TheTaipan

What the hell who was the scientist/doctor who took the experiment to the highest level and proved it. "hey I was right I am still conscious!!! crap im dead now though that wasnt worth proving I was right" <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Apparently during the French revolution doctors, scholars and freaks would flock to the guilotine to observe the decapitations of the lucky headless ones... Some weren't just there to watch the gory scene, medical scientists were actually looking at brain perfusion and testing (without modern brain wavemeasurements) how long the head remained concious without its body. The level of conciousness can be tested by looking at pupils and other facial nerve signs. Interestingly much of our medical knowledge came from the time of Gladiators, where disembowled people gave physians a chance to "have a look" during a time when corpses were not leagally able to be examined. The aforementioned French revolution, and various wars gave rise to medical practises we still use today, including much of the information gained by the Nazi's testing on POW's in concentration camps. (eg a lot of what we know about how a body reacts to extreme cold was from Nazi experiments and in many big open heart operations we will deliberately cool the body to extreme levels of hypothermia to reduce "myocardial" oxygen demand). SL

so if my understanding is correct it intercepts the signals going to the computer and alters them, rather than completely overriding and obliterating the computer itself?

I recently read in a Street Machine magazine article that a lot of piggyback chips override the engine computer and if that engine computer controls other functions (such as Ford's Smartlock immobilizer) they are also over-ridden. Is this completely and uniformly true for all piggy-back style engine computers? If not, does the Xede unit allow for the normal function of Smartlock and other features such as the failsafe system (where the computer shuts down cylinders to protect the engine if the cooling system fails). Thanks for any accurate advice you can give Simon.

Ford use a Castrol product not commercially available - but remarkably close to Magnatec in its performance.

The most common radar detector detector is actually a second officer sitting in the car - most people forget (in their panic) to turn the detector off, meanwhile the officer back in the patrol car gives a blast of radio waves in the general direction of the other vehicle and the officer at the door hears the tell tale noise... gotcha... I believe a portable unit is more advantagous as the police laws regarding a vehicle search are a lot more liberal than a personal body search - therefore if you are carrying the unit on your body it is far more difficult for them to find it. I use the best radar detector I can get - cost me around $200, but so far has worked nearly every time, and is completely undetectable by the officers. You can buy them at OPSM, and Eyewear Now...

Its a hoax... Pic1 Cops have no visible badges, mistake or deliberate? Pic2 Check out the engineering on the way the inside of the thing is built, there is a gap between the "lens" and the side of the bin, below it you can see the "flash"... wouldn't that lead to the possiblility of reflected light overexposing the lens? The camera itself looks like a slide projector or something similar - is anyone familiar enough with the camera units inside a gasto to know any different? http://www.redflex.com.au/traffic/traffic_frame.htm is a link to one speed camera supplier. Its clear this unit looks a little bulky campared to the real thing... BTW These photos have been circulating for years! SL

With my service booked in, I was considering using my own oil. Which type would you guys recommend, if price is not an issue, but performance and longevity are... or would you stick with the FordMoCo stuff? I'm also interested in the stuff that Russell Ingall uses in his V8 Supercar - are they still using an "off the shelf" oil in that engine, or have they changed oils more recently? I kinda figure if a commercially available oil can handle that sorta punishment without additives, then it'd probably cope with my driving OK... Havoline I think it was called? Any opinions and explainations why would be appreciated! Simon.

Was hoping it'd be happy news for you Hypnodoc... Never mind - I do agree with you that FPV manage to stuff up a lot of things, but their competitors don't have the best rep either... maybe you need CSV? The problematic Typhoon clutch has found homes in the far more powerful Ferrari F50 and the new Ford GT (the GT40 remake - not Falcon GT) so clearly it doesn't need a rocket scientist to figure that we just need to use the same pieces as they did and we have a winner, but who am I to tell Flint what to do? Tom Gormans newsletter right, I read the same thing. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> My god, a 3 way discussion between the Pommies, the Yanks and FINALLY the actual designers of the car, the Aussies. I see it as the greatest joke that will ever come out of FMC and FPV. 2 months now with world wide resources and still nothing. And if the (driver undetectable) harmonic vibration from the engine is actually causing the problem as stated in the latest Aussie Muscle Car, then it also says that NO MATTER HOW STRONG THEY MAKE THE CLIPS THEY WILL KEEP BREAKING. So in reality not only have the Aussie academics at the clown factory in Melbourne f#&ked around for 2 months but so have their equally as stupid Pommie and Yank counterparts. What did Plato say? Ah yes, that was it "Put the academics in charge of any nation and watch it fall quickly to its knees" I guess the same law applies to Corporations as well. What a joke, I know of a certain Qld based clutch establishment that had it all figured out in 2 days flat. I will bet the car that we will see an entirely new clutch go into the Typhoon ONE DAY. I will also bet it ain't gonna be a twin plate. Despite how good FPV have been regarding the Typhoon clutch issue, its been quite a while now Mr Flint and still nothing but rumours. Christ no wonder every major motor vechicle manfacturer on the planet is now technically bankrupt <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I read on an internal Ford document (which I happened to find) last week (Thursday - would've posted immediately had I access to my computer, but I was away from home). There is a fix and it is in the testing stages. Teams in both the UK and Oz have been working on a new circlip and we should here more soon... The document also discussed the Mondeo and the pro's and con's of importing it, but was mostly negative on that one...

Thanks - wasn't aware of that - I'll pass that on to my brother, they were going to charge him for four tyres from his story though...

TSB?? What does that mean/how does it relate?

I have always been one to ignore the tyre placards on the door of my car and keep the tyre pressures >40... but my brother chose follow the advice made by the car manufacturer. He recently took his BA XR6 in for its service, later the technician rings and says his tyre sidewalls are cracking - he needs four new tyres - would he like them to sell him a new set of dunlops? Perplexed, he asks, why would they have split? The technician replied that the tyre pressures were too low and that meant the walls were too soft and the tyres have deteriorated. To which my brother replied, but my pressures are always thirty, knowing that he checks them regularly, what are they now? Technicians answer was thirty... my brother asks what is written on the door of the car, and the answer - thirty comes back. .The obvious next question was asked - so what should he run them at? >40... At the end of the day the tyres ended up being replaced under warranty, but surely they must be getting away with that one an awful lot by the sounds of things?!? Still at $480 per hoop - for a whole set of four that would have cost him a sh*tload had he not known EXACTLY what pressures he was running on and what was written on the door...

Page 11 of the same Motor Magazine - Februrary 05, has an article on the Typhoon's speed issues... "WHERE'S THE SPEED - Typhoon has 30kW more than XR6T - so why is it slower?" The article uses RWKW dyno graphs taken from XR8, XR6T and GT's they have run in the past... According to their results the XR8 pulled 193 RWKW (which accounting for driveline losses they predict 257kW - near enough to the 260 factory quote) XR6Turbo achieved 185kW - running it closer to 250kW at the flywheel! - They quote a usual stock figure of 185-190kW on standard turbo's. Early F6 figures have been as low as 185kW and as high as 200kW. SL

Herein lies my mistake - it wasn't a service at all - I was in for a warranty job, I needed the LH rear door adjusted, a broken catch on the storage bin for the rear passengers replaced and a new windscreen - none of which were likely to make my car faster! I'm not sure that I can say that the car is faster or not without proper testing before and after, but the engine seems to deal with the Territory's weight so much better than before and gear changes are definitely much quicker than before. The other thing being smoother when it is generating full power... Mind you the car always feels faster when you wash too right?!? I understand what you are saying, and unfortunately I haven't got any dyno figures for it, and/or 1/4 mile times. I understand the inaccuracies of gut feel and that is why I definitely will not say it is quicker - but it certainly feels it, but the biggest difference is where it feels powerful and its more responsive feel at low revs, with light throttle applications. They are subtle differences, except to someone who has driven the car for six months straight (and previously owned the same engine for six months prior to that in an XR6). They were obvious enough to me that I felt it was worth posting here, with the intent of confirming with anyone else who may have done something similar, or if anyone knew exactly with this factory update is about? Thanks for your interest. Simon.

Did he actually tell you he reflashed the ECU ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Sorry, I didn't say that - yes he did. Don't get me wrong, its still essentially the same engine - but it seems to just be tuned much better than it originally was. He said he was going to check if there were any engine map updates for my computer - when I returned it was a different techo and he said that the engine computer was reflashed...

I had my Territory in for a service the other day and I was asking about the edit chips that have been getting a fair bit of discussion on this and other forums. The service guy had not heard anything about them, but he said he would check to see if there was an update available for my engine computer... That afternoon I picked the car up, and admittedly going only by gut feel, the car feels totally different! It certainly has picked up more down low torque - the engine is far more responsive and has much quicker and snappier gear changes. The biggest improvement is in the smoothness of the engine at higher revs. Very impressed, and it cost me nothing. I'm sure a custom engine map would have been better performing, but for free it is a BIG improvement... The weight of the Territory is its big fallback, my previous NA XR6 was a good car, but even its weight was too much for the engine down low. The new prgramme seems to make more torque available from much lower down and this is evident even in the Territory - it is noticeable more responsive from a standing start, kickdowns are more aggressive and responsive also, and light throttle applications seem to have more of an effect... Don't know about fuel usage yet, still haven't done a full tank after the mods, but, there doesn't seem to be any major difference... Which leads me to think it was running a bit rich before... SL

The guy can put in a decent lap time - but that does not make him a good driver... would you feel safe racing with him? They done it before, Look at that idiot Kelly Ken <{POST_SNAPBACK}> the ironic thing is kelly is a pretty talented driver AND this year, his most 'eventful' year is NOT his rookie season, go figure. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

We just need to be careful with in gear accelerations as they do not tell the whole story. The Phoon and XR6T are quicker than the V8s for 80-120km/h test. This could be a result of the gearing and also where in the rev range the cars were in. Each car will have its own sweet spot the V8s might be quicker from 70-100km/h or 100-130kmh, 110-140kmh. As we don't know we can't draw to many conclusions from these 80-110 rolling start times. I disagree, the 80-120kmph tests were conducted in each gear (with the obvious exceptions of 1st and reverse!) this would indicate different rev ranges and give a good indication of which engine will pull ahead despite being out of its sweet spot. You are right that perhhaps one of the eights would beat it if we targeted its sweets spot specifically, but perhaps not in all gears - to be quicker in all gears is certainly an indicator of a torquey engine.

If I can correctly recall, don't Wheels have a requirement that all cars are tested with a full tank and a passenger? The idea being to emulate how they perform with a normal load on the "street" (Calder Park is hardly represtentative of the "street" though)... Couldnt agree more Mr T. Wheels testers drive like were taking Miss Daisy to church on Sunday morning. NFI if you ask me. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You don't mean the Fairlane G220? If so it is a 220Kw V8.

It wasn't realy his fault His car just didn't seem to be handling as well as it was a few weeks ago for some strange reason. With regard to the Bargwana incident, this appeared on the V8 supercars site: An inquiry commenced into an incident between car #11, Steven Richards, and car #10, Jason Bargwanna, in which contact was made between the two vehicles during Race 2. Car #11, Steven Richards, was found to have breached the Code of Driving Conduct which resulted in a penalty of an additional 25 seconds to total race time for car #11. and... An inquiry was held into an alleged breach of safety Rules in that the fire bomb cylinder from car #10, Jason Bargwanna, had become detached from the car during Race 1. This matter was referred to the Category Technical Director for further examination and investigation.

Are people getting much value out of ECU mods on the 182's? Generally speaking, I have always thought of these as expensive considering they offer little change in power, but perhaps the 182 is electronically restricted? Have you chipped your 182? Just by gut feel, is it better, has it been a good value mod? Have you dyno'd or measured the difference in any way? Very interested in your reply. Thanks for your advice. Simon.

Hoping to get some advice on how to effectively add some grunt to this engine... As a previous owner of a BA XR6 and now lugging the extra weight of a Territory in the same engine, I wouldn't mind getting back to a similar power/weight ratio. OK, I'm not really after any rocketship, if I was I need a turbo, but I'm just after some simple, cost effective modifications that will make a difference. A good example is the airbox/intake from a turbo... It is the bottom end in particular - just overcoming inertia to get the big lug moving where it needs help, once the revs get free it goes pretty well. Thanks in advance for any USEFUL advice received.