Astronaut Magazine - Revitilization

[KLinardo]

I'll volunteer for a mid season interview about the 3 Boss Motorsports AMWEC cars.

[Vri404]

I'll volunteer for a mid season interview about the 3 Boss Motorsports AMWEC cars.

Cool, I'll send some messages soon.

[Vri404]

Cars of the AMWEC: What is the Zeus?

The Zeus. The all around dominant force in the 2015 AMWEC Season. It is one of pure insanity, winning every race so far, despite being an AGTE class vehicle. I had the great task of talking with both of the men who made the Zeus what it is, "NormanVauxhall" and "Strop."

Getting to GG and talking with "Strop" was the easy part, but getting to Znopresk talking with "NormanVauxhall," not so much.

I'll start with The Interview with "Strop"

-------------------------------------------------------
Vri: Just a few quick questions before we get to looking at the car, Uh... Firstly, How long did it take you to get the Tune perfect?

Strop: Development actually started very late, post our initial collaboration with Znopresk of retuning the Zeus. From there we only had a few weeks to cobble together a suitable entry, compounded by the fact we initially ran afoul of the engine rules that stated no deboring or destroking to reduce engine displacement was allowed. For that purpose a special trim of the Zeus with an eligible BMMA engine had to be marketed. DOT certification and ratifying actually took up most of the time. After that, we were already familiar with the car, and it was already so well suited to the tournament that we did not have to change much at all aside from making sure the suspension and tyre settings matched the new weight distribution. Our methods are tried and tested so we were able to fix those on a very limited closed testing schedule.

Vri: Okay... Uh... Is the Zeus Over performing to what you expected?

Strop: No, not really. Certainly not overperforming to what we hoped, either. Having studied the regulations, we already realised that the AGTE class would be best suited to our purposes, and most likely had an advantage over the AP classes. In particular, the ability to use VVL and the larger fuel tank were significant. At the very least, we felt that with the car we had, we should aim to dominate the class, and we've been (correctly) quoted as saying that we were expecting to cause a big upset in the AP1 and AP2 class too. On that note I would like to say that I think the spread of results among the rest of the field is a good sign that while the AGTE class restrictions were slightly more lenient, they were not fundamentally overpowered compared to the others.

Most importantly the technicians and drivers have done an excellent job, keeping their noses completely clean so far. We can tune the car to be as easy to drive as possible, but to have no unscheduled pits and zero errors in a 6, 12 let alone 24 hour race is no mean feat. Well done to them.

Vri: Finally, Are you hoping to continue the partnership for the future AMWEC championships?

Strop: With such an excellent base and excellent results, I would certainly hope to for 2017 and beyond! As the Porsche FIA WEC team, who have just won the driver and constructor's championship for 2015 (congratulations to them) just said, don't change a winning combination. We've got a good feeling about this and the way it has strengthened both our brands respectively has many flow-on effects for the communities we support.

Vri: Th-Thank you for your time.

Strop: Pleasure.

----------------------------------------------------------------

With that we will move on to the interview with "NormanVauxhall"

----------------------------------------------------------------

Vri: So, I have some questions for you, firstly, What was the thinking behind partnering with GG?

Norman: The partnership with GG started during the International Car Show where we showed the Zeus for the first time. There was obviously the GG stand and we spent some time looking at their supercars when we argued about the abuse of super refined accessories and super advanced technologies for "minimal" gain.
We jokingly proposed to send some Znopresk consultant to ease up their production costs, but at the end of the discussion we were closing an agreement for a partnership for a limited production of an "expensive" Zeus. We hoped for some prestige perception boost and they had some good extra earning and some way to discover some of our "Znopresk Magic"

Vri: Did you expect GG's tuning to go as well as it did?

Norman: We were aware of the high quality of the GG tuning so we were confident from the beginning about "high-octane" results. We weren't expecting such a leading performance... good for us.

Vri: Are you hoping to continue this partnership for future AMWEC championships?

Norman: Totally! But I can understand if GG wants to send their own car in the future championships.

Vri: Finally, Were there many visual changes between the AGTE and Proper Production model?

Norman: Very little. They fit their high tech aerodynamic package on the Zeus, but nothing more. Probably the same treatment that all the cars had had.

Vri: Thank you for your time.

Norman: No Problem.
-----------------------------------------------------

Next: Some Photos of the Zeus (or The Boss Motorsports Cars, whichever gets done 1st)

[Sillyworld]

Mmm, I have a question for Mr Strop (not AMWEC-related), he said:

Our methods are tried and tested so we were able to fix those on a very limited closed testing schedule.

So that means he uses pretty much the same method for tuning cars? isn't that less fun?

[strop]

Less fun than what, though? I guess that depends on a lot of things.

In this case what I mean is that I happen to know certain engineering choices tend to yield a better mix of characteristics to suit my style. Everybody has habits, and so do I, especially when it comes to making the car fast, so deciding on components was really quick. The tuning itself is still unique for each car, though again I've a habitual order there from a lot of previous experience, so if I want to make a car, er, win, I know what I'd want to do.

If I wanted to switch things up a lot, I'd join completely different styles of challenges or deliberately set arbitrary limitations outside of the rules. Which I do, frequently

[Vri404]

Interview with K. Linardo, of Boss Motorsports.

Vri: Is Boss Motorsports preforming better than expected?

KL: That's a difficult question to answer. This is really the first big racing endeavor we entered into with our cars. We obviously set out with all intentions to try to win, but we knew we were pretty new to the racing world and we knew there would be a learning curve.

I would say we are right around where we expected with the Boss 499 AGTE car. It was originally designed for a racing series that never got off the ground. We put so much time into it, and it was supposed to be our flagship, so we decided we needed to get it into another event. Re-purposing the race trim from one series and its rules to AMWEC AGTE class proved to be a challenge and I think you see that in what I would consider sub par runs. Though, it surprises us sometimes.

Our Boss-Kart AP2 car is definitely not performing as well as we expected. We don't really use turbos outside of heavy duty or extreme one-off builds, but we tried a twin-turbo V6 as an experiment in AP2 and it did not work out. This was one area where I was testing the waters for future AP1 builds depending on technological development and rule modifications we would see moving on into 2016 and beyond. Our drivers have given me plenty of feedback (Read: an earful of complaints) about the difficulty of putting the power down and how easy it is to shred the soft compound tires. Those tires were also a test/experiment to see how they performed on the various circuits this year. You can probably expect us to continue to utilize and tune for medium compound tires on future builds, so long as tire compounds aren't drastically different in 2016.

The AP1 car has actually been a pleasant surprise. IL CAPO literally means "The Boss" in Italian (capitalization for emphasis). So we were taking a gamble with this car from Boss Motorsports. If it hung around the back of the field, we would have cursed ourselves from being able to use the IL CAPO nameplate, and that wouldn't have looked good from a company called Boss Motorsports and a President with Linardo as a last name. Regardless, I think this car has great amounts of potential. It's actually powered by a Ford SVT 5.4L V8 that we took and refined to broaden the torque curve and get the HP numbers where we needed to be compliant with the power : weight rules. It's been a great car and a great engine. It's very stable, easy to drive, and really can challenge the other AP1 competitors. I'm very pleased with it and looking forward to adjusting our tunes here and there for next season. I think there's quite a bit of speed to be found in our cars.

Vri: With entries in all three classes, Which, at the start of the season, were you expecting to do the best?

KL: Well I may have partially answered this question, but I really wasn't sure. The AP2 car was going to be boom or bust. It was either going to be our best or worst design and it chose to be the latter.

I thought the AGTE car would do the best within its class because I thought we had built a really balanced FR car that had plenty of life under the hood. I also thought we had a leg up because this car was in development well before the rules to this challenge were announced, so I thought we would have an engineering edge. Not to mention, I didn't know or realize how many good production vehicles would show up for this.

Also, like I said earlier, we were taking a gamble on the AP1 entry because it's really our first attempt at a MR vehicle, so I didn't think it would do so well.

Vri: Follow up question, which vehicle were you expecting to do the worst?

KL: See my last two answers. It was a toss up between AP1 and AP2 in the beginning.

Vri: Do the cars meet the expectations of the R&D teams?

KL: Yes and no. The AP1 car really exceeded expectations and we are very happy to have a solid foundation to work on moving forward. The AGTE car was a disappointment simply due to the time that has been spent on its original design, its production version, and now the AMWEC rebuild. I mean, we have a knack for fiddling with the Ford Coyote 5.0 V8 you'll find under the hood, but the chassis team seems to have built a GT500-esque Boss 499 instead of a GT350R-esque Boss 499. You can put it around a track and really make use of its relatively high power, but you lose too much time in the corners which causes us to struggle overall. That really put a damper on the R&D folks.

The AP2 car was a little bit of a test mule. It was the Boss-Kart that ran in another race series and slowly came into its own as that event wore on. After some outside consultation, we trashed the original experimental engine and rebuilt it with a turbo-inline 4 for testing and then again for the AMWEC with the twin-turbo V6. We thought the two turbos and more compact length would help. We also wanted to see how soft tires performed and we learned from that too. That car couldn't disappoint us no matter what it did on the track. The R&D team really enjoys taking that car apart at the end of a race and analyzing the performance of the different components. Even with the superior results of IL CAPO, the Boss-Kart will probably give us the most useful data in making future design choices. This year, we are just happy that it isn't finishing last in the class or overall.

Vri: Finally, will your team be returning for the 2016 AMWEC Season?

KL: You bet. Even with the mixed bag of results thus far, Boss Motorsports is definitely in this for the long haul and looks to make gains on the valuable information we learned this year. I'm not sure if you'll see a three pronged attack like this year, though. We are not doing that well in the Manufacturer's Title and we're running 3 cars while other teams are doing well by focusing on one vehicle. I have yet to decide how we will go about managing our resources since we are such a small shop. You can probably count the Boss 499 out of AGTE contention next year if the rules don't change. It's just not a comparable design to those like that of the Zeus, and since that's our competition, we need to reconsider our FR American Muscle approach. The IL CAPO will definitely be back, but probably with a new power plant. It may even show up in a different class. We can't speculate too much until the 2016 rules package is made official. Rumor has it that we might see a displacement change next year and we plan to make use of any new allowances. That goes for all of our entries, but we can't show all of our cards.

Next is up in the air. New PC soon means I will have none of my own stuff. Please start sending me shit, I'll review anything.

[Vri404]

Veldarin's Vintage Machines.

A new article series by our classic car nut, Petr Veldarin, puts old cars into the spotlight, be them from the 40's all the way up to the 90's.
Our first is a small gem from HP Craftworks. 1955 to be exact.

So, I have my car. The 1955 HMC Clubman Racer Kit Series 1. This one here was one of the first made from the company, I think chassis code 0005 to be exact. I'm standing in a pit bay at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with my not-so-bright-orange car. Looking at this thing, I don't trust the size of the tyres... luckily there's a roll cage. In suitable 50's race driver style, I have an open face helmet and goggles. I'm still gonna be whipped to all hell though. The 74hp SCAA Clubman edition I have here is very light, only 598kg to be exact. Every component is original, down to the tyres and brakes.

Starting this thing up leads to a somewhat disappointing sound of a NA and Carbed 1.3L Inline 4, but it fits. Driving this thing along leads me to believe that this thing will be very driveable. It handles like a dream, but the lack of grip does catch you out through the corners. If it had more power that it currently has, I don't think I'd be able to write this review.

As I pull it to a halt after about 4 laps, as I got scared. Let's pull this thing on the roads. But instead of that the engine died.

I may have blown the engine

~Petr Veldarin.

[Vri404]

No Comment needed.

[strop]

To clarify: that image was from the coverage of the AMWEC event in Albert Park.

And the photoshop is an entirely new piece, since the decals had to be redone for the new angle

[vmo]

Astronaut Magazine would test the new Amagosta?

[Vri404]

So, I'm looking to re-boot this magazine.

Gonna pull it more toward a proper magazine style rather than just throwing up articles when I feel like it.

So, I'm gonna put up some Slots, and I want you guys to put forward some cars.

Any Steam Workshop Mods Are Allowed

OPEN BETA ONLY (Unless your car is compatible in the latest open Beta)

3/4: Hatches of the Future!
- This will be for hatchbacks from the years 2015-2017. Any will be reviewed, be it entry level or Hot.
1: Rennen Caelum Hatch Premium 1.8T FWD
2: Hawker Leopard RR
3: Montuzo Engineering Velocity
4:


0/3: Hypercar showdown
-This will be a three-way duel between Hypercars from the years 2016-2017.
REQUIREMENTS: Must Be Mid or Rear Engined
Must cost less than $100,000 to make (Total Cost in Overview Tab)
1:
2:
3:

2/2: Classic Review: 1990's Sports Car Shoot-out
-This will be a shoot-out between two 90's sports vehicles
REQUIREMENTS: Must be built between 1992-1997
Must be Front Engined
1: Galt Tetrad SP
2: Jeffeur Starsky GT [Having Issues with car]


0/5: Driven
-This will be for any random cars that don't fit in the above categories.
1: Alamanda Centurion
2:
3:
4:
5:

Special Reviews: 1/3
------------------------------

I'm gonna do this a lot better than I did before!

[vmo]

Do you accept the RS cien in random?

[Vri404]

Of course.

As long as it only uses Steam Mods, I will be happy to take it under a special review.

[KairaWolf]

I'd be happy to participate. When I get home, I'll be sure to create some cool cars. Keep in touch.

[HybridTronny]

Damn , i'd love to join the 90's sports car category since quiet alot of sports car that i've made in the past but i deleted it.

Well , onto to make a new 90's sport car then! Hope you can accept mine , tbh.