About the only reason I built ahead of schedule was because of the surprise that we needed to cover 800 km on a tank. Even then, I wasn’t fully optimized for the run. (was testing to see if there was any way to get the required mileage, rather than seeing how much power I could get. Even at that, I was doing most of my checks on a spare car and not on the Captain)
With the intent mentioned to cut the distance down from 800 km, I would have run the Captain. Heck, as I’d said a few times, I’d have been willing to eat the penalties for running the car out of gas. Yes, I would have wanted to change the car because suddenly a fuel-efficiency requirement came up that most modern cars couldn’t do, but if that’d been brought down to something more reasonable, I’d have put it in role-play that my rescue van has a carrying tank big enough to hold one gas-tank’s worth of fuel. And I’d probably have made efforts to drive efficiently, if not the fastest between tracks.
Was the Captain optimized for racing? No. It’s a family car at the core, with McPherson struts in the front and semi-trailing arms out back. It’s meant to be comfortable and durable, yet inexpensive. Yes, I changed my engine plans from the V6 to the V8 because with another car, I tried tuning a V6 and found it to be something I need to work on. If this challenge does continue, I will be sticking with my 5 liter DOHC V8, because that is what Storm Automotive is good at: DOHC engines, even when it’s not the right choice to make. Yeah, for an American car company, I should be using OHV, but I didn’t feel it was the right choice on a reliability standpoint.
Again, there were two reasons I built my Pro Touring model ahead of schedule. The first was to see within a rough approximation where my gas mileage would end up, and whether it would pose a problem. The second was so that I could get a rough idea of what I wanted the car to look like. And if this competition continues, then yeah, I’ll complete the build of the Pro Touring car. Right now, it’s at a point where I know kinda what it’s going to look like, but completely unoptimized. And it does awesome burnouts because the tires are too skinny. When we get the rules sheet for what we’re allowed and not allowed to do on the second part of the build, then yeah, I’ll finish it.
Actually there were 3 reasons I did it. The third reason was because I wanted to remind myself that this car is in fact in a challenge. That instead of it just being one of my lineup, it’s one of my lineup with a purpose.
Now, yes, there were lots of questions asked. I think half of that was the fact that people somewhat wanted to know the rules for which we had to build to. That we were given rules for what we were allowed to build (Car of 1975 vintage or older, less than 12000 total cost), but also because some rules from the later half of the challenge were present and causing confusion. Things like finding out we’re limited to +10 quality is fine. Suddenly finding out part-way through a huge debate about gas-tank travel distances that anyone who picked OHV would get +15 engine quality overall, I think it kicked a hornets’ nest without being intended.
Would I have complained about OHV cars getting +15 quality? No. They have so much limitation because of their valvetrain that they’re not going to easily overcome. I picked DOHC because I didn’t want the reliability penalty caused by OHV. If I’d have known that in the later build I could get an extra 5 quality with OHV, would I have switched? No. In my designs, OHV is reserved for really cheap engines that go in little eco-cars that putter about a city, can’t break 80 miles per hour, and get 40 MPG.
Now I understand this is a bit long winded, but my point is, I’m willing to run in this, tiny gas tank and all. My major experiments were done just to see the feasibility of the 800 km gas range, and if it’s cut down to 600 or less, then I’ll be quite fine with it. Someone provided evidence of the longest distances between gas stations, and I’d be willing to go with that plus a little extra (because no one, and I mean no one, checks to make sure their tank is 100% full after a race.) as the accepted range. As for having built my Pro Touring car, the only thing I’ve done that’s of questionable legality is to put a wing on it because I thought it looked better with it. Otherwise, it still has the stock 4 speed manual, a basic limited slip differential, tires that are too skinny for the power it’s making (and it’s not making much), and a stripped interior. Which means, in the end, I’ve got a crap-load of tuning to do once we get the rules list for the Pro Touring cars.
