Stupid Americans

[flastron]

New engine specs require Toyota et al to respecify engines with less horsepowerThis never ceases to annoy me. Horsepower is just a number, and a pretty useless one at that. A car with 210 hp is not necessarily faster than one with 200, and even in the case that it is, this absolutely does not mean it is "better". But Americans like to wear their

Comments

[sui_generis]

But Americans like to wear their cocks on their sleeves, so...

This sentence-beginning clause can be used to explain a lot about our country, actually...

[sputnik]

I agree with the pretty truck thing. Which just made me think of the current crop of 'country' singers.

[urbanwuff]

I love the custom trucks with the hard top bed covers, and on top of that a freakin SPOILER. Oh, and it's a dually.

I pass these randomly on my drive to work along eight mile from woodward. It seems it's the new form of ghetto fab. They put trucker lights all over the thing, big air horns, airbrushing along the sides and you can't use the bed at all.

WTF?

[flastron]

In all fairness, Japan really outshines us with their custom vans. But then they don't drive them around expansive suburbs as daily drivers.

[cherdt]

Do you remember an Ann Arbor zine called Stewie from around 1995? I think it was the 4th issue, one of the guys in Stewie's band gets an incredible custom van-it's bigger on the inside than the outside and features a hot tub-and they run into these other crazy custom van people who believe that a hyper-intelligent alien race, deities of sorts, will come down to earth and save the righteous custom van owners. Well, the aliens indeed come to visit and threaten to destroy earth, or at least Ohio, unless Stewie can airbrush the most awesome custom van scene ever. Which he proceeds to do and is pronounced intergalactic savior. Or something like that.

At any rate, I just saw an ad for Honda, I think, in a copy of Time magazine that basically ripped off that idea from Stewie.

Either that, or I'm hallucinating wildly and there is no such thing as Stewie, Honda, or custom vans.

[otterpop]

You are right - there are number of factors involved, but most people think of it just as "this number is higher than that one so it must be better". But the horsepower to weight ratio, how effectively it's delivered to the wheels, etc all affect it. And even then, what are you are talking about? 0-60, top speed, accelerating at highway speeds??

My 1974 450cc motorcycle puts out about 45-50 hp, which is around 100hp/Liter on a carburated, air cooled engine. Compare that to the 2006 Toyota Camry's 3 liter, 190 hp. Now it's not really comparing apples to apples but you'd think in 30 years technology would advance a little more than that.

[flastron]

well, also, things have changed in those few decades on you you define and test hp. Plus, don't motorcycle engines rev much higher? The formula for hp is proportional to rpm.

Audi has engine technology that allows their torque curve to be flat (peak) from 1800-5000 rpm. Holy fuck. HP is peak from 5100 to 6000 rpm, but blah blah. This, to me, says it's much much faster than the 200 hp number implies by itself.

[jdsalmon]

y'all ain't gunna TOUCH my 455 SD

[swinehund]

You've renewed my interest in calculating my own horsepower.

I'm going to see if I can hold 10mph for 1/4 mile on the treadmill later, then I can have 0.01.

[flastron]

I've always wanted to make stickers for bikes that say "Real Men make their own horsepower"

Not to be chauvinistic, it's just only offensive towards men. Which is the point.

[swinehund]

I don't know, sometimes I get down with the whole 'real men' vibe. If my gender makes it even easier to belittle someone for being weaker than me, so much the better.

[flastron]

strange, it seems running the same feat with my fat ass generates .047 hp