cars, BMW's or people carriers who feel the need to put them on.

I have front fog lights, I don't turn them on cos I feel like a C@ck with them on if it is not foggy.

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
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Well, I dunno about the people carriers or BMWs. It's exclusively the French shopping hatchbacks around here who are at fault.

Things I don't understand:

Why does every car with dice / fluffy pig / troll / stuffed dog etc dangling from the rear view mirror drive at precisely 42mph at all times?

Or has anyone spotted an exception?

Because "42" is the answer to "Life, The Universe and Everything"?

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

There's a serious point here too. Has any research, formal or informal, been done on the effect of these danglies on driver concentration? I would find it most distracting to have an object swaying inches from my face.

Surely they can't be legal. C & U regulations,maybe? Ian, what do you think? Would/do you pull over those with dangly dice obstructing their forward view?
Foglights are a real menace. Not so much the pathetic cheap little ones, but the newer larger ones on things like Subarus, BMW's (I have them on mine, but never use them), etc.
I always laugh at those vehicles with very large rear spoilers and say that if their basic aerodynamics are so bad that such a spoiler is needed for normal road use, then I would rather not have that vehicle. One of the earliest cars to have a rear spoiler was the Porsche 911RS of 1973 - the ultimate Porsche classic (?). Now, at 150 mph on an autobahn those 1960's designed cars did need that aero-d assistance. I was fortunate to have one back in the late 70's. On UK roads it was just cosmetic, but I did used to go to Germany in it and I'm sure it was a benefit. Not necessary for the UK and a potential increaser of fuel consumption at road speeds due to the additional form drag.

I don't wish to be toooo pedantic, but I think that it reduced drag, from Cx=0.409 to Cx=0.397, not much, but every little helps...

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

I think that was when they went from the 'duck-tail' to the whale tail rear spoiler. The RS had the duck-tail in '72/'73, but went to whale-tail in '74.
Lovely car too. I had mine for 17 years. Wish I'd kept it!
In 1972, 0-60 in 5.3 was not just quick, it was stunning.

Mine audi has a tiny spoiler apparently an afterthought after early models flew off the road on corners.

a little obviously goes a long way!

I took the figures from Paul Frere's book, it was a standard "F" Series RS Carrera with the front air dam and ducktail compared to the same car fitted with a normal 911 rear lid. The real effect was in reducing lift, 15lbs reduction at the front and 250lbs reduction at the back!


Sure was! Mind you, the 12mpg quoted average was a bit stunning too!

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

I used to get 16 to 20 mpg.
When I rallied in one with a guy called Jan Churchill, we used to get about 7 mpg on the stages. That was a lot better than the 'works' Datsun 240Z I rallied in where we got about 4 mpg on the forest stages and 6 mpg on tarmac stages. I didn't care, it wasn't my money paying for the petrol!

I think that's about right... I was confusing the 2.7 RS with the 2.4S which was just about the most uneconomical road car Porsche ever produced! Although it did run on 2-star!


I remember young Mr Churchill..


Hmmm.. Not bad.. The worst consumption I ever took a great deal of notice of was for a modified 930 - on the track it returned just about 2 to the gallon.. And it was my money!!

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

Saw a good demonstration of why a tea tray is required at the back of certain cars... Peter Solburg during a rally this year lost his, and a little later in the stage went over a jump, and unlike every other car which managed to land almost flat, Peter hit the ground nose first very, very hard, because the tail had stayed up in the air.

The Audi TT had to have a rear spoiler fitted after a number of drivers "lost it" while driving at motorway speeds around gentle corners.

Spoilers do work, and obviously work better the faster you go... says Rewolf the Subaru Impreza driver, but admittedly with the lower wing (still quite large) no sun-strip at all, and fog lights always in the off position (because it hasn't been foggy since I had the car).

Incidentally the faster modern Imprezas are not fitted with front fog lights at all.

Do they hang them from the zorst pipes or the mirrors?

Some exhausts on powerfull cars are 3 or 4 inches in diameter all the way from the manifold, not just the tail pipes. Less restrictive exhaust = more power.
Does look silly on a 1.2 Saxo tho, but it's their money and their choice

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Deeps.

Especially when fitted with a turbo as with less back pressure from the exhaust the turbo can compress the incoming air more. Only applies when the pipe goes all the way back to the engine...

Don't know if it's changed since I were a lad serving me time, but we were taught that exhaust systems were designed with an exact amount of 'built-in' back pressure to encourage complete burning and scourging in the cylinders. Any alterations that did not comply with these formats just resulted in worse performance.

I know I put a 'straight-through' system on my old 1100 and it made the performance p**s-poor, but it sounded good to my young feeble mind!

don't think so. My brother had a suzuki swift gti a few years back which went quite well until he put a 3" exhaust onto it. Then it's power band was reduced to about 500rpm at the very top of the rev range.

But you have to be carefull not to overwhelm the wastegate and boost to oblivion! Removing a catalytic converter produces lots of extra power. A straight thru large bore zorst can spin a turbos turbine at over 100000 rpm, so a boost controller is needed to open the wastegate more.

Also, a larger zorst will let a piston induct slightly more air into the cylinder because it lets more zorst gas out on the overlap leaving more induction area.
This is getting techy, what was the original question again lol.

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Deeps.

The stoichiometric ratio (or complete burning of fuel) is 14.7 / 1 air / fuel.
That is the perfect ratio for cruising conditions, but under power/load a richer ratio is needed, say 13 / 1 to help keep combustion temps lower and prevent dengerous detonation in the cylinder.

On older engines, de-restricting the exhaust would make them run very weak due to more air being inducted but not enough fuel available to keep the ratio, hence loss of power.

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Deeps.