QFC22 - Wagon Wheel Whirl [Results]

Previous QFC(21)
Original QFC

2005, somewhere in the state of Denmark.
1994-Volvo-850-YV1LW5719R2035624-2

A danish family of four needs a new wagon. The dad, Palle, has taken up his childhood hobby of reading car magazines to catch up on what’s what over the weekend. His uncle “borrowed” and crashed their Volvo 850 while drunk driving. Only one of them survived, and it wasn’t the Volvo. Stuck with just a Starlet for the time being, they all eager to get a cool car that haul them & their stuff to soccer practice, the Alps and everything in between. They don’t fly for holidays, only drive, so it will see some miles.

Their maximum budget is $22,000 AMU.
Car taxes are notoriously high in Denmark - progressively increasing % of the car price; 22,000 roughly represents 50,000£/$ (finger maths)

Major Priorities :star: :star: :star:

Design - Must look “good” will probably warrant some late night discussions, but I’ll spare you the details

Drivability - Needs to be handy and predictable

Comfort - Potholes shouldn’t feel like stepping on Legos.

Moderate Priorities :star: :star:

Safety - Think of the children!

Costs - Fuel conomy should be high and service costs low. Saving on purchase price is good too, but less important as they aim for quality and low-ish long-term costs.

Reliability - Breakdowns are a bad time and ain’t nobody got time for that.

Sportiness - It’s good if driving it is enjoyable, and there is some highway performance for occasionally extensive Autobahn use - for “safety reasons” of course.

Minor Priorities :star:

Realism - 2005 is 18 years ago, and your car should have plausible looks and engineering (see inspirations), including sensible use of advanced trim settings.

Environmental resistance - Rotten cars are always a downer.

Offroad - The tallest mountain within day-trip radius is…drumroll…170 meters. That said, they do like adventure.

Prestige - It’s nice if the neighbors don’t talk shit about it, and even better if the seethe with envy, but the parents pretend to not care.

Practicality & Utility - Important in the sense they are getting a wagon…but not a Hiace. These stats are pretty whack anyway.

Techpool
+5 in all categories car & engine, as is the default for new models.
If you for some reason have less, I don’t care. If you have more, well, I have a dumpster fire to feed.

Rules

  • Trim and variant years must all be set to 2005; Model and Family up to you.
  • Wheelbase should be between 2.60m and 2.90m (rounded - 2.55-2.94 exact = 100.59-176 inches).
  • Wagon body only
  • Must have 5 seats (more isn’t illegal, just…pointless.)
  • …and 5 doors; no shooting breaks.
  • 95RON/90AKI regular Unleaded or 98RON/93AKI super. 98RON gives a 10% fuel economy penalty (as it’s more expensive); no bonus for less RON. AFAIK ethanol fuels weren’t widely available at the time, so avoid them.
  • A 3-way catalytic converter of any kind is mandatory.
  • ESC mandatory (IRL not before 2009, but expected at this price level)
  • Maximum loudness of 40.
  • Maximum Trim Emissions of 200 as seen in the details tab, as well as in its own column on the Car Manager list
  • No “racing parts” (fiberglass panels, carbon, racing intake/headers, semi-slick tires, etc.).
  • Tires must be radial, with widths not divisible by 10 (i.e., the last digit must be 5, not 0).
  • Meme builds? Only if dank.

Submissions
Submissions open on Wednesday, March 29th, 2023 at 12:00 am UTC
Submissions close on Wednesday, April 5th, 2023 at 12:00 am UTC.
Send via forum DM; keep all DM comms in the same thread. I’ll use the last submitted file.
If you suspect your exporter is messing with your brakes/oversteer values, you may attach an image of how it looks on your end with the submission

Naming scheme:
Model and family name: QFC22 - username
Trim and variant name: name of your car/engine.

Notes/FAQ
  • Opening for other body tapas was considered, and discarded to keep things simple as per QFC guidelines.This is before SUVs ruined everything
  • 4 to 6 cylinders would be the common choice.
  • No bias for/against turbos or FWD/RWD/AWD.
  • Performance is welcome (the parents have a history of hooning), but they aren’t looking for a STi/M/RS/AMG. Cars in this class usually had a range of 110-230 hp; it’s probably a good idea to stay away from the extremes. Sure, there are more powerful options for many of the examples, but see first sentence.
  • The family is relatively well off, and while there is no minimum budget, they are willing to spend (close to) the max budget for a better car.
  • Gearbox type - they are familiar and comfortable with both types. Their sons will eventually want to learn driving; being able to drive stick is mandatory for this, but the Starlet is manual too so not a big deal.
  • Interiors will not be required or judged. They are allowed however, and the audience likes it.
  • The family as a whole likes all colors; don’t worry about it. Consider not using black as it generally conceals lines etc.
  • the taxes are to my knowledge up to 180% of car value; dealership price wars meant buying a car in Denmark and importing it to your own country and tax scheme could actually save money at some point.
Changelog

26.03:
Inspirations
Wagon mandatory
Techpool
Emissions
ESC
Some clarity adjustments
Realism
27.03
Wagon rule
Minor post quality upgrades
** 29.03**
Clariefied fuel
added trim settings to realism
added Freedom units

Inspirations

See also: [@IDK158 's post]
(QFC22 - Wagon Wheel Whirl [Results] - #15 by IDK158)
02VolvoV70












Good luck have fun

11 Likes

I am assuming all of those seats must also be full-sized (so no +3 seating in the second row).

1 Like

I wonder how many FCC entries will be recycled for this. Looking forwards to it!

A slight bump to maybe 150-200 in engine emissions could be justified IMO. I am currently building a 2.2 litre inline 4 (which seems like rather normal for this class of car), nothing special with it, no fire breathing monster. I could get it down to 100 with all the TP set at 5, but when lowering it, I am around 120-130ish now. And that’s with hypereuthetic pistons and direct injection, which reduces emissions by a fair amount. Swapping to regular MPFI (not unusual for the era) bumped them up to around 170. Yeah, it is probably possible to get emissions down if you really build the engine around the limit, but this is QFC after all that should be pretty lax…not “eco car challenge”. A fully realistic engine for the era should not be binned for dirty emissions.

The brief seems ok to me, the techpool seems on the low side however. Ten points is basically nothing on the entire car

we don’t necessarily have to use a wagon body for this “wagon” challenge however? It just has to be a car that can carry five people and plenty of luggage?

Also as above the emission limit is basically unachievable, mpefi was very common at this time. Direct injection was something of a selling point still for someone like VW and some Japanese cars

I can second Knugcab on raising engine emissions limits. I’ve got a 1.6L engine with MPFI, 12:1 compression, 120hp and it gets 175.2 emissions w/o techpool. 100 is excessively low IMO.

With essentially no techpool, 100 emissions is something you’d expect from a 2020 vehicle. Either restore techpool to +5 all round (and lower budget to compensate) or raise the emissions limit to 200-300

3 Likes

It’s doable. The below is with no tweaking or fine tuning, and only +1 techopool & +2 quality (fuel). But I’d agree that bumpting to 150 would open the options and give some more variety.

That dyno sheet is for a turbocharged engine, not a normally aspirated one, as the torque curve shows. However, to make NA engines with MPEFI viable (without any changes to tech pool limits), the maximum emissions limit should be set at 200 or even 300, as has been previously pointed out.

1 Like

Yep, and just about to post up this fellow:

Are they good engines? Meh, probably not. Do they meet the rules, yes :slight_smile:

Especially since sportiness is of moderate importance here, and power plays a key role in that.

Emissions
100 is possible, but crazy low yes, that’s why I put ??? to check later.
I’ll make that Maximum 200 Trim Emissions, seems to play well with the expected performance.
This is a column to itself in the Car Manager list, for your convenience.

Techpool
Always the top controversy…the idea was to give a limited opportunity to focus your car/brand on some things, and keep the price highish. But every…experienced player would probably put all of them in certain categories anyway :wink:
How about +5TP all over. 22.000$ max price. Then I’ll just put 100% tax on everyone to emulate the high taxes in Denmark.

Bodies
I like odd cars if they’re good. There are some hatchback bodies that look like wagons, and vice versa. (IRL we had the 156 “wagon”, Americans referred to their Mazda 3 hatchback as a wagon, the Renault Vel Satis/Opel Signum weirdos and so on) The hatchbacks get a sizeable advantage to comfort and practicality for game reasons. A MPV and even a SUV could plausibly do the job, but it’s the same story with stat advantages. Keep It Simple Says stick to wagons.
TL;DR I’ll update to Wagon Only

Edit: I’ll do the above updates some time later

8 Likes

Press X to pay respects to my current build :sweat_smile:

I think I misunderstood the brief then tbh, I thought it was replace the wagon with a family car not necessarily another wagon

I agree with all of the changes you have proposed - I have tweaked my test mule accordingly, and it’s still compliant.

Perhaps some inspirations


image
image
image

3 Likes

@mart1n2005 F
You probably have something else you can use.

OP updated

I have a really big penalty for circle test does anyone know how to solve that

1 Like

lol nope. All of my cars have that. Sometimes narrower tires help me. Sometimes not. I don’t know how to fix that.

1 Like

I changed the chassis to another wagon and the circle test problem went away, but I have no idea why specifically.

Haven’t tested it, but logically I assume it has to do with lateral grip levels at low/high speed (or lack thereof)