crazy280

not trying to piss anyone off here, but I don't think NAFTA is truly a democratic idea. It was a policy pursued by Clinton, and he was considered to be "breaking with his party" when he did so. Sorry, I'll shut up now.

Ok, that makes sense, thanks Pop. Hey, imagine if light bulbs were rated in HP. That would be pretty funny: "Yeah, I got about half a horsepower in that baby!" Kinda reminds me of Tim Allen on "Home Improvement"

Pop'n'wood, True, I was exagerating about it being free, but I made it clear that it would cost cents on the gallon. Depending on your average yearly mileage, the MPG of your vehicles, and how nice of equipment you purchase, it would end up being the equivalent of paying between 15 and 53 cents per gallon of gasoline. The worst case of 53 cents is if you average 15,000 miles a year, and if your car gets 20 mpg, over a 20 year period it would have cost you 53 cents a gallon if you had used gasoline. Ironically, the more you drive and the worse your mpg is, the more you end up saving with hydrogen, versus gasoline! All of the info is out there, anyone can find it. In fact, I easily found the equipment on the internet at a laboratory equipment store website. The pricey stuff gets you faster hydrogen production rates, and more lbs of storage than the cheaper stuff, but it is all available. BTW, the technique of storing the hydrogen in iron is still being pursued, only they are using more exotic materials. The materials are referred to as hydrides. Also, I'm not suggesting we use any kind of large scale solar energy production, or wind power for that matter. I don't know why you got off on that tangent, I never tried to defend the cost of wind power, etc. In fact, I agree with the points you made. Plus, I said I was not promoting fuel cells, as they are not currently affordably feasable due to the use of platinum, etc in the cell. Like I said, I am talking about hydrogen cumbustion. In fact, a few auto companies have produced running, complete, hydrogen burning cars, only they aren't for sale. Mazda has shown off an RX-8 powered by hydrogen cumbustion, as well as BMW with that 540i, and others, I'm sure. So getting back to the point, I was not suggesting the use of hydrogen as a replacement for electricity. I was just responding to the post about OIL. We can easily replace any system of energy that currently uses oil, with hydrogen. That "setup in my garage" would be to refuel my CAR. Get it? As for the supposed "hydrogen economy" that we all keep hearing about, well, that would take a while. Like I said, the infrastructure is all that's lacking. If investors go to get consultation, the advisors look at the current research and say it would be too costly, so why not go another route. But they need to see the big picture. The auto and energy companies put so much money into R&D, "greening" advertising, and lobbying, that if that money were just put into building the infrastructure, we could all be reaping the benefits of cleaner energy that also makes us non-dependant on foreign oil. And if we all started buying electrolysis equipment right now to power our own vehicles, the costs would start to come down on the equipment, and it would make businesses see that there is a market for this kind of thing, which would lead to exponential growth in the field. Its just like any other business, remember ten years ago when DVD players cost hundreds of dollars? Pretty soon you'll be hard pressed to find a VHS. And I have seen the "detailed numbers". Sorry if I came off as being rude, its hard to express tone or implication on a text forum. I'm just trying to share ideas

Yeah, I like my horses beaten thoroughly before I feed my dog Battle of the science geeks and I'm in it! But seriously, Dan, we are on the same page. I said from the beginning that power is what accellerates a car, not torque. I just showed you how torque*revolutions is work (please correct my math if wrong) and engines must be rotating to make power (ENGINES not MOTORS). One lb/ft of torque is a one pound force on a one foot moment arm, right? If that arm is moved, it has done work. Again, I'm no physicist, but maybe 1 lb/ft torque * 1 revolution = 1 lb/ft work, I really don't know what the actual equation would be. But engines are doing work when making power. So I guess torque is the potential to do work? I don't know, now I'm all mixed up, It's late. Anyhow I stand by my stupid merry-go-round example I'm gonna get some sleep

Yeah, I think the little trim piece might be different, but I'm already missing most of it already (go figure ) Thanks Guys

pop'n'wood, Actually the price of the initial purchase is WWWWAAAAAAAYYYY compensated for by the FREE fuel you get for years and years. It works out to be the equivelant of paying a few cents per gallon. Not only that, but it is 94% cleaner when burned and can be enjoyed by hotrodders (BMW had a hydrogen-combustion show car 540i that was claimed to have a 30% increase in power output over gasoline, how's that sound hotrodders?) JohnC, Listen, if people knew more about the alternative energy field, they would know that it IS entirely possible to switch over to alternative sources (especially hydrogen), we just lack the infrastructure because investors are either too scared by false information, or are currently profiting off their asses from the oil system, so why should they switch? And guess who is fighting every step of the way? Yup. "Big Oil" (as the eco-nuts call them). Forget any sh!t you may have heard about hydrogen cars not being a reality- it can happen NOW, and fuel-cell powered cars are not as far away as they'd have you believe. Like I said, we could all be refuelling our own vehicles RIGHT NOW nearly for free. Gee, who would want to stop this from happenning? I wonder Money is a huge corruptor. And energy companies make plenty of it. I almost crapped my pants when I saw a commercial about supposed "clean coal" !!!! That is like saying "perfume feces" . Read up on "clean coal" and you'll know what I mean, it was just propaganda from the coal companies. This is what is known in the energy business as "greening": where you create the IMAGE of eco-friendliness when you really aren't eco-friendly. The system of hydrogen production that I spoke of earlier can be applied to almost any other energy scenarios. Hardly anyone is aware of this because much of the quote "research" being done is funded by the oil companies and the automakers, who then skew the information to fit their needs. In Japan, they are much farther along than us when it comes to this because they have far more independant sources of info, as well as government funded research and development. BTW, here in California, a lot of electricity comes from wind power. Hey, its a start, right? And please don't insult me with this "dreams and good intentions don't feed, cloth, warm or protect us" stuff. I could say the same thing about the Iraq war..."dreams and good intentions" ...don't find WMD's, ...don't make a stable and peaceful government, ...don't bring back to life over 1000 dead U.S. soldiers, etc., etc., etc., but it wouldn't prove anything, so lets be considerate, ok? Sorry to rant like that but I wanted to inform people of the truth about alternative energy, as it is very interesting to me and has been for years.

Hey Mike, thanks for not getting pissed. I wasn't trying to draw lines or throw stones. I understand your situation and I'm sure you understand mine. I'm glad you made it out of poverty, it shows that there is hope for America yet. I don't know what the rest of what you said had to do with my post though(maybe it wasn't directed at me?) Anyways, you mentioned being on welfare and food stamps (government cheese......mmmmm...brings back memories ) and I got to thinking, because I've been there. And I'll bet that those programs probably helped you get to where you are today, along with plenty of your hard work. I know I never would have made it through community college (currently in fifth year and on my way to State and a B.A.) without programs like financial aid and housing assistance, and I work full time. So without pointing fingers, I'll just say that I really, really, really hope that the leadership in this country (cough, cough, Bush, cough, cough, Republican Congress, cough) will take the moral high road in the next few years and see it in their hearts and minds to actually BE like the great Christians that they claim to be. Until then I'll try not to cry like a little biiiaatch , at least not here on the Z forums.

I searched but was unsuccessful at answering this question: Can I replace my 280's passenger fender/headlight bucket/valence with those from a 240? The current pieces are damaged and i found a good deal on the 240 parts. Any info ASAP would be GRRRRRREAT! Thanks much guys

That video was hillarious. I'm glad to hear that Mikelly went from making $78,000 a year to $122,000 a year, which basically supports my theory that the rich love Bush for obvious reasons (no offense, Mikelly, really, I'm just trying to illustrate a point). Meanwhile, I come from a very humble (ahem, I mean poor ) background, so I have it hard enough, and I lost my job during the Bush years. This forced me to take a much crappier job. I was way better off 4 years ago. Now its almost impossible to afford tuition, healthcare, let alone payin to fix my Z, when I'm getting paid 76% of what I was 4 years ago (I went from $12.50 an hour to $9.50), and the costs of afformentioned things is going up. I DON'T blame the economy crash directly on Bush, because I believe 9/11 was really at fault, but I DO blame him for not doing enough to help us through these tough times. He could be giving tax incentives to companies choosing to stay in the U.S. It won't solve the problem, but at least its a start. His tax cuts for the wealthy are good for spurring investment, but in the end, the only people they end up helping are investors. You think I can afford to invest? If Bush is the "compassionate conservative", then where is his compassion for people like me? 4 MILLION more people are in poverty now. So I'm glad to hear some millionaire doubled his portfolio. Bush's priorities are backwards. This is the hypocritical crap I hear from Bush all the time: he claims to be a devout Christian, and that he does God's work. That is B.S. I know, I went to sunday school. I know Christian values. I try to live by those values. If he was a moral person, he would make it easier for people on the bottom to work their way up, instead he decides to help the rich get richer. Christianity teaches that greed is a sin, and that it is noble to help those in need. Bush won't raise the minimum wage, because it would "hurt business". Thanks, George, at least we know who you care about. He doesn't want to give universal health care a try. That's nice, considering all of the people who have lost their health insurance, and can't afford to cover their children. It seems to me the only "values" of Bush and the other conservatives is the value of money in their own pockets. And since when is going to WAR a Christian value? People have used God to invoke war many times in history, and they were wrong. GWB says he is "a war president". What do you think Jesus would think of this? Last time I checked, Jesus was anti-war. So maybe we should concentrate on capturing the people responsible for 9/11 instead of causing another 1000 American casualties for a nonexistant threat. And maybe we should have elected a leader who actually gives a crap about the American people. I am truly sorry if I offended anyone, honestly. But this election affects my life in a big way, and I feel passionately about it.

This is funny, because I think Dan was commenting on my quote, but Gabe responded and said most of what I would have said. Thanks Gabe. Dan, I think its just semantics, because I agree with you, but I think you are contradicting yourself when you say power is the rate of work, but not torque over time. Because "rate" pretty much means "over time" and: horsepower = torque * RPM / 5252 .....and RPM = revolutions / minute .....so horsepower = (torque * revolutions) / (minutes * 5252) .....and minute = a unit of time so to make it simple: power = (torque * revolutions) / time which would mean: (torque * revolutions) = work You said you can have torque with zero work being done, so I guess that means there would have to be zero revolutions involved. But when we talk about engines, revolutions are always involved, which means work is being done, and I didn't want to bring up work for simplicity's sake. My goal in my first post was to keep it in lamens so that anyone could follow, so I just said "torque over time". I said that because that is the raw concept - torque alone (or work, I suppose) does not fully explain accelleration; you have to factor in rate, and that is what horsepower does. Please correct me if I am wrong -- I am not a physicist, this is just my understanding of the concept.

Bastaad's question was pretty much answered, but I can add this very simple explanation of hp vs. torque: The misconception is that torque is what accellerates the car, but this is wrong. Torque is what moves the car. I say this because 500 lb/ft of torque means you can move 500 lbs for a distance of 1 foot. But it doesn't say anything about how quickly you can move it. And accelleration is all about how quickly you can move something. So heres where horsepower comes in. Horsepower is the measure of torque over time, in other words, how quickly torque is applied to (whatever you apply it to). So horsepower is the only important number related to accelleration. For example, suppose two people were each pushing a different merry-go-round at the playground. And suppose they used the same exact amount of force (Torque) each time they pushed. Now suppose one of them pushed twice as often as the other. Which merry-go-round would spin up more quickly? The one that was being pushed more often. Just like 500 lb/ft of torque at 1000 RPM is not as good at accellerating something as 500 lb/ft of torque at 2000 RPM.

That's gonna be great in a 240z. How much was the VQ engine? Where/How did you get it?

Chris240turbo My point was that it is DIFFICULT to get that much power from a 2jz-gte. "BUILT" means rods, pistons, rings, bolts, cams, etc, etc. NOT just bolt-ons. Sorry if I was unclear. And I think the guys at SCC are pretty cool when it comes to having their sh!t together. Who knows, they might be journalistic leaches, I don't know for sure. At least they always have great technical writeups and explanations for how things work. Even I can understand how a helical LSD works thanks to them! Anyhow, I gotta give you credit for that great advice you gave about street racing. It is dangerous and young people need to understand that. Maybe they won't listen to an "old guy" like you, but they should. Obviously you have some sense in you if you lived long enough to be called an "old guy" At least that's what my dad always says.

I don't post often, but my extensive magazine collection might help here. The current September issue of "Sport Compact Car" has a story about a Supra making 991 RWHP and running in the 9's NHRA certified. The December 2002 issue of "Turbo & High Tech Performance" has a similar story about another Supra- the 2002 NHRA street tire class champ- running 9's, with 949 RWHP and the dyno sheet to match. But both of those cars had built bottom ends, due to extreme boost (30-40 psi). SCC makes the comment: "Although the stock 2JZ-GTE bottom end has been shown to support more than 980 whp, with the frequency Ryan planned on hammering the car, he decided a built engine was cheap insurance against dropping oil in front of the rear tires at high speed." Soooooo, in other words, it's possible to build a stock block 2JZ with over 900 whp, but it ain't gonna last very long. So maybe 900+ whp is not really gonna happen on a stock block, but according to the driver of the class champ Supra, 600 whp is common on stock block 2JZ's these days, and 600 whp is nothin to laugh at.

hi i'm no aeronautical engineer, but i've always heard that a rear spoiler creates a lot more drag than a wing. how it looks on a z is a different story though