Miscellaneous Stuff

[neanderthal]

High idle feature for PTO (but electrical loads) type activities. A Sprinter being a "work vehicle" could spend long periods idling while drawing high electric current. Think ambulance, mobile office, mobile garage etc.

[Kchrpm]

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cult...he-mclaren-f1/

Some fun factoids on the F1.

[Godson]

I read some of that.


It's one of the best reads I have had the pleasure of enjoying in a long time.

[novicius]

WINKWORTH-SMITH: These days, because of the value of the car, it’s almost impossible to write one off.

A good example is—if you do a bit of Googling, you’ll find out who I’m talking about. His car came in, and he’d had a fairly substantial shunt. The car was in two halves. It had split. The car had done brilliantly, because he’d hit it right in the middle. The passenger [cell] was absolutely perfect.

We cut all the damage out of the tub, x-rayed it, crack-tested it, and then, using all the original body molds, the tooling, the layup books, and also some of the original staff that built these tubs back in the day, we rebuilt it.


PHIL HARDING (Development technician, McLaren): It’s not like you can go and pick another monocoque out and build a new car. It’s cost-effective to repair something worth 5 million pounds, isn’t it?

Yep great stories.

[MR2 Fan]

I'm betting it was Mr. Bean

[Freude am Fahren]

Yeah, I think so.

By the way, he sold it eventually, didn't he?

[Reynard]

yeah I know I'm weird but this is one of my favorite things about the F1, just in case this is new to anyone here...

[XHawkeye]

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cult...a-engine-swap/

[Freude am Fahren]

Finally watched that McLaren video. That guy is talking out his ass. The car was not built as a race car. It was intentionally built as the ultimate road car. It was just so good that you could take it racing and win. The engine was not an "off the shelf BMW" unit. It was bespoke built for the F1 based on a stillborn M8 engine.

[Kchrpm]

Yeah, he didn't really know what he was talking about, he only bought it as an investment piece from the way he describes it. His experience with the maintenance is his experience, though, and the maintenance stuff seems to be backed up by the other recent article on the F1.