Tag: MPH

Driveline vibrations can be tricky to diagnose, because you can’t get under the car and see what is going on while it is driving down the road at 60 MPH. If you have read my first article on the three types of driveline vibration, you have a pretty good way of narrowing down the list of possibilities based on if the vibration is engine speed related, vehicle speed related, or engine load related. Here are some other considerations to keep in mind when diagnosing a classic car vibration.

The first thing to consider is the overall current situation. If this is a new build that has never been run before, then everything is suspect. You may have total faith in your engine builder, but could one of his tools be out of calibration? Is the engine supposed to be externally balanced, and you ordered the correct flywheel but actually received one for an internally balanced engine? Are your driveshaft angles out of spec? Could you possibly have a defective pinion or axle bearing, a bent axle, a warped wheel, or a tire out of balance? Is your exhaust touching the body or another component at any point? Are all the suspension bolts, body to frame bolts, and steering linkage nuts/bolts tight?

If this is a modified car, there are so many more things to think about. If you have 1968 Camaro (my favorite year!) with a Total Cost Involved front end, a late model LS3 engine with home-made engine mount towers, a Keisler transmission, a Currie 9″ rear end, and a Detroit Speed rear spring and shock package, there are a number of different opportunities for incompatibility, not to mention the fact that the car is almost 40 years old and the production tolerances back then were considerably “looser” than they are now. Aftermarket companies usually design their parts to fit a completely stock car, and their parts will usually fit an otherwise unmodified car very well. When you start to combine aftermarket parts from different manufacturers, you sometimes run into problems. The aftermarket front end may be designed to improve cornering ability which changes some geometry that the aftermarket transmission system also changes due to tunnel interference with the transmission, and then the rear end company also takes a few liberties with their design to make the rear end fit several different cars, and the rear suspension company modifies the geometry for maximum traction when drag racing. Each part by itself works perfectly with an otherwise stock car, but when all are combined you can end up with a car where the transmission touches the car body and the driveshaft angles are unacceptable. This of course isn’t always the case, but if you run into a vibration problem on a heavily modified car you need to take this possibility into account.

If it is a recent restoration that was vibration-free before, then first look at anything that was changed, and the relationship all those components have with other systems on the car. If you just swapped a Ford 9″ rear end into your Chevy, the rear end itself may be fine, but you could have altered the driveshaft angles. An angle that was barely acceptable before might be slightly beyond the limit now, creating a vibration.

Sometimes you have to “think outside the box”. I once corrected a “vibration” in a two year old, 25,000 mile Buick Lesabre that had a vibration complaint since day one. It had been to three different dealerships, where they had rebalanced and replaced the tires and wheels several times, had multiple wheel alignments, and even had the shocks and struts replaced. I noticed on a test drive that the vibration was only in the steering wheel. I could not feel it in the seats, the armrests or the dash, or see it in the mirrors. I took it back to the shop and ran over some speed bumps at about 10 MPH to see what happened, and the steering wheel moved about three inches up and down! I was a service writer at the time, and all of the technicians refused to believe that the steering column could be loose from the factory, so none of them would work on it. I dug into the dash and found that two of the four bolts that secure the steering column to the dash were about three turns shy of being even finger tight! It had come that way from the factory, and none of the previous technicians had taken the time to pay attention to what was actually happening with the car. I tightened the loose bolts, and I had a customer for life! Sometimes you have to open your mind a little, and throw all assumptions out the window.

The bottom line is to take your time and consider all the possibilities. Assess the overall situation, drive the car, and think about what is happening. Don’t make any assumptions, and realize that aftermarket parts from different reputable companies aren’t always designed to work with each other. Have an open mind, and with patience any vibration problem can be diagnosed and corrected.

Everyone talks about how advanced cars have become and how consumers can now do practically everything from their car. Sure, being able to surf the Internet, watch TV and text your best friend all while driving down the highway at 80 MPH is great, but TV and movies have promised us so much more. To that end, here are seven futuristic car enhancements that could make your current ride look like the car from The Flintstones.

7. Hover Pads

If there’s one car accessory we’ve been promised for years, only to be disappointed again and again, it’s the hover pad. From Back to the Future to The Jetsons, we’ve been shown that in the future streets are totally lame and that flying your car around town is the way to go. You wouldn’t even need to buy a new car; just slap some hover pads under your current auto and you’re good to go. Yet some mysterious force keeps this technology just out of grasp. The government? The Illuminati? Bigfoot? We’ll likely never know.

6. Drink Dispensers

Why stop off at the local fast food joint for a soda when you could grab a fountain drink right from dashboard? The built-in soda and coffee dispenser seems like a natural advancement for the car of the future, but for some reason no one has stepped up to the plate to deliver such a miraculous invention. Sure, it would probably lead to a few stains, burns and possible fires, but isn’t that a small price to pay to not have to wait in line for a drink?

5. Ejector Seat

If you ask me, it’s insulting that car buyers don’t have the option to install ejector seats in their cars. I don’t know about you, but if I’m about to hit a semi going 70 MPH, I’d rather just fly out of there than trust my life to a cheap bag of air. Plus, you’ll look like a secret agent as you gently float to the ground via parachute. How many accessories can make you look cool AND keep you safe?

4. Sound Proof Bubble

In The Simpsons, Homer’s car of the future ended up being a huge flop. But the one accessory he was dead right about was the sound proof bubble. I don’t want to hear kids or belligerently drunk friends of mine blather on in the back seat; I wanna jam quietly to the smooth sounds of Enya. And imagine how many accidents could be avoided if the driver’s seat was completely separated from the annoying sounds of children screaming, wives nagging and coworkers awkwardly singing along to One Direction.

3. TV Screen Windshield

People complained that LCD screens being installed in the steering wheel would lead to deadly accidents. My only complaint is that they aren’t big enough! Imagine having you whole windshield turn into a massive TV screen at the flip of a button. Watch Maury tell someone they aren’t the father, and then switch to taking out bad guys in the latest FPS game. And it would obviously be safer than the LCD screens they install in your dash. At least this way, your eyes are still technically on the road. Just don’t play any racing games on it. That would probably get confusing.

2. Autopilot

It’s a crazy world we live in where almost everyone is allowed to drive a car, but only pilots with special training are allowed to fly a plane. I mean, planes have autopilot; a feature that cars have been lacking for years. While those lazy jerks can just hit a button and relax while the plane flies itself, we poor folks on the ground have to steer our cars like idiots. We already have cruise control to take care of hitting the gas for us; how much harder can it be to invent something to navigate the roads for us too?

1. Sentience

The sad truth is that some people in the world are lonely. And while the lucky among us may have a special someone to keep us company on long road trips, the loners out their will inevitably end up talking to their car. So wouldn’t it be nice if it could talk back? A completely sentient automobile like KITT or Bumblebee that can respond to your every command. Of course, this would probably eventually lead to automobiles taking over the earth and making the human race into their slaves, so perhaps sentience is a function best left unimplemented.

There are several different possible causes for a driveline vibration. Your wheels, tires, axles, driveshaft, transmission, clutch or torque converter and engine components are all rotating at a high rate of speed, and any one or more of these components can create a vibration if they are worn or out of spec. Worn or broken engine or transmission mounts can transmit normal vibrations that usually aren’t ever felt, and accidental body contact with the engine, transmission, or exhaust can also be misinterpreted as a driveline vibration. The first step in diagnosing a classic car vibration is to determine exactly when and under what conditions the vibration occurs.

There are three basic types of vibrations:

1. Engine RPM related – If the vibration is related to engine RPM, it will occur in all gears (and possibly even sitting still) at a particular engine RPM or above. This vibration usually can be attributed to the engine itself or anything else that turns at the same speed as the engine, such as the harmonic balancer, flywheel or flexplate, pilot bearing, pressure plate, torque converter, or transmission input shaft. It is also possible for body contact with the engine, transmission, or exhaust to cause an engine RPM related vibration. Worn or broken engine or transmission mounts can contribute to this problem. When driving the vehicle with the vibration present, maintain vehicle speed and try shifting to a lower or higher gear. If the vibration changes or goes away while maintaining the same vehicle speed, then the problem is not related to engine RPM.

2. Vehicle Speed related – If the vibration is related to vehicle speed, it will not be present until you reach a certain speed, and then it will usually start gradually and then become worse as speed increases. In some cases, it will decrease at some point, and then come back again at a higher speed. This type of vibration could be related to your wheels, tires, axles, differential, driveshaft runout, balance, or angles, universal joints, or transmission output shaft. Try the same driving test as above. If the vibration is present in third gear at 50 mph, but shifting to fourth gear at 50 MPH makes the vibration go away, then it is not going to be vehicle speed related and you can usually rule out any rotating component that is further back than the transmission output shaft. At a given MPH, your output shaft, driveshaft, axles, wheels and tires are all turning at a constant speed, no matter what gear the transmission is in.

3. Accel/Decel/Cruise related – A vibration that changes depending on whether you are accelerating, decelerating, or cruising at a steady speed could have quite a few different causes. Generally, this will be related to driveshaft angles or a worn or broken part, instead of something being out of balance. Think about what changes when the engine is under load. The engine and isolator mount loads shift; the load on the pinion bearing changes; your driveshaft angles change, possibly more than they should due to a broken engine or transmission mount; your exhaust, shifter, transmission, etc. could be contacting the body only on accel or decel; if the car has been lowered (or raised), your suspension snubbers could be contacting the body prematurely.

A vehicle works as a system, and you have to understand the relationships between all the different parts when you are trying to diagnose a driveline vibration. Determining if the vibration is related to engine speed, vehicle speed, or engine load will help you narrow down the list of possible culprits, and keep you from wasting your time looking in the wrong places.

For man or woman to fly is the dream; but to be able to drive your very own beautiful sports car that fly’s is beyond imagination.

The name – airplane, car, plane, sports car, race car, flying car, and now the flying sports car. The New EV flying jet sports car. Well what can I say, the dream has finally come true. Thanks to modern technologies, very small powerful jet engines, light-weight, extremely strong carbon fiber building materials and EV, and all electric ground driving mode system; we now have success. For the first time in aviation history, we have a two place sports car that has the very best of all these new technologies available. Now the dream can be your dream.

I see a future where Freeway’s will have take-off and landing lanes for flying cars. The days of being stuck in traffic will come to an end. We will all be able to live out of the cities, in nice pollution free areas, where the air is clean, and our kids can play outside without the fear of being run over by an eighteen wheeler.

This dream started back in the 1950’s when I was just a kid, and my Dad was an aeronautical engineer at Northrop in the wing division. He told me that the lifting power of the new wing designs would lend themselves to building a flying car with a very short wingspan within road limitations of 102″ inch’s or 8′ foot 5″ inch’s, but it still couldn’t fly with the 1950’s engine technologies. He also told me that there would be engines in the future that would be perfect for this project. The jet engines we use for the “Canard SXT” only weigh 40 LBS each, putting out 250 LBS of thrust. That means, there is 500 LBS of thrust pushing this little sports car down the road and through the skies.

The EV, all electric drive mode, is also the latest technologies. Light-weight batteries and motor drive system that makes this all possible. We have the very first drive or fly sports car in the world. You can be going down the Freeway at 70 MPH, light up the jet engines and fly. You don’t have to stop and change anything or fold up your wings. Now how fun is that?

The starting price of $280,000.00 for the “Canard SXT” is of course, much higher than we like, but we have already found new ways to bring that price down. If Henry Ford could do it, so can we. I would like to see a lot of these beautiful machines going down the freeways and in the skies. I have a friend who said he would like to have one, but he didn’t have a pilots license. I told him that he didnt have to fly; he could just drive. It only takes five minutes to take the wing off. You can drive around town with or without it. Actually, the car looks pretty cool with the wing off.

We also have a slow flight wing for having fun and learning to fly and a high speed racing wing which is also great for flying cross country at high speeds. You and a friend can take one wing off and put the other wing on in about 10 minutes. I stay up late at night dreaming this stuff up.

We will have our own flight school; making it more convenient for you to receive your pilots license. It’s much easier than you think. Most people solo; fly by yourself the first time in about 10 hours. It takes an additional 35 to 40 hours to get your private license. When you have your private license, you can take your friends for a ride. It only takes 200 hours to obtain a commercial pilots license, now you can make money.

Oh, and it takes longer to learn how to use an I-Phone than it does to learn how to fly an airplane. Yesterday, while getting my hair cut, I asked the stylist how many hours he had to go to beauty school. He replied, 1,700 hours to get his license. I told him that it only took me 200 hours to get my commercial pilots license, and I was making money. He replied, “WOW!”

It’s really easy to get your pilots license and become a real pilot. Its great fun learning how to zoom through the sky. When I lived in Santa Ana California, I use to fly my two place airplane over to Catalina Island for Sunday brunch, the pancakes were really delicious. At times, there were as many as fifty to a hundred planes flying in. It was great fun. If you are a pilot, there is fly-ins every weekend all over our country. There is also the Baja Mexico Flying Club. A group of pilots who get together and fly down to spend the weekend on Mexicos sunny beaches and hang out in the beautiful palm filled resorts.

Having your very own “Canard SXT” will be a new adventure in every area of your life. Once you fly your own sports car, you will never go back to just being a land lover. The sky is safe, fun, and a new adventure is waiting around every corner. Don’t miss the best that life has to offer, the New Fun “Canard SXT”. Be the first to own a flying sports car, it can be your very own time machine!