4 ms·

Let me describe to you the 900-kilogram car I'm building, with forged pistons and a turbo big enough to fit your head inside. It probably won't hold traction un

Let me describe to you the 900-kilogram car I'm building, with forged pistons and a turbo big enough to fit your head inside. It probably won't hold traction until third or fourth gear. One small mistake and it would kill all sorts of stakeholders. People like me drive highly modified cars day in, day out. Though I'd honestly trust the handiwork of someone who can figure out the sophistication behind a tesla and it's electronics more readily than I'd trust your general backyard mechanic. It's not uncommon to see 40 year old cars driving around with stock suspension and brakes, that have had a 6.2L LSx engine fitted (as an example). I'd be more concerned with those kinds of conversions before I'd worry about the one Tesla in the united states that has a jerry-rigged autopilot.

swarnie_ 8y ago
> Let me describe to you the 900-kilogram car I'm building, with forged pistons and a turbo big enough to fit your head inside. It probably won't hold traction until third or fourth gear. Sarcasm is hard to pick up via a written media so i'm going to assume you're legit. Where is this thing even legal to drive??
- function_seven 8y ago
  What he described sounds like a lot of street legal cars in the US. As long as it has turn signals, windshield wipers, seat belts, and some other things on a short list, it's allowed on the road. Here's one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Atom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Atom EDIT: And another: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_MX-5_(NA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_MX-5_(NA)
  - King-Aaron 8y ago
    Yeah not to mention guys like Saleen and Hennessey who make some downright ludicrous road cars. When you're talking about the power levels they make, the difference between 900kg and 1200kg is negligible :P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hennessey_Venom_GT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hennessey_Venom_GT Edit, and a more serious note, this is the flip side of the kinds of things we're discussing though. Not all modified cars are built to equal safety considerations, and not all modified car stories end well. https://jalopnik.com/man-dies-after-crash-in-home-built-honda-civic-based-ka-1825681533 https://jalopnik.com/man-dies-after-crash-in-home-built-hond...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- jacobush 8y ago
  Lots of jurisdictions have general exemptions for self built cars or modified older cars.
- King-Aaron 8y ago
  > Where is this thing even legal to drive?? Racetracks, mainly. While I'm keeping the car registered, I'm sure the first time I have a problem with a police officer the car will receive a defect notice and won't be legal on the road any longer until it passes an engineering inspection. I'd need to be doing something pretty silly to get pulled over though, as it's all in a mx5 (miata) and it's a bit of a "sleeper" - i.e. it doesn't appear to be modified when looking from the outside. Interestingly enough though, the work I'm doing should be able to pass an engineer if required, but that's an investment I'll make when the defect arises. In Australia it's pretty commonplace to daily drive your race car until it gets defected, haha. It should be noted though, that in certain states in the United States, it appears (to an outsider) that some extremely powerful drag cars etc can be driven on the streets. Or, it's a similar scenario, in that they shouldn't be driven on the streets but are anyway...
  - gambiting 8y ago
    What doesn't make any sense to me though that even if you avoid the police and any inspections, doing this to a car would 100% invalidate any insurance you have on it - making it an extraordinarily stupid idea to drive on any sort of public road, because if you get into an accident any insurance company will just refuse to pay out a single penny since the vehicle has been heavily modified past the factory specs - unless you declare all modifications to your insurer, which I am assuming you don't, since you also mention avoiding a full engineering inspection.
    - King-Aaron 8y ago
      I'm with Shannons and have all modifications declared. The engineering side of things is primarily for standard road/vehicle registration and checks that you're compliant with ADR (Australian Design Rules). i.e. my rollcage is CAMS (Confederation of Australian Motor Sport) compliant, however for it to be ADR compliant I would need it inspected by an engineer, while Shannons still happily covers it. But yeah my insurer knows everything right down to the brand of main bearings I bought.
      - 8y ago
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >Where is this thing even legal to drive?? 'merica! Also parts of Europe if you're willing to jump through hoops, probably also street legal in less developed nations that don't regulate that sort of thing.
jedberg 8y ago
I drove a heavily modded car when I was 17, so I'm familiar. We bored out the pistons to make a 2.8L engine closer to a 4.2L and then dropped the cat and replaced the 4 speed gearbox with a five speed manual. But it was done by an experienced mechanic, and pretty much every failure mode resulted in harm to the driver, not to others. This guy is a hobbyist and he's mucking with hardware that is controlled by software, which will magnify any problem he may have created. Manual mods to a car are wholly different than modding hardware that supports a complex software system that he can't modify or even read.
- reitzensteinm 8y ago
  Did you drive this car at the speed limit?
  - jedberg 8y ago
    Most of the time, yes. Its advantage was accelerating off the line, a capability which I rarely used. I see what you're getting at though, that the modifications made it less safe on the road. I don't disagree. It was unsafe. I shouldn't have been allowed to drive it.
- disillusioned 8y ago
  This guy... is also an experienced mechanic. Read more on wk057 to see what he's capable of. "Hobbyist" is talking him down significantly.
  - rtkwe 8y ago
    The difference here to me is the more normal crazy car modification scene isn't mucking around with systems that take control of the car, it's modifications to how the car operates and handles but it's the 'driver replacement' that Tesla's autopilot is used as (as much as the companies try to insist that it's an assist we've seen people don't pay as much attention to these semi-autonomous cars as they should as the driver). So we're talking about a system that already has problems with errors and driver attention being patched together where the myriad subtle errors will be completely hidden from the user. That's the fundamental difference to me between this kind of mod and the more traditional soup up etc modifications.

swarnie_ 8y ago

> Let me describe to you the 900-kilogram car I'm building, with forged pistons and a turbo big enough to fit your head inside. It probably won't hold traction until third or fourth gear. Sarcasm is hard to pick up via a written media so i'm going to assume you're legit. Where is this thing even legal to drive??

function_seven 8y ago
What he described sounds like a lot of street legal cars in the US. As long as it has turn signals, windshield wipers, seat belts, and some other things on a short list, it's allowed on the road. Here's one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Atom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Atom EDIT: And another: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_MX-5_(NA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_MX-5_(NA)
- King-Aaron 8y ago
  Yeah not to mention guys like Saleen and Hennessey who make some downright ludicrous road cars. When you're talking about the power levels they make, the difference between 900kg and 1200kg is negligible :P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hennessey_Venom_GT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hennessey_Venom_GT Edit, and a more serious note, this is the flip side of the kinds of things we're discussing though. Not all modified cars are built to equal safety considerations, and not all modified car stories end well. https://jalopnik.com/man-dies-after-crash-in-home-built-honda-civic-based-ka-1825681533 https://jalopnik.com/man-dies-after-crash-in-home-built-hond...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
jacobush 8y ago
Lots of jurisdictions have general exemptions for self built cars or modified older cars.
King-Aaron 8y ago
> Where is this thing even legal to drive?? Racetracks, mainly. While I'm keeping the car registered, I'm sure the first time I have a problem with a police officer the car will receive a defect notice and won't be legal on the road any longer until it passes an engineering inspection. I'd need to be doing something pretty silly to get pulled over though, as it's all in a mx5 (miata) and it's a bit of a "sleeper" - i.e. it doesn't appear to be modified when looking from the outside. Interestingly enough though, the work I'm doing should be able to pass an engineer if required, but that's an investment I'll make when the defect arises. In Australia it's pretty commonplace to daily drive your race car until it gets defected, haha. It should be noted though, that in certain states in the United States, it appears (to an outsider) that some extremely powerful drag cars etc can be driven on the streets. Or, it's a similar scenario, in that they shouldn't be driven on the streets but are anyway...
- gambiting 8y ago
  What doesn't make any sense to me though that even if you avoid the police and any inspections, doing this to a car would 100% invalidate any insurance you have on it - making it an extraordinarily stupid idea to drive on any sort of public road, because if you get into an accident any insurance company will just refuse to pay out a single penny since the vehicle has been heavily modified past the factory specs - unless you declare all modifications to your insurer, which I am assuming you don't, since you also mention avoiding a full engineering inspection.
  - King-Aaron 8y ago
    I'm with Shannons and have all modifications declared. The engineering side of things is primarily for standard road/vehicle registration and checks that you're compliant with ADR (Australian Design Rules). i.e. my rollcage is CAMS (Confederation of Australian Motor Sport) compliant, however for it to be ADR compliant I would need it inspected by an engineer, while Shannons still happily covers it. But yeah my insurer knows everything right down to the brand of main bearings I bought.
    - 8y ago
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>Where is this thing even legal to drive?? 'merica! Also parts of Europe if you're willing to jump through hoops, probably also street legal in less developed nations that don't regulate that sort of thing.

jedberg 8y ago

I drove a heavily modded car when I was 17, so I'm familiar. We bored out the pistons to make a 2.8L engine closer to a 4.2L and then dropped the cat and replaced the 4 speed gearbox with a five speed manual. But it was done by an experienced mechanic, and pretty much every failure mode resulted in harm to the driver, not to others. This guy is a hobbyist and he's mucking with hardware that is controlled by software, which will magnify any problem he may have created. Manual mods to a car are wholly different than modding hardware that supports a complex software system that he can't modify or even read.

reitzensteinm 8y ago
Did you drive this car at the speed limit?
- jedberg 8y ago
  Most of the time, yes. Its advantage was accelerating off the line, a capability which I rarely used. I see what you're getting at though, that the modifications made it less safe on the road. I don't disagree. It was unsafe. I shouldn't have been allowed to drive it.
disillusioned 8y ago
This guy... is also an experienced mechanic. Read more on wk057 to see what he's capable of. "Hobbyist" is talking him down significantly.
- rtkwe 8y ago
  The difference here to me is the more normal crazy car modification scene isn't mucking around with systems that take control of the car, it's modifications to how the car operates and handles but it's the 'driver replacement' that Tesla's autopilot is used as (as much as the companies try to insist that it's an assist we've seen people don't pay as much attention to these semi-autonomous cars as they should as the driver). So we're talking about a system that already has problems with errors and driver attention being patched together where the myriad subtle errors will be completely hidden from the user. That's the fundamental difference to me between this kind of mod and the more traditional soup up etc modifications.