ITB - what a bunch of crap

Catch22 said:
But I will note this (again)...
If the process says that car A is 80lbs too light and car B is 120lbs too heavy... Thats a 200lb disparity.

THAT needs to be fixed. I think most of the ITAC agrees with that and I have confidence that they are working on it.
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Oh, it's being discussed, of that there's no question!

Your example is a tad off. If car B comes in for a process check, and it's 120 heavy, it gets adjusted. If it's 99 heavy, it gets left alone.

So, there's the potential of a 198 pound delta, of course, in reality, it's less.

(You know, if some of you feel strongly that cars coming up for process reviews get adjusted when they are within 100 pounds of the process number, feel free to write the ITAC with your opinion. )

But, my take is that we aim for the bullseye, and we live with that number. I can see rounding to the nearest 5 but that's it. Our resolution level needs to be the same as techs. We don't post "ranges".
 
Knestis said:
You don't know if they are "heavy enough" because an ITR Mustang, Camaro, or Firebird has yet to hit the track.
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WHOA. Kirk you do realize you are close to suggesting on track performance being used to as a check on the classification process.

I feel a chill here in hell. :D
 
"If torque is all that matters, than why are we so worried about hp?
-why do we measure an engine's performance (it's ability to accelerate the vehicle) in horsepower??"

Because it matters a lot! A car that develops the same torque as another, but does it at twice the rpm, makes twice the horsepower-BUT-both cars accellerate their fastest as they pass thru their respective torque peaks.
 
lateapex911 said:
Oh, it's being discussed, of that there's no question!

Your example is a tad off. If car B comes in for a process check, and it's 120 heavy, it gets adjusted. If it's 99 heavy, it gets left alone.

So, there's the potential of a 198 pound delta, of course, in reality, it's less.

(You know, if some of you feel strongly that cars coming up for process reviews get adjusted when they are within 100 pounds of the process number, feel free to write the ITAC with your opinion. )

But, my take is that we aim for the bullseye, and we live with that number. I can see rounding to the nearest 5 but that's it. Our resolution level needs to be the same as techs. We don't post "ranges".
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I guess we need baby steps.
Its frustrating, but I suppose it is what it is.

I'd suggest correcting the cars that currently fall outside the 100lb target first (low hanging fruit thats WAY off). Then address the issue of "how close to we want to be?"

Personally I think you can get a helluva lot closer than 100lbs and it isn't that hard to do so. But I guess some folks think its harder than that (for the life of me I can't figure out WHY this seems so hard).

And as I've said before...
If the process says Car A has a p/w ratio of 17, and it says Car B has a p/w ratio of 19... Well... Duh.
That is SOOOO far off that arguing about minutae is just stupid. Just fix it. Hell, just get it close.

Everyone with a brain realizes the process is not now, nor will it ever will be perfect. But when its THAT wrong just fix it dammit.
Why... Because once again, if this car is way wrong one way, and another car is way wrong another way... Thats not fair competition. Plain and simple.

Its simple math. We can do better. It benefits ALL of us and the health of our entire category to eliminate the things that are just plain wrong. You don't have to make it perfect, but eliminating completely wrong is a great first step.
 
pfcs said:
"If torque is all that matters, than why are we so worried about hp?
-why do we measure an engine's performance (it's ability to accelerate the vehicle) in horsepower??"

Because it matters a lot! A car that develops the same torque as another, but does it at twice the rpm, makes twice the horsepower-BUT-both cars accellerate their fastest as they pass thru their respective torque peaks.
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here you made some statements(two true ones, one not), but failed to answer the question(s)

I apologize, I am not the best teacher when it comes to this stuff. I apparently do not know how to make you understand this concept... I had hoped that the way that Ron talked about it might help you. Anyone have a different way of explaining this to him?? Maybe its time to crack a book...
 
Knestis said:
You don't know if they are "heavy enough" because an ITR Mustang, Camaro, or Firebird has yet to hit the track. We're not talking about adding 100# to their stock weight - we're talking about the process of listing them in ITR to include an "adder" of that amount in an attempt to take torque into consideration. Remember that the basics of the process use the stock quoted HP number as a starting point.
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I understand that... I was just refering to the fact that they are already pretty heavy cars. And also eluding to the fact that I'm scared of a mostly random quanity of weight being thrown at a car and worried that the car will be classified too heavy.


Knestis said:
Dick is right on that we are constrained to the stock quoted numbers - warts and all - as the inputs to our process. We can NOT do any calculus to derive areas under curves because we don't HAVE curves to work with.
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definitely stock quoted numbers... has anyone suggested otherwise? As far as the curves go: it was just an idea guys... what are the odds they could be gotten?? would it be worth it??
 
Just getting the basic numbers is tougher than you'd think, and in many cases they are inconsistent. Not to mention the different measuring methods, (Old SAE, Din, etc, etc) CURVES!?!

I would like nothing more, but I know what is worth hoping for, and curves won't be happening.
 
lateapex911 said:
Oh, it's being discussed, of that there's no question!

Your example is a tad off. If car B comes in for a process check, and it's 120 heavy, it gets adjusted. If it's 99 heavy, it gets left alone.
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Wait a minute. I'm admittedly doing this from memory, but wasn't the Porsche 924 recently (mid-2008) adjusted from 2600 to 2525 lbs?
 
I'm teachable but not the student:
Because it (HORSEPOWER) matters a lot! A car that develops the same torque as another, but does it at twice the rpm, makes twice the horsepower-BUT-both cars accellerate their fastest as they pass thru their respective torque peaks.
Horsepower expresses "the ability to do work" which is a function (as in mathmatical product) of torque and rpm (think force x distance)
And realize that the car that develops the same torque at twice the rpm (like you bike), will have twice the available force to accellerate it when we gear it down 50% so it has the same speed as the other one because by doing that, the gears doubled the torque to the wheels. And, although it has twice the acceleration of the first car, they are both having the max accelerations they can have at that speed because both are at their engines torque peak. Get it yet? If not, I give up.











g
 
Gary L said:
Wait a minute. I'm admittedly doing this from memory, but wasn't the Porsche 924 recently (mid-2008) adjusted from 2600 to 2525 lbs?
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If I recall, it went down to 2495 (a cut of 105). And It got an adder for brakes, again, from my memory.
 
I have just taken a look thru the ITCS and after this looksee i think that much of this thread has been so much mental masturbation. I am sure that I am not the only one that sees the glaring inconsistencies in car weights. Before we get wrapped around the axle with P/W ratios, torque vs. horsepower ad nauseum, a stroll thru the ITB section with a little common sense might be in order. It looks as though when a car was first classified, it came in at stock curb weight and if nobody bitched, then it stayed that way. Either that or certain cars weren't welcome and they were high weighted out of contention (I really don't believe that).

I am going to throw about 1/2 a dozen examples out here and let the experts explain to me the reasoning behind the listed weights. My examples are all within the same brand, I am not comparing apples to oranges.

1. Alfa Romeo: All the solid axle cars are about the same. The Alfetta GT is 120 lbs heavier, why , rear suspension? The Alfetta sedan is 85 lbs heavier yet. Is that to compensate for the greater wind resistance and higher center of gravity?

2. BMW: The E30 chassis car is 65 lbs lighter that the E21 chassis car with the same engine. I was always led to believe that the E30 was the superior handler.

3. Ford: Mustang III 2550 lbs, Mercury Capri 2640, they are the same car. Ford Pinto 2490 lbs, Mercury Bobcat 2520-same car. Mustang II, same chassis as a Pinto only uglier, why does it to be 340 lbs heavier?

4. Saab: 72 Saab 99 with the crap Triumph motor runs 97 lbs heavier that the 73>99 with the Saab motor. The Saab 900 runs the same weight regardless of 8V or 16V motor. I garauntee that there is a significant difference.

5. Volvo: All 240s run the same weight with 3 different engines none of which will make as much power as the B20E motor in the 142, yet they are 140 lbs heavier.

6. One Apple to orange. Saab 99EMS w/ 2.0 motor 115 advertised horsepower , little or no aftermarket support, 2540 lbs.....Golf III, 2.0 motor 115 advertised hp, fair to large aftermarket support, 2350 ilbs......wtf!!!!

If I have shown my deriere here I welcome any and all corrections to my waywardness. There were more weights and whys that I questioned but this did not need to go on for ever. My point is that the simple stuff needs to be fixed before we get to the astro physics and quantum mechanics.
 
Alex,

I don't see you as being wayward one bit. What you have is a list of cars that were listed in the ITCS 'pre-process'. The newest stuff is run through and that is why some stuff doesn't make sence when a direct comparision is done. Add to that the +/- 100lb 'margin or error', and it gets easy to see how these things can be all over the board.

There is a faction within the ITAC that wants to reset the weights of every car in IT right down to the nearest 5lbs as per the process. There are some that just want to do that as requests come in to review. There are some that want to leave it as is.

On this issue, the ITAC spins it's wheels - and by default, the 3rd group gets it way...because no movement on the topic is indeed a position.
 
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