The gap!

[spoolinmp3]

Well I was just in the gap for the Mazda gatehering this past week www.dealsgap.com. Oh my what fun! 318 turns in 11 miles of sweet ass mountain road! To be exact the curviest mountain road in ALL of North America.

Well I got to run it in a modified WRX, Tubo Miata, 6speed 99 miata, 2002 mini and a 2001 miata with mad ass suspension mods. I have always considered myself an excellent mountain driver.....but I got to ride with a driving instructor and ohhh my how much I improved! Learned how to clean up my lines, be smoother (this was my main initial problem) and go over the fundamentals of performance driving. My lines were somewhat fine but we found that I was apexing to early in some turns and being rough with my exits. Once that was all smoothed out and I finally learned how to properly take a super long turn (like the expressway exit ramp kind) I feel so much more confident! Man what a blast now I have a full year to screw my driving back up down here in Miami since we have no curves (well actually one 45 degree angle turn that is surrounded by like 10 million flashing lights and caution sharp turn sighns...LOL)
I highly reccomend it to get instruction. I was lucky I got a couple of hours for free!(drinks)

 

[70]

Sounds like fun...That's why I like Colorado, 15 minutes to curvy mountain roads...

I just need more power to really pull up and out of some of those curves. Momentum is nice, but power helps.

 

[LinuxRacr]

Stutters,

How do I combat vaporlock in cars built for lower altitudes, so that when I drive to Colorado again, I don't loose so much power?

 

[70]

Stutters,

How do I combat vaporlock in cars built for lower altitudes, so that when I drive to Colorado again, I don't loose so much power?

I didn't think they really made any changes for cars running at altitude. I thought really the only changes for a car model was emissions wise for Cali. I don't know for sure though.

You do lose power because of the lack of oxygen though. Kind of like altitude sickness, only for your car.

I thought vapor lock was due to temp?!?

Really the only way to not lose power is to have some way to pump more air in, basically, forced induction. Just about every N/A car has some issue up here, even V-8s. That is why I am thinking about going turbo, instead of a cool N/A build.

I've seen plenty of turbo cars fly up the mountains passing up those bigger V-8s having issues with the lack of air.

 

[Jimmy@MV]

Stutters,

How do I combat vaporlock in cars built for lower altitudes, so that when I drive to Colorado again, I don't loose so much power?

It has nothing to do with vapor lock. It is just the altitude and the lack of air. The only way to combat this is forced induction. I lived in Salt Lake which is about 4500-5000 ft in the valley and my VR6 Jetta was horrible and just got worse the higher I went. Four cylinders are even worse. Moving back to sea level in DC was a huge difference.

Altitude kills the power. Just go turbo and you will be ok next time.

 

[LinuxRacr]

Looks like I just had the vocabulary for the thing wrong. What is vapor lock then?

 

[70]

It has nothing to do with vapor lock. It is just the altitude and the lack of air. The only way to combat this is forced induction. I lived in Salt Lake which is about 4500-5000 ft in the valley and my VR6 Jetta was horrible and just got worse the higher I went. Four cylinders are even worse. Moving back to sea level in DC was a huge difference.

Altitude kills the power. Just go turbo and you will be ok next time.

Yep, like I said, forced induction is the only way to comabt altitude...

I'm surprised your VR6 had problems...Usually sixes do better than eights up here, and both do better than just regular fours, but turbos are king of the hills...

 

[Jimmy@MV]

Maybe it wasnt as bad as I thought then, I never drove anything else. All I can say is that in comparison to sea level it was a bummer. Nothing like putting your foot to the floor and just feeling like your not going anywhere.

I guess my other friends that were there thought my car was fast, but I knew what it could do.

 

[70]

Maybe it wasnt as bad as I thought then, I never drove anything else. All I can say is that in comparison to sea level it was a bummer. Nothing like putting your foot to the floor and just feeling like your not going anywhere.

I guess my other friends that were there thought my car was fast, but I knew what it could do.

Everything works better at sea level.

 

[zmzmzm]

I heard once (and please keep in mind that I make absolutely no claim to either authority or comprehension on the matter) that the mathematical difference in hp is equal to a loss of 2% per 1,000 feet in elevation. I'm sure some of the engineers around here can figure out if that is statistically accurate and why... I certainly wouldn't have any idea where to start calculating!

From the good ol' butt dyno, however, I can agree with the loss in power at higher elevations. It's a lot of fun to sit at the top of a 14,000 foot peak and take off from a standstill. Without turbo, everything is just pathetic!

Chris

 

[dolphin]

If you go to this URL there is a calculator for the effects of alittude on horsepower. Give it a minute since it takes a little while to load sometimes. At 5000 ft, your 140 HP is down to 116.

http://www.slowgt.com/Calc2.htm#BasAltCal

 

[70]

If you go to this URL there is a calculator for the effects of alittude on horsepower. Give it a minute since it takes a little while to load sometimes. At 5000 ft, your 140 HP is down to 116.

http://www.slowgt.com/Calc2.htm#BasAltCal

Lame...(in reference to the loss of power)