In the wake of Toyota's huge floor mat recall, theorists have come up with several survival strategies designed to overcome a throttle that's stuck wide-open. Putting some of these theories to the test – and debunking several myths in the process – is the team over at Consumer Reports.
With a large test track and a fleet of vehicles at their disposal, the magazine's engineers initially focused on the "just step hard on the brakes" method of bringing the car to a halt. Interestingly enough, CR tested a Mercedes-Benz E350 and a Volkswagen Jetta Wagon – both fitted with drive-by-wire "smart throttles" that are designed to ignore conflicting inputs (throttle and brake at the same time). CR reports that these cars simply shut down to idle and came safety to a stop. The story was a bit different with a Toyota Venza and Chevrolet HHR, however. When the brakes on those vehicles were firmly applied at 20 mph, their transmissions downshifted to fight the deceleration. The vehicles were both eventually brought to a stop after the first test. However, when the test was repeated at 60 mph on brakes that had been cooled since the earlier run, both vehicles quickly suffered fade from their overheated brakes and were unable to come to a complete stop.
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For those about to rock, we salute you, of course. And for those of you with four months of free time, seventeen suitcases full of Lego bricks and a masters in mechanical engineering, we'll totally give you props if – and only if – you come up with something as mind bending as this.
You are looking at a "working" Lego V8 engine. And the details are stunning. Pistons pump, valves open and close, rocker arms rock, the fly wheel spins -- there's even two bundle'o'snakes headers that flow into twin collectors, though we don't like how they get reduced and choked. But hey, if we really don't like it, we can build our own – with straight pipes! Also, we love the throttle bodies (made from radar disks) – they're a wonderful touch. Full video of running engine doing its thing after the jump. And we expect a user-submitted Jaguar V-12 by Christmas, so hop to it, readers.
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Over the weekend, Dylan Weiss from Cry Havoc Productions, Inc. let us know that his latest motorcycle-specific documentary went live at Discovery's Turbo online site. We've spent some time watching the footage, and we think it's awesome. Focusing in on Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, BMW, Ducati, MV Agusta and Bimota, the crew took plenty of footage home with them and managed to ride some of the greatest modern sportbikes ever created along the way. Best of all, over four hours of video is available online for free at their mini-site, broken down into 50 segments.
The whole shebang was shot in High Definition, so we have some serious hopes that it will air on The Discovery Channel, be offered on DVD or both. It's extremely entertaining and we definitely recommend checking it out.
