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I have to floor my little hoopie every time I drive. Have to so I can keep up with traffic. It's a four-cylinder diesel that puts out 74 horse power. Heavy little car too. Takes "forever" to get up to cruising speed, and every time it even sniffs a hill, it runs other way. I fight it to make it go up the hill, and it gets even with me by slugging up it.
One hill out here on the freeway, I hit the bottom at about 80, and by the time I'm at the top, I'm only going 50 or 55 if the wind is with me. Guess that's the price I have to pay for 36 mpg fuel consumption.
If you stick with the muscle cars that were likely to be found in the high school parking lots, with street legal tires and exhaust systems, the times were much less impressive. The cars in the Super Street Monster Showdown were intended only for the drag strip. In fact, I have an Oldsmobile brochure that specifically says that for the W-30.
Also, manufacturers were notorious for supplying ringers. Perhaps the most famous example was the 1964 Pontiac GTO supplied to Car and Driver magazine. It has finally been admitted that it actually had a 421 V-8, instead of the 389 V-8 available to the public. Pontiac was able to do this because the 326-428 engines shared the same medium block design.
No, I honestly am not trolling. I've never needed to with either car. Half throttle is more than enough.
To correct an earlier post, comparing an engine to a muscle is ridiculous. The engine won't get stronger by challenging it.
That is a good point. It will not get stronger. However, one day you might need all of the available power of the car. I am reassured in knowing what my car can and cannot do with all of it's power. And since I do floor it I know it works.
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Unrelated comment here....
I have heard the, "...flooring it cleans out the carbon". However, I do not think this actually is true.
When you are steady state cruising down the highway the engine is running lean to save fuel (14.7 parts air to one part fuel). The leaner an engine runs the hotter the exhaust gasses are.
When you ask the engine to produce full power the exhaust gasses will actually be cooler. This is because fuel is actually used to cool the combustion chamber. In addition to the fuel used for combustion. The air fuel ratio changes for higher power settings. A full throttle AFR might be closer to 11.5:1 for a turbocharged car.
This AFR would be measured in the exhaust post combustion.
However.....
I have a 2003 VW Jetta diesel. These cars are sometimes know to have excess oil accumulate in the lowest part of the intake ducting. This would be the bottom of the intercooler. If the oil hasn't been drained or the car hasn't been floored in a long time a problem can occur.
When the car is floored the oil will get ingested by the engine the engine will run on this oil. Causing the engine to run away even after you release the accelerator. Normally the engine fails before all excess oil is consumed.
So, in this car's case an occasional flooring does more good than harm.
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