bmw88rider said:I financed part of betty's purchase at a really good interest rate. It's possible. The banks just want some skin in the game.
And for any of the GRM's that want to drive one....Come on over. Just bring a 6 pack and your gas card. Betty is a little thirsty when ran.
TX, you aren't too far. You may need to allow some of us to do this soon!
759NRNG said:Weight smeight....... 9" rims cannot possibly provide the necessary footprint width (315's minimum???) for this to even think about 'HOOKING UP'.......oh, but that's right when looking out the passenger window while making forward progress (WOO) it's all GOOD!!!! Ytube for enlightenment????
Well, there are 10" slick tire class cars running in the 6s...
Keith Tanner said:
575 hp Lingenfelter engine. And guess who gets to do the test driving? It may be a fun weekend.
Make sure you turn it up so you can duplicate the physical impact of that exhaust.
Keith, you rock, your company rocks, everyone who I've ever talked to on the phone at FM has rocked, and that car seems kinda neat, but you can really sell the concept with a better produced promo video.
The build-up. The suspense. The obviously staged shots that still tell the story of what went into making the monster. And then, at the end, almost as an afterthought... the beast awoken. (Is awoken a word? If not, it should be)
OTOH, this video was created by someone who, at the last RX-7 club get-together we had, absentmindedly turned around and started cutting up stainless mandrel bends on the chopsaw, mid-conversation. So maybe it's only cool for a certain kind of mind.
I've tried doing more heavily produced videos, and honestly there's very little (no) correlation between that and the number of people who see/share it.
In reality, the choice is not between a quickly shot video on an SLR and a lovingly crafted homage - but a choice between a quickly shot video on an SLR or nothing at all. With everything else going on, there simply isn't time (or, to be honest, talent) to put together this kind of video. Yeah, yeah, marketing, whatever. It's the harsh reality. So I get a shot of the car making WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP noises, drop our logo on it and then go on to the next thing.
There are many videos from third parties showing our own ND V8 with art and sliding around with the tires on fire and describing what it feels like to drive. This was just a "whoohoo, the 575 is running and JUST LISTEN TO IT!" celebration.
As a college student, I got a bank loan on a 66 Mini Cooper race car that I wanted to convert back to street. When I took it to the bank , I parked at the far side of the lot. The loan officer eventually wanted to look it over, so we went to the door, and when I pointed it out across the lot, he shrugged and said it looked good.
In reply to z31maniac :
Come on down. I mean most of the GRM staff has driven her, A ton of ham fisted journalists have driven her, some guy named Keith tanner drove her all of the time, and I drive her every day. It won't be like something new will happen :)
I mean here are 2 of the magazine pictures of her. She has been driven hard and runs like a champ.
I love everything about that car. But I have a thought...
I have only ever driven one V8 Miata and that was one with a relatively stock Ford 302. Even at that low power level, the car could go from docile Miata to Monster fast. Point being, it required a sentient being at the wheel. It could bite.
Under that premise, at what point does peddling these cars not become like handing hand-grenades out to toddlers? Does the order form have a built-in IQ test? Included in the purchase price, is there a day at the track to discover the creative ways that one could kill themselves, without actually having to die?
There’s an advantage to selling cars that cost real money and have a wait time - by the time most people can afford one, they’ve managed to get past the testosterone poisoning stage of life. Unlike a sport bike, for example.
But really, my job is to make them as friendly as possible. Loads of mechanical grip, good suspension, flat torque curve, no evil habits. The being an adult part is up to the customer. The car won’t bite unless they ask it to. And so far, they’ve all proven to be adults. We had a customer write off his turbo Miata before he left town, but that’s the only example I can think of in over 15 years. DIY builders may be different. Honestly, I’m more concerned about journalists - some of them have been a little under-equipped but they all think they’re stars. I swear one of the guys who drove our turbo ND had never actually dealt with a stick shift before.
We have given delivery of a number of them at the track, most recently just a couple of months ago. In the case of the supercharged V8 Exocet, we did do a track introduction that started with a naturally aspirated Miata, a naturally aspirated Exocet and then the XXXocet. But even then, the owner was an experienced Miata track driver.
In the end, it’s all about building the best possible car and having the customers be responsible for their own actions.
Keith Tanner said:It's right in the video. We haven't had this one on the scales yet, but a sister car is 53.4% front. Stock is 53%, a Fiat 124 Spider is 54%.
I'm having a hard time wrapping my melon around this ......Are these LS motors that light?
These all have drive by wire throttles, yes? Can you guys write a "it's scary and raining out" throttle map? Every time I bring these up Mrs. Deuce thinks we're all going to die if we drive one in the rain. I've tried to convince her that it can't be too much different than driving the V-wagon in the rain (but without the traction control) so it can't be that bad.
This is an interesting conversation. As Keith mentions, the sort of people who will pony up big bucks for something like this are always free thinkers. It's much easier to go with the crowd and hit up your local BMW/Corvette/Tesla/Porsche dealer.
I was speaking with Milt Brown, creator of Apollo sports cars. He used to take his Verona roadster to the big international auto shows where he quickly found that the big-talking guy in the Armani suit was almost never the guy who'd buy a unique low-volume car. It'd be the guy dressed for comfort who didn't care what the boys at the club thought.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
Seth, I know who can here local in Texas. The guys that tuned mine.
You want one.
Come over to austin in one of you interesting rides and we can trade keys for a run through the hill country.
Mike
759NRNG said:Keith Tanner said:It's right in the video. We haven't had this one on the scales yet, but a sister car is 53.4% front. Stock is 53%, a Fiat 124 Spider is 54%.
I'm having a hard time wrapping my melon around this ......Are these LS motors that light?
That's why you see them everywhere! Power density like nothing else. But we also move the battery from the front of the engine bay to the trunk and the beefier rear diff adds some mass between the rear wheels, while the trans partially lands on the rear wheels. The car gains 260-ish lbs, but it's not all on the nose. People often forget that it's a lot more involved than just an engine install. Even the halfshafts are heavier.
The throttle response map can definitely be tweaked. I have my car set up to be completely linear, but production tunes tend to have slower response at light throttle openings to make it easier to deal with very low traction situations. Tell us (or any GM tuner) what you want and we can set it up.
I'll mention here that I have raced a V8 Miata in an actual named hurricane. They're very controllable. The trick was to get it off the line without wheelspin, then you could romp pretty hard.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Regarding the video, I'm just having fun. I understand that when you're trying to actually produce product and make money doing it, there isn't time to stop every five minutes for a photo op, and then collate the best ones into a video retrospective. As cool as it sounds do to.
Most of the ones we've done were just like the one you posted, of the sort where we e-mailed the client a video of the engine being broken in, or the vehicle on a chassis dyno, or something of that nature, plus a link to a Photobucket folder where I took a few reference photos during the build. Nowhere near as cool as what could have been. But that's the difference between being a business and being a hobby, right?
(Hmm... I wonder now if I could get the shop to pay the $400/year to make my Photobucket account linkable, since it's largely used for work...)
ANYWAY. Regarding throttle mapping. DO TELL. I only have any real experience with HP Tuners and the Gen III hardware, and HPT doesn't specifically lock you out of playing with accelerator pedal mapping, but they do have a stiff warning that messing with it can brick the PCM if you go too far. Throttle mapping is something extremely relevant to my interests as I think being able to directly control available engine torque and throttle response will be key to making a V8 work at RallyCross, and I like tinkering.
mazdeuce - Seth said:These all have drive by wire throttles, yes? Can you guys write a "it's scary and raining out" throttle map? Every time I bring these up Mrs. Deuce thinks we're all going to die if we drive one in the rain. I've tried to convince her that it can't be too much different than driving the V-wagon in the rain (but without the traction control) so it can't be that bad.
I'm not sure if they could but I'm sure it's possible. After all, a lot of the vehicles from GM these days numb down throttle response when in reverse so that people don't goose it and shoot backwards into something.
I don't know the name of the map, but it's fully and easily accessible through HPT. We've mostly just played with the PCMs that come with the GMPP, I think they're E67s or something like that. Gen IV.
This is stock CTS-V. Soft down low, linear in the middle, fairly quick right near 100.
E-Rod. I think it's designed to make it easier to control during the emissions cycle with that really soft throttle down low.
CTS-V and E-Rod are Gen IV, I do believe. (Assuming you don't mean LS1 CTS-V)
I also do believe that using Gen IV electronics requires a 58x wheel on the crank... Hmm. At least, I don't think there were any 24x crank engines that used the integrated throttle control, versus the style pretty much all GenIII used with the separate TAC module. Which, in hindsight, is probably why you can't play with throttle control so much.
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