mickq

Hehe, that brings back memories. I was lucky enough to drive something similar on my L's! The third car I ever drove (first was my own little Honda, second was fanging my sisters clubsport around for a couple of days, third was a Cosworth RS2000 Sapphire!). Ford was considering importing them. They brought one out here for testing, and RS2000 Sapphire (evil black 4x4 thing). Man did it fly. They decided not as it would cost about $70k to sell and they didnt think there would be enough demand. Cant believe I survived that drive. And cant believe the guy sitting next to me was silly enough to give me the keys when he knew I was on my L's! But he was high enough in Ford Australia that he wouldnt exactly be effected if it got crashed. Managed to get himself a lot higher in ford a couple of years later, which was handy... Which brings me to the fastest Ford I have driven. Went and visited him in Detroit in 2000, and was lucky enough to have 8-10 cars brought for my and my dad's enjoyment at the Deerborne track. Fastest was a Mustang Cobra-R. Only 100 made. 0-100 in 4.2 seconds. Just about shat myself when he took me on some hot laps. "Wasnt that the braking point about 50m ago..." was my first question on the first corner! Then after 2 hot laps, he jumps out, says "go for it" and as I walk around the car for my first spin in a left hand drive car, the fastest car Ive driven to make it all the worse....and then to add insult to injury it starts spitting. So ended up being the fastest car Ive driven, first time LHD, and first time driving on a track in the wet. Was nervous as hell! Hate to admit it, but the guy in the passenger seat (who was head of their design division then, and I think has gone on a slightly different role now) did say to me once "um, I think the track is over there on the left".... What a trip that was. Amazing photos too. Funny thing is, when we went to their design studio and checked out all the cars they were designing, the full sized models etc, they were the 2007 cars...7 years away at that stage!

Check out this video which sums up the Group B rally cars quite well. They are FAAAAAAAST!! Make current rally cars look like wuss cars. Group B Rally Video After watching it, its not hard to see why the FIA killed off the series to save the drivers and spectators lives!

No, the Ariel atom takes almost 50% longer to do 0-100. (2.9sec vs 2.1 for the RS200). Doesnt sound like much of a difference, except its the same percentage different as a standard XR6T vs a Hyundai Sonata....

If there is one car Id like, which is an amazing sleeper, it is this beast: has to rival the 720hp BMW X5 Le Mans for fun-at-the-lights "what the hell was that?" factor. (If you havent seen that video, let me know via return post). Introducing the ultra rare Ford RS200 EVO How does this sound: Its the only normal (I say that lightly...) car I have ever seen that whips modern 1000cc sport bikes 0-100kph and I reckon still beat the average litre bike rider 0-160kph. And it was made in 1986. Forget your Veyron, this thing might look like a spaced out Honda, but Veyron drivers will only be looking at this car's rear end most of the time. And the engine is just 2.1 litres! (Albeit with 650hp...thanks to Cosworth) It is still for sale... Current sales brochure attached in PDF format. Adobe Acrobat (free) needed to view it. Canepa_Ford_RS_200.pdf

You can find your "backup copies" of just about anything through sites like isohunt.com which use Bitorrent which you must install before sites like isohunt will work fully and start downloading things you want. But you can visit isohunt right now and search to see the kind of things that are around. I use something a fair bit more advanced (and faster and reliable) when I download things (only legal things of course), but it would take too long to explain here. In a nutshell (in case you are technically minded and can use google well!) I grab files off news-servers, and I use a news server search engines to download NZB files which list all the parts that make up each thing Im trying to grab on the news servers. A program on my PC that can make use of NZB files will then grab all the bits. If you are into TV shows, they appear on the internet usually within as little as 30 mins of airing in the US! Its amazing.

I just finished watching Episode 1 of Season 2 about an hour ago - very good. All I can say is when our TV stations delay screening shows, the 'net is the answer!

Problem is, there are 2 independent media sources that have quoted 5.4 and 5.35 (amazingly, in the semi-wet!) times in the SS-V. Whack on another 35kw and some other tweaks to put together the HSV version, and just under 5 secs is certainly possible. If Expensive Daewoo try to pull tricks with souped up cars given to the media, I hope the media go run some times with "real" versions and make any Expensive Daewoo dodgyness very well known!

Hey all, I checked out all the HSV cars and wrote down the times to email them to a friend: R8/GTS: 307kw/550Nm. 0-100 4.96sec (!!) for manual, 5.05 for auto Maloo: 0-100 5.2sec (manual), 5.1sec (auto) Grange: 0-100 5.3 sec. Coupe Signature: 0-100 5.2 (auto), 5.1 (man) VXR: 170kw/320Nm. 0-100: 6.2sec for manual Must say that a sub-5 second car is great to see: about time Australian cars broke that barrier! I note on the LS1 forums there are a few people whingeing as a lot of things that probably should be standard arent any more. For example, you get leather standard on the SS-V, but not on the R8. 6 pot calipers apparently have gone as standard too. A bunch of other things as well. I will be very interested to see the prices. Its possible that they got rid of all those nice goodies to enable them to offer a much cheaper "base" model. I wouldnt say no to a sub-5 second 'standard' car! Hate to see what they will go like when someone adds a blower...

Normal T, XR8 and GT/GT-P owners should be worried as the new SS does 0-100 in just 5.4 seconds and kills them all. It will sh*t all over us. And it handles well too. The only one who standard a chance is the Typhoon, and even that will be very close. I think some of the HSV's will be a challenge to many of those running 8 and 10 PSI tunes....

Edit it to make sense yourself. I just removed the stuff that said how to break into a falcon which was the part I had a problem with. I won't put words in your mouth to make the post make sense. ← I tried, but you may not be aware that once you censor it, it locks the post - the person who original wrote it can no longer edit it, which is why I complained that you did a half-assed job in the next post I wrote. And there is no reason why it should not have been posted in the first place. It is not illegal, and it did not contain anything that the majority of people here would have guessed the first time they wanted to break into their T: the technique I used has been around for 2 decades - which is why I was so surprised it worked on a 12 month old car. As I said, if you really had an issue and wanted to censor it, fine, but do it properly, and dont huff and puff when I have a go at you if you balls it up...admitting you did balls it up would probably have been the reasonable thing to do. But at least you made an effort to re-edit it and add a sentence.

Good to read. I must admit they are a car that has always intrigued me due to the electronics aiding the grip. I hear its amazing. A question though: walk me through the rev range and how it compares to the T. For example in my T (manual) I would say: 1500-2000 is reasonably sedate but fine for normal driving. 2000, the turbo starts spooling up. Its good useable power and torque, but not the meat of the rev range. 3000, the turbo is really on line and it pulls very hard. All the way to 5000+ revs...generally until it hits redline (which I have had go from 5800 to 6200 depending on conditions). Im interested to know stuff like that about the Evo's engine. Also, what max speed does it get up to in 1st, 2nd and 3rd? (that's handy to know for rolling start challenges...if I know what gear he is in and what speed we are doing, I can work out if I will beat him due to lots of torque at lower revs....)

Man, well I cant believe that Expensive Daewoo has just trumped almost the full Ford range - the SS is faster 0-100 than every standard Ford except for the Typhoon. Reports have it that the SS does 0-100 in just 5.4 seconds, which I must admit is fantastic to see from a normal Aussie car. But the downside is that it kills the standard XR6T's, XR8, GT, GTP etc. All except the Typhoon which Fords figures have at 5.3 secs. (Not sure what times the magazines got though). Ford better get off their backside and start upping power fast. There is certainly no excuse for the T, as bumping up the power is easy as pie, and they still have some room to play with before making any major engine or exhaust changes. Whats equally disturbing is that unlike SS's of old, the new one also seems to have fantastic handling, a perfect 50:50 balance, excellent cornering ability, and by all accounts the TC and stability control is fantastic, and may not be as intrusive as the T's can be at times. It appears that good launches are made pretty easy too, and it can put down good power in a corner whilst not getting too out of shape. You may have seen that video on the net demo-ing that. And whats REALLY worrying, is imagine what the HSV's are going to be like! I wouldnt be surprised to see at least one of them break into the 4 second range, and THEN Australia is really starting to see some serious sports cars (finally!). Come on Ford, get to it! Some improvements have been good for sure and God knows the BA's drive fantastically well, but WHERE IS THE POWER? Have to say, unless Ford pulls something very exciting out of their hat, I'll be in a new SS in April next year....which is a sad thing after enjoying owning 2 T's over the last 3.5 years.

Hey Glenn, if you want to edit it for that reason, fine, but at least ENSURE WHAT YOU LEAVE MAKES SOME SENSE. Read it from the start until you get to the Does that make sense to you? In the effort to reduce the chance someone might copy what I did, you left the whole post totally nonsensical and effectively useless. You could at least have taken the time to edit it properly, given I took the time to write it properly. There would not have been any problem if you had written a shortened version such as "and so I decided to try to get in myself...and 7 minutes later I was in". That doesnt give anything away to anybody except it DOES convey the main thing that concerned me and the main reason I created this thread. A little more care with your editing next time, eh? I hope you have the sense to leave this part here, and hold off pressing that edit button...

Hey all, I managed to lock my keys in the boot a couple of weekends ago. I was down the coast, and my car blocking my parents car in the drive just as we were packing up to go home.....Mum wasnt impressed..... <edit> "and so I decided to try to get in myself...and 7 minutes later I was in". <edit> Et voila, its open, and my parents were very impressed with me What disappoints me is that it was no more difficult to break into than 2 late 1970's-early 80's Honda's I used to drive 10-15 years ago. Sure it would be harder to steal the whole car as starting it is near enough to impossible, but they can fleece eveything inside it with ease - and Ive seen cars lhave their seats and parts of the interior stripped in busy shopping centres! that's pretty disappointing. Its possible to have a secure car that can still be broken in by those with the know or the tools (Jaguars are pretty good) but I am really surprised the door lock on this car was that easy. Obviously Ford decided to forget about interior security and rely completely on trying to stop full car theft via a key with embedded electronic security features.

I agree with what someone else said. The second paragraph of my answer would be "given the car has been parked outside overnight in a blizzard, it is likely that the damage has already been done, and the engine and its cooling system are frozen solid. This would make it impossible to start the engine or replace any of the coolant in the cooling system, but if by chance it were possible, I would propose the following:" - methylated spirits. It contains 95% ethyl alcohol and 5% methyl alcohol. (Can vary but that's a safe mix to use). It is commonly found under the kitchen sink, in pantries or in cupboards where cleaning products are stored. It can be reasonably expected to be in the chalet because its often used to un-freeze frozen pipes. Logic: Ethyl Alcohol is commonly used as antifreeze. These days it is secondary to the preferred Ethylene Glycol, but you can still obtain ethyl alcohol based antifreezes used for various tasks including cars. It will assist by adding antifreeze properties to the coolant, and it will not cause corrosion. Metho mixes perfectly with water, so you would want to run at least part water for safety. Id suggest perhaps 33% metho, the rest water to be safe. This will result in a non-combustible mix. The test would be to mix up a solution of the same %'s I wrote above, and put it in a sealed container (not glass, just to be safe!) and to put it in the freezer over night. Another great idea would be to run the test near the car, to properly simulate what the car is experiencing as it will get the same temperature. be sure to point out: - It boils at 65-78 degrees. This is not ideal as cars can get hotter so the metho cant be used by itself. The 66% water will help raise this a little closer to 100. - It is flammable, so mixing with water will improve its safety. It wont selfignite until 470 degrees when pure anyway so unless it leaks, there is little danger of self ignition within the cooling system. - the bottle of metho will be flammable. Care needed. No open flames. - wear gloves and eye protection. If stuck, ski goggles and ski gloves. They love that kind of stuff! Dont breath the fumes either. - 33% was chosen as it is close to the percentages used in proper antifreeze. It also means you have the benefits of lowering the freeze temperature, but also the water will help raise the boiling temp to closer to 100% than metho is. - You can also add a few tablespoons to your windscreen washer bottle to help de-ice the windscreen. - Take care driving down the mountain. Watch for overheating and stop to cool if the temp starts to rise too much. At bottom of the mountain or nearest opportunity, fully slush the system and put in proper antifreeze. Dispose of the old antifreeze in an environmentally friendly manner

I have had this exact same issue quite a few times. I was wondering if it was just a quirk with my car. My car is standard. It always seems to happen just before the car is fully warmed up. Im usually a big one for warming it up before playing, but some mornings at an intersection 1.5km from home I give it a spurt off the lights - clutch out slow and then accellerating from say 1500 to to ~4500 rpm or so, at 3/4 to full throttle. At that time the temp guage would be at the 1/4 mark. When I back off, it feels like the car is running on 4 or 5 cylinders. You can accellerate...just and the car shakes. I tend to just drive sedately for 30 secs and it goes away quickly. I do not believe it has anything to do with valve springs. If my car was modded then sure, but its not, and the acceleration that causes it is quite a bit less of a boot than I normally give the car (and I do that all day, every day). The only way I could think it to be spring related is if the springs are also cold and thus are moving differently, but I imagine the metal they use would be pretty good in a big range of temps (wouldnt be much good in the snow otherwise...). I dont think its overboost - at least it doesnt feel like it overboosted. But it may be possible a colder than normal turbo behaves a little differently and briefly overboosts. Do you get a warning light if the engine overboosts and goes into limp mode? I thought you did, and I also thought it took a turning off of the engine and restart to fix the limp mode issue.....can anyone used to overboosting comment on that? I was left wondering if the engine has a kind of short term limp mode that kicks in if you give it too much before the engine is at a certain temp. Just enough to make you aware, then it quickly goes back to normal. The only other time I have often felt the exact same engine behaviour is if I go to start my car and let go of the key before it properly sparks, and it coughs and then dies after a second. When I next start the car a second or two later, the engine sounds sick as hell (4 or so cylinders I would guess). This disappears if you stop the car, wait 10 or so seconds and restart, or if you let it sit idling (aka wobbling) for 15 or so seconds.

I have seen two devices on the front of cop bikes in Vic: 1) Sirens. Smallish, black device, around clenched fist size or so. 2) On a couple I have seen what look like forward facing radar units, the same type some cop cars have on them (the nasty ones that can get you as they drive towards you on a freeway!). But I am not 100% sure if that is what they are. Its quite likely it was a siren unit you were looking at. There are no speed cameras on bikes in Vic, although it is possible they will test normal video cameras, to record people comitting offences. Im sure you have seen footage of that from the US....well the are well on the way to rolling similar systems out here. They have found it reduces a lot of court cases - as soon as people see the footage for themselves they tend to forget trying to argue they did nothing wrong in front of a magistrate! Talking of speed cameras, I checked out the new ones on the road to Geelong the other day. What a joke! a) They are always mounted on bridges. If you dont speed within 50m of either side of a bridge you wont get caught... b) Some of them are aiming towards you - you can see them clearly as you approach the bridge. c) Those that are aiming at the back of your car (ie are on the other side of the bridge) and thus not visible arent a problem, because if you look at the other side of the road you can see the ones set up on your side of the bridge to catch the guys going the other way - you can guarantee your side of the road also has cameras at that same bridge. d) With these cameras they seem to have reduced police speed patrols on the freeway. If anything, its much better now I still reckon its DAMN dangerous to only have a 100kmh limit on that road. It makes driving it boring and monotonous. It makes people fall asleep. that's the main cause of accidents on that road - boredom leading to losing concentration or falling asleep. (Almost happened to me once too - never happened if I drove the road at 140 or so the whole way). You can see a huge number of skid marks and crosses by the side of the road, and if you watch the media you will see its people falling asleep in general. In my experience higher speeds reduce that problem - well they do for me anyway. I concentrate lots more at higher speeds. On a boring road liek that at just 100kmh, you could do yoga and still drive safely at 100k and have time and brain power to spare.

A mate of mine got a no questions asked Ford warrantee new clutch after he killed his in just 11,000km. A clutch is always hard to win an argument over since 20 seconds of abue can do serious damage - but that amazed me! Whats interesting is we both drive hard - me a bit harder than him (by normal standards I drive very hard), and mine lasted 2 years and 35,000km no problem. I think chances are you either had a dodgy clutch, or you are dragging the clutch when you accelerate while you take off.

that's amazingly quick. You would have to whack a turbo on a hayausa to get that kind of time. (Or at least run some seriously un-standard software on one!)

I agree. A lot of drivers get VERY jealous if you lane split even in stationary traffic. The same people who would agressively and purposefully block an intersection, regardless of the fact the lights change and now noone can move as they are in the middle of an intersection. I have lot count of the number of losers who actually move their car right to try to block you if you lane split legally. Its illegal for them to do that. Its dangerous for them to do that, but they do it anyway. Then again, you can pick the decent drivers or ones who also ride. They realise whats happening, know whats going on around them, and may even nudge forward and away from the car next to them, to give you more room. They always get a nod and the thumbs up for that. Then there is the other 95%. They are asleep and surprised to see a bike go past. It wakes them up from their daydream.

Its pretty clear you havent ridden much if at all in traffic. Someone with more than 10 minutes experience on a motorbike in traffic will clearly understand it is MUCH safer to be away from traffic than in the middle of it. Whether it be at the very back of a pack of traffic or in front, it doesnt matter. Its a HELL of a lot safer than being surrounded by drivers. When you are stuck in a pack, you invariably have people who arent looking, who cant cope with whats going on around them, who quickly change lanes without looking and indicating etc etc. On a bike it happens even more than when you are in a car...and we all know it happens frequenlty when you are driving a car. You have to be ready to evade the idiots at all times - and the safest way to be able to do that is to NOT be surrounded by cars. There is very good reason bikes lane split. Note that I am NOT referring to those idiots who do it at high speed, who try to get through tight spots and whack mirrors etc. Those same dickheads would be doing equally dumb things in a fast car if they had the money for a car that does 0-100 in under 3 seconds. But they dont. And the idiots buy a bike instead. Im talking about the traffic is basically stopped, and a rider slowly (not much faster than walking pace) filters his way to the front of the traffic, and then takes off at a reasonable pace so as not to slow down anyone other than Geaa doing a drag race start off from the lights. You dont have to take off fast on a bike to beat 99% of cars. Did you know when you stop in traffic on a bike, you need to spend about 80% of your time watching the rear view mirror? Its because there are so many idiots who drive with their eyes shut and are likely to squash you between their car and the car in front of you. You stop with at least a few metres between you and the car in front. You aim your bike slightly to one side as you have pre-calculated your escape route when the idiot comes. You put the bike in 1st gear, and you watch your rear view mirror, not whats happenning ahead. You have to do that EVERY time you stop in traffic, because of the idiots out there in cars who simply do not pay attention. (And we all see lots like them every day). The difference is if you are in a car, they do a small rear end bingle. If you are on a bike, you can die. Filter to the front of traffic, and you take off at a reasonable clip (with both wheels on the ground...), maintain a nice safety buffer, and can stay clear of them. Alternatively you stay at the rear of the pack, but that's harder as you cant control cars coming up behind you. No-one can hit you if they arent close to you...can they?! Dont get me wrong guys, I see as many idiots on bikes as idiots in cars doing the wrong things at the wrong times, but I can tell you this much: it would cut the road toll drastically if everyone was trained to ride a bike before driving a car. You end up with much better skills. You end up beng 200% more aware of whats around you, and you end up constantly calculating Plan B's for when the idiot wakes up and swerves into you, pulls out in front of you, doesnt stop in time etc etc. Ask anyone who rides (who isnt a 20 year old d1ckhead riding a GSXR-1000). On average riders make for much more aware drivers.

Guys, Reading this thread gave me flashbacks... Back in 1996-8 I had a website at Geocities where I wrote an article on a mod involving toluene injection. It has some info on Toluene as well: http://www.geocities.com/mjkloiu/Store/Toluene.html Remember that it is ~8 years old now so things like max pump octane being 97 are now out of date! You can read some info such as what ratios of toluene they used back in the Turbo Formula 1 days when they were running 43psi boost.

Works really well in the T. Definitely a noticeable improvement. Much more smooth right through the rev range - you will noitce that very quickly. Slightly better low end power in terms of how it comes on. Read the thread at Fordxr6turbo.com where we discussed it a month or so ago...I wrote lots more detail there. Search on optimax extreme should find it pretty quick. PS I found I got about 10-15km less per tank, but that doesnt mean much to me as I only get 220km per tank on Optimax/Mobil8000 anyway!

that's nothing. In Victoria, if they catch you doing > 4kmh over the limit, they book you, then shoot you, and send the bullet-riddled gear stick knob to your family.

I have a mate with a CV8Z and the exhaust sound is INCREDIBLE. Seriously, from inside the car its incredible. When I hopped back in my T, it sounded like I had a rubberband driving my car (albeit a fast one). As far as I know he had the standard US-spec exhaust they are now using. They are LOUD. I really dont think you need louder. Forget all older Monaros, take a Z for a spin and you will find it totally different. A VERY impressive sound. Totally addictive. I cant for the life of me understand why that style (ie volume!) exhaust isnt either standard or an option on EVERY Aussie V8 sports car. Its what V8's are all about. In fact, a lounder, more free flowing exhaust should be an option on all sports cars, the T included. I would definitely have chosen it if it was an option.