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weight:power
shaggy - 5/2/03 at 07:53 PM

In Sweden we have this rule if you are building a car: 10kw/100kg (could be changed to 15kw in the near future)
so if I have a heavy car I could ad more power and torque. What is best,
light car-less power or
heavy car-more power?
Do you guys have theese restictions ?


Findlay234 - 5/2/03 at 08:17 PM

why not go for an engine that doesnt have much actual power but does have lots of torque. get a big slow moving engine, where the pistons have a long throw. use some good gearing and you should have a good car.

as an example there was a tv program on the other night called salvage squad. in the that program they were restoring an old world war one narrow guage train engine. the thing was powered by an engine putting out 40hp but to shift the armoured train it must have had shed loads of torque.

just a thought, could be wrong tho.

cheers
fin


Stu16v - 5/2/03 at 11:44 PM

Go for light weight/less power. Then you gain on handling, and being able to stop quicker too.

Cheers, Stu.

P.s. no. We do not have restrictions like that here. We just pay the difference on insurance and tax....

[Edited on 5/2/03 by Stu16v]


Liam - 6/2/03 at 12:37 AM

Blimey!!

What an awful rule! You have to bulk it out to 750kg if you want 'as much' as 100bhp . Or to put it another way, you can't build a car with more than 133bhp/tonne. So why can you go out and buy a Volvo (or whatever) with a much higher power/weight than that?

Can you even make a locost that heavy with such a small engine?? Register it over here and import it mate!

I thought there were quite a few Sweedish builders - never heard of that rule before. My condolences.

Oh yeah - like everyone else says - light and low powered will handle best (but will loose out higher speed). Cripes! You couldn't even do a book locost with a 2.0 pinto - it'd be too powerful! Dont mean to sound patronising - but are you 100% sure about this rule? Seems rediculous (I thought as a country, Sweeden had it pretty sorted - guess I was wrong ).

Liam


shaggy - 6/2/03 at 08:49 AM

A volvo is not amature built for starters, this rule only goes for us "garagebuilders"
A lot of people stuff their cars with steel and other heavy stuff berore they wheigh it
or they just change motor when going through sva....legal: I think NOT.
I`m not shure importing will work. We can`t even import a "real" car wich are modified.
THIS SUX


philgregson - 6/2/03 at 10:06 AM

Just reading this thread makes me sad - I thought such barbaric and blatent infringements of human rights had been erradicated from the world.

Our grandparents fought a world war etc.etc. to rid us of this sort of oppression.

Phone Amnesty international, tell the world, or better still phone mr Bush and divert his war - this sort of thing cannot be allowed.

We've all seen those sad black and white charity posters of sad imaciated Locosters with their engine bays so empty you could see their chassis members but I never really believed it untill now - not so close to home anyway.

Just lost my faith in humanity,

Phil.


scutter - 6/2/03 at 11:26 AM

Phil,

You really need to get out more you know.

Dan.

[Edited on 6/2/03 by scutter]


Fifer - 14/2/03 at 01:06 PM

Shaggy,
How do they test or know the power output of your engine ?
Can you not fit a restriction in the inlet of the engine which will drasticly reduce the power output (Like small 50cc bikes do). Then remove it after the test ??


kingr - 14/2/03 at 02:04 PM

quote:
Originally posted by philgregson
We've all seen those sad black and white charity posters of sad imaciated Locosters with their engine bays so empty you could see their chassis members but I never really believed it untill now - not so close to home anyway.



Better believe it Phil, there are some individuals out there, very close to here, that have enough room to put another whole engine into their engine bays. I think they call them selves Becks or something, although what they have to do with David Beckham, I don't know.

Kingr