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why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 1:56 pm
by cpufreak101
so i made a V8 sport edition of a station wagon i have, it's just a N/A V8 (that is 8.1 litres) and i just tried to max it out for everything it had, thinking it would need all that power to move a big and heavy station wagon around, especially with the added weight of the AWD system so i just made it as so, fuel economy was of a truck, expected from a 8 liter V8 being about 12 MPG, except on the tracks, it would, according to wikipedia (this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fa ... n_vehicles ) be the fastest production vehicle unchallenged for about 2 years (note, it comes out in 1990, my car does) reaching a top speed of 215.1, i mean, who has ever heard of a $20,000 station wagon/people mover (i think you call them) that would happily beat any supercar for 2 years from launch if on a long enough course, and i also had a 1985 truck, fastest accelerating production (albeit limited since it was a custom, but still, a TRUCK??) vehicle of 1985, if my cars go fast, and do everything else well (to my standards) then, should i change anything, or start to de-tune?

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 2:17 pm
by nialloftara
well as no sane compay would put out a mass produced station wagon with 12 mpg and a 8.1 v8 (with how many thousands of emissions?) in 1990 I'm going to categorize it as a factory 1 off, like say this one http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2013/11/18/callaways-254-mph-sledgehammer-corvette-to-cross-the-block/

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 2:29 pm
by TrackpadUser
How many million horsepowers does your car have?

In 1990, Sub-200 HP was still the standard in many categories of cars.

Also, the 20K you are talking about is probably the cost of manufacturing the car. By automation's standards, 20kilobucks is actually quite expensive. For reference, ATCC 2 in 1987 had that kind of budget, and the only thing it really prevented us from doing was using carbon fibre.

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 2:31 pm
by cpufreak101
trackpaduser wrote:How many million horsepowers does your car have?

In 1990, Sub-200 HP was still the standard in many categories of cars.

Also, the 20K you are talking about is probably the cost of manufacturing the car. By automation's standards, 20kilobucks is actually quite expensive. For reference, ATCC 2 in 1987 had that kind of budget, and the only thing it really prevented us from doing was using carbon fibre.

no, automation priced it around 10K, i just seen somewhere you want to multiply the cost by 2, also thanks for the info on power, might keep it and say it was my attempted track car, and the rest i'll just de-tune, i still consider myself quite bad at automation

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 2:35 pm
by TrackpadUser
Still, your car has one obviously major issue that would make it unsaleable in most categories. 19.6L/100km is supercar fuel consumption.

Even gaz-guzzling American V8 barges from the 80s and 90s were usually closer to 14L/100km

I would also like to see the other stats.

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 2:46 pm
by cpufreak101
well i will admit, i'm still horrible at automation, horrible at goal-setting, just trying to get on by without getting seriously hurt by making someones eyes bleed, i still very noob, but here are other stats:
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all i can say is... don't hate me, im noob.

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 3:16 pm
by TrackpadUser
Yeah, I think the car is just very expensive and would definitively be sold more than twice the price shown.

While the 2X the production costs is true for high volume cars like compacts, you would probably have to charge more as this would definitively not sell that many units.

As for the other stats, the first two that seem quite low would be comfort and driveability.

Lets start with comfort. 18.5 is a very low value, and while I cannot see all your stats, I would suspect that you are running with no mufflers and very racey brake pads, both of which reduce comfort. The other thing, while you have 700hp, you car isn't that sporty, and this would probably not be super easy to achieve as it is and will always be a large and fairly heavy wagon. This means that the market this would be meant for is the Luxury Sports car market, which means you definitively need more comfort.

If you want a reference with something. I made an economy car in 1995 with no powersteering, a 5 speed manual, standard interior and a basic radio. That got me 21 comfort.

The next one is drivability. While very sporty engines do indeed reduce it, it still seems quite low. I would reccomend checking you brakes, to see if they are over the lock threshold, and see if you have fade issues.

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 4:16 pm
by USDMFTW
the top speed comes from the negative downforce/lift, other performance times are decent for the year

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 4:32 pm
by TrackpadUser
I decided to look at the .lua files and I think I found the reason why your car is so fast.

For some reason the Cd of that body is .18, which is very low.

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 4:57 pm
by 07CobaltGirl
My observation is, nobody would put an 8.1L into a production family wagon. Not in 1990, not even in 1970. 495 cubic inches is ludicrous engine size for a semi-modern production vehicle, unless it's a heavy duty truck. I'd be curious what the wheel spin was on the car, with 700+ hp on 225mm tires. It is a car which would belong in strop's BSLL competition (look it up on the forums here), except it only has the undrivable factor, not the hp/wgt factor.

Which brings me to my next observation. 117' to stop is also horrid for production vehicles. Most anything on the road can stop in around 100', again, except for heavy duty trucks. The more ponies you push, the better your brakes have to be, because it isn't how fast you can go, it's how fast you can not hit the wall. Like they say, it isn't the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.

Not saying the car is bad, but it certainly appears to be quite impractical. It's got the sportiness of something from the 60s and the drivability of something from the 50s. You must have advanced safety to get a high safety score, so you do have that going for you. Even if you managed to sell enough to price it at 2x production costs, $27k, not many would buy it.

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 5:11 pm
by TrackpadUser
117' is not that bad, being about 35 meters. For reference, the figures I found for the Cobalt SS are around 116'.

As for your 100' number, this is the kind of distance a Corvette does with large sticky tires.

With properly tuned brakes, the top two limiting factors are weight and tires.

For an other reference just made a compact car in 1995, weighting 870kg. With 165s hard long life tires, it takes 43.9 meters to stop, even with properly tuned brakes.

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 5:30 pm
by cpufreak101
well thanks for all the tips guys, now i know step one is to NOT max out the engine

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 5:48 pm
by BlastersPewPew
07CobaltGirl wrote:My observation is, nobody would put an 8.1L into a production family wagon. Not in 1990, not even in 1970. 495 cubic inches is ludicrous engine size for a semi-modern production vehicle, unless it's a heavy duty truck.


The 1967-1976 Cadillac Eldorado came with 8.2L (500cid) V8s as an option and quite a few sold, in 1971 it had 365hp (SAE Net) and 190hp in 1976 (SAE Net and emissions equipment). In 1975 this engine was the STANDARD engine in all models. Granted these were not wagons but still it isnt that far of a leap from land barge to wagon.

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sat May 16, 2015 11:52 pm
by strop
Though the market being what it was, and in many respects still is, I don't think "hot wagon" to the tune of 700hp ever existed :lol: There's certainly plenty of examples of sports wagons in all countries over the decades, more notably post 80s (Japan, Germany, Sweden... Fairly obvious), so perhaps if you were going against the grain but still wanted to make something to sell in bulk, you could see what those were like

Re: why did my cars start to become fast?

PostPosted: Sun May 17, 2015 1:06 am
by Astraman
Building a fast car is easy but building a spacious practical car, that has good economy and still is luxurious, clean, outstanding and pretty enough is quite a hell of a job. My personal advice (bc I learned a lot of of it ;) ) start designing downsized engines. Set yourself the goal to build the most efficient engine imaginable.

I currently have a 2016 engine that i'm developing which has a 1000 cc's and am aiming to get 170 Hp out of it whilst still being reliable, economical and affordable. Until now i'm at 144 hp...which is not enough to power my full-size family car. Why all this you ask. I want to power my range as much as possible by one engine family because ----> car tycoon :P

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