The long wait is finally over! FM2 is upon us!
The first vehicle that I purchased is the Toyota MR-S. Due to its light weight and perfect weight distribution it was an ideal platform to work from. After spending 40,300 credits' worth of parts, I eventually ended up with what you see here.
An "S" class go-kart with a performance index of 915 with about 453 bhp/ton, naturally aspirated. And it's not even maxed out yet... cos it's still on the mid-performance cams. Stats:
Power: 274 kW @ 7400
Torque: 404 Nm @ 5000
Weight: 806 kg
6 speed gearbox
Front tires: 215/35R17
Rear tires: 245/30R17
Wheels: Volk Racing CE28N
Posted a laptime of 56.977 seconds around Tsukuba without any tuning. :)
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Thoughts on MPT Sprint 2007 Rd 2
So the timings for this past Sunday's event has been released.
Descriptive statistics:
It is human nature to always look at the outliers. True, at the end of the day, people don't remember who came in 3rd. However, we also have to consider that the cars we fielded are daily drivers. No shop cars. No sequential gearbox or dog boxes. Air-conditioning and heavy glass windows still intact and working. No carbon fiber doors. No drag slicks or treated tires. Hell, one of the drivers even showed up in Yokohama AD07s!
Look at the positive skewness: this means there's more data in the right tail than would be expected in a normal distribution. Make no mistake about it: the competition is tough!
Yet given these difficult circumstances, we managed to prevail against the odds.
The best performer is in the 64th percentile (i.e. it was quicker than 64% of the cars that took part in this event) and 2nd best, in the 59th percentile, with the 3rd car just above average. Not bad considering it was running on a stock Evo 9 titanium turbo and pump gas!
Hopefully we can further improve upon the results in the next round.
Descriptive statistics:
| Mean | 8.34657894736842 |
| Standard Error | 0.123470026 |
| Median | 8.285 |
| Mode | 8.27 |
| Standard Deviation | 0.761120356 |
| Sample Variance | 0.579304196 |
| Kurtosis | 0.060944713 |
| Skewness | 0.383091369 |
| Range | 3.25 |
| Minimum | 6.78 |
| Maximum | 10.03 |
| Sum | 317.17 |
| Count | 38 |
| Confidence Level (95.0%) | 0.250174034 |
It is human nature to always look at the outliers. True, at the end of the day, people don't remember who came in 3rd. However, we also have to consider that the cars we fielded are daily drivers. No shop cars. No sequential gearbox or dog boxes. Air-conditioning and heavy glass windows still intact and working. No carbon fiber doors. No drag slicks or treated tires. Hell, one of the drivers even showed up in Yokohama AD07s!
Look at the positive skewness: this means there's more data in the right tail than would be expected in a normal distribution. Make no mistake about it: the competition is tough!
Yet given these difficult circumstances, we managed to prevail against the odds.
The best performer is in the 64th percentile (i.e. it was quicker than 64% of the cars that took part in this event) and 2nd best, in the 59th percentile, with the 3rd car just above average. Not bad considering it was running on a stock Evo 9 titanium turbo and pump gas!
Hopefully we can further improve upon the results in the next round.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Interesting article on game theory
Lucy and Pete, returning from a remote Pacific island, find that the airline has damaged the identical antiques that each had purchased. An airline manager says that he is happy to compensate them but is handicapped by being clueless about the value of these strange objects. Simply asking the travelers for the price is hopeless, he figures, for they will inflate it.
Instead he devises a more complicated scheme. He asks each of them to write down the price of the antique as any dollar integer between 2 and 100 without conferring together. If both write the same number, he will take that to be the true price, and he will pay each of them that amount. But if they write different numbers, he will assume that the lower one is the actual price and that the person writing the higher number is cheating. In that case, he will pay both of them the lower number along with a bonus and a penalty--the person who wrote the lower number will get $2 more as a reward for honesty and the one who wrote the higher number will get $2 less as a punishment. For instance, if Lucy writes 46 and Pete writes 100, Lucy will get $48 and Pete will get $44.
What numbers will Lucy and Pete write? What number would you write?
Rest of Scientific American article here.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Sprint/SuperSprint 2007
Yesterday the workshop made its debut at the Sprint events.
Competition was stiff; expectations were low since there were no classifications for tires or weight. We only had 5 entrants, with 4 taking victories in both runs. And the dark horse, as predicted, turned in an upsetting result.
The crew had fun and it was definitely a learning experience for us.
Flickr photo set here.
Competition was stiff; expectations were low since there were no classifications for tires or weight. We only had 5 entrants, with 4 taking victories in both runs. And the dark horse, as predicted, turned in an upsetting result.
The crew had fun and it was definitely a learning experience for us.
Flickr photo set here.
Monday, May 14, 2007
FM2 preview
So James, ghoonk's uncle, came over to the workshop on Saturday to give us a preview of Forza Motorsport 2.
Having had some practice with the downloaded demo a couple of days earlier, and also having extensively played the first installment, it wasn't too much of an adjustment to get used to the controls again.
First, the good points. Graphically it has been cleaned up, with a much higher level of detail. New tracks, and more customization options. The audio, it's perfect. The exhaust of an E46 M3 roaring down the Nurburgring is exactly how it sounds like, with the unmistakable induction noise gaining in pitch around 6000 RPM. A stroked up 4G63 sounds exactly like the agricultural beast that it is.
Some things that I noticed: the SLR doesn't have the rear air brake popping up to assist in hard braking. The wireless steering wheel is a little too sensitive, making the wireless controller the de facto choice when really racing in earnest.
Definitely looking forward to this title when it launches on the 29th.
Having had some practice with the downloaded demo a couple of days earlier, and also having extensively played the first installment, it wasn't too much of an adjustment to get used to the controls again.
First, the good points. Graphically it has been cleaned up, with a much higher level of detail. New tracks, and more customization options. The audio, it's perfect. The exhaust of an E46 M3 roaring down the Nurburgring is exactly how it sounds like, with the unmistakable induction noise gaining in pitch around 6000 RPM. A stroked up 4G63 sounds exactly like the agricultural beast that it is.
Some things that I noticed: the SLR doesn't have the rear air brake popping up to assist in hard braking. The wireless steering wheel is a little too sensitive, making the wireless controller the de facto choice when really racing in earnest.
Definitely looking forward to this title when it launches on the 29th.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Photoshop Magic (slightly NSFW)
Props to Tim who sent me this amazing video of a Photoshop artist at work.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
It has been 4 years to the day since my car has been registered.
Through this period of time, it has seen me through break-ups, make-ups, good days and bad days.
As hard as I try not to form an emotional bond to a piece of metal, I can't but feel a slight twinge of regret that one day, some day, this beautiful relationship has to come to an end.
But it is not the perfect steed; it drinks gasoline like no tomorrow, and brake pads and rotors are changed on a regular basis. As I'm typing this, the (6th) clutch is starting to slip, and it was installed barely 2 months ago.
But would it have been worth it?
Without a doubt.
Through this period of time, it has seen me through break-ups, make-ups, good days and bad days.
As hard as I try not to form an emotional bond to a piece of metal, I can't but feel a slight twinge of regret that one day, some day, this beautiful relationship has to come to an end.
But it is not the perfect steed; it drinks gasoline like no tomorrow, and brake pads and rotors are changed on a regular basis. As I'm typing this, the (6th) clutch is starting to slip, and it was installed barely 2 months ago.
But would it have been worth it?
Without a doubt.
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