My Daewoo has an elaborate dual geometry intake manifold. A long circuit that is open at low rpm and a shorter circuit that opens at 4200 rpm. Daewoo explains this is to improve low end torque, improve fuel economy and make the car more driveable.
I disabled the system last week because I wanted to gauge the impact a more high rpm, single geometry system would have on the engine when the students and I build an intake from scratch this winter.
Low end torque is better, high end power is unaffected and I just recorded my best MPG by more than 10%.
What's your best manufacturer outsmarting themselves discovery?
mike
Reader
12/4/11 8:15 p.m.
I think the 1981 Alfa Romeo Spider (for the U.S. market) is a great example of that. What an evil, foul-running POS.
I think BMW's i-drive is pretty self-defeating. BMW touts itself as the ultimate driving machine, but you spend most of your time in the new ones trying to figure out how to adjust the climate control or audio system....
E30s are designed perfectly, so nothing to report here. 
Isuzu Trooper IIs aren't designed perfectly, but they're so damn simple and robust that everything just works.
irish44j wrote:
I think BMW's i-drive is pretty self-defeating. BMW touts itself as the ultimate driving machine, but you spend most of your time in the new ones trying to figure out how to adjust the climate control or audio system....
It must just be an age thing, but I love iDrive and can use it effortlessly, like an iPhone. You old people just don't understand, man!
The new M5 adds engine noise to the cabin by playing a special soundtrack through the car speakers. How much time did Claus spend on that farce?!?
Tom Suddard wrote:
irish44j wrote:
I think BMW's i-drive is pretty self-defeating. BMW touts itself as the ultimate driving machine, but you spend most of your time in the new ones trying to figure out how to adjust the climate control or audio system....
It must just be an age thing, but I love iDrive and can use it effortlessly, like an iPhone. You old people just don't understand, man!
wow.....I don't get called "old" very often. 
I get to play with multi-billion dollar electronics at work, so iPhones and iDrive really don't interest me much while driving. I like to actually drive.
Looks like Toyota outsmarted Daewoo by about 25 years.
irish44j wrote:
Tom Suddard wrote:
irish44j wrote:
I think BMW's i-drive is pretty self-defeating. BMW touts itself as the ultimate driving machine, but you spend most of your time in the new ones trying to figure out how to adjust the climate control or audio system....
It must just be an age thing, but I love iDrive and can use it effortlessly, like an iPhone. You old people just don't understand, man!
wow.....I don't get called "old" very often.
I get to play with multi-billion dollar electronics at work, so iPhones and iDrive really don't interest me much while driving. I like to actually drive.
Once you get past the initial idrive learning curve (which was about 30 seconds for me) idrive is great because it's just out of the way, allowing me to just drive. When I want to adjust something a quick twirl/push/tap and it's done, and I don't have a dash with 100 identical silver buttons (I'm looking at you, Acura).
pinchvalve wrote:
The new M5 adds engine noise to the cabin by playing a special soundtrack through the car speakers. How much time did Claus spend on that farce?!?
New mustang boss 302s have side exits that split off the main exhaust for the sole purpose of piping v8 music to the cabin so the Germans are just doing what Ford does - only without the extra weight of actual tubing
mtn
SuperDork
12/4/11 9:29 p.m.
My past 3 cars have been Miata, SAAB, E30. Obviously nothing on Miata/E30 (at least nothing I've found) and on the SAAB, well, I suppose if you wanted to look and find stuff you could, but that car was pretty damn good in every aspect except reliability.
The new iDrive is much better than the old. The old I couldn't figure out without stopping, but the new one you can even learn on the fly.
yeah, obviously I was referring to the "old" iDrive. I've heard it is much improved, but the original sucked big....
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:
pinchvalve wrote:
The new M5 adds engine noise to the cabin by playing a special soundtrack through the car speakers. How much time did Claus spend on that farce?!?
New mustang boss 302s have side exits that split off the main exhaust for the sole purpose of piping v8 music to the cabin so the Germans are just doing what Ford does - only without the extra weight of actual tubing
you can take out the restrictor and essentially dump all the exhaust out the side of the car before it gets to the mufflers.. i recall that it's actually worth a few ponies if you get the matching "off road only nudge nudge wink wink" tune flashed into the ecm.
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:
pinchvalve wrote:
The new M5 adds engine noise to the cabin by playing a special soundtrack through the car speakers. How much time did Claus spend on that farce?!?
New mustang boss 302s have side exits that split off the main exhaust for the sole purpose of piping v8 music to the cabin so the Germans are just doing what Ford does - only without the extra weight of actual tubing
Why not take all the dollars they waste on systems like this and actually make the car better?
This is the kind of stupidity that makes me hate new cars.
One instance I can think of is manufacturers putting "automatic" power locks on car doors that with the doors closed and the car put into gear have to be manually unlocked when you remove the key and go to get out of the car. I can't remember the make of car I rode in that had that "feature", but it was annoying.
Keyless starting systems that are different from one car company to another. The "engine on" part is obvious/similar while the "engine shut off" is a bit different from one car company to the next.
Radios in cars that have 1 button to turn up volume and another button to turn down volume...how about returning to just one KNOB?
Cars that use paddles or "manumatic" shifting of automatics where the upshift/downshift on one make is different/not standardized from 1 car company to the next.
I drive a Honda DX (not even power steering) so I have little first hand experience with new(er) cars.
Trans_Maro wrote:
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:
pinchvalve wrote:
The new M5 adds engine noise to the cabin by playing a special soundtrack through the car speakers. How much time did Claus spend on that farce?!?
New mustang boss 302s have side exits that split off the main exhaust for the sole purpose of piping v8 music to the cabin so the Germans are just doing what Ford does - only without the extra weight of actual tubing
Why not take all the dollars they waste on systems like this and actually make the car better?
This is the kind of stupidity that makes me hate new cars.
There are very few ways I can think of to make a Boss 302 "Better". It is seriously an astonishingly good car!
Maroon92 wrote:
Trans_Maro wrote:
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:
pinchvalve wrote:
The new M5 adds engine noise to the cabin by playing a special soundtrack through the car speakers. How much time did Claus spend on that farce?!?
New mustang boss 302s have side exits that split off the main exhaust for the sole purpose of piping v8 music to the cabin so the Germans are just doing what Ford does - only without the extra weight of actual tubing
Why not take all the dollars they waste on systems like this and actually make the car better?
This is the kind of stupidity that makes me hate new cars.
There are very few ways I can think of to make a Boss 302 "Better". It is seriously an astonishingly good car!
Ok, how much did that goofy system add to the sticker price?
How about Cadillac's V8-6-4 system from the early part of the 80's. Was supposed to save fuel, but I don't think it had much effect on fuel economy. Only thing it did was break.
integraguy wrote:
Cars that use paddles or "manumatic" shifting of automatics where the upshift/downshift on one make is different/not standardized from 1 car company to the next.
I honestly hope that never happens, because the large majority have those directions wrong. Mazda is the only one I've driven that doesn't have it backwards.
Trans_Maro wrote:
Maroon92 wrote:
Trans_Maro wrote:
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:
pinchvalve wrote:
The new M5 adds engine noise to the cabin by playing a special soundtrack through the car speakers. How much time did Claus spend on that farce?!?
New mustang boss 302s have side exits that split off the main exhaust for the sole purpose of piping v8 music to the cabin so the Germans are just doing what Ford does - only without the extra weight of actual tubing
Why not take all the dollars they waste on systems like this and actually make the car better?
This is the kind of stupidity that makes me hate new cars.
There are very few ways I can think of to make a Boss 302 "Better". It is seriously an astonishingly good car!
Ok, how much did that goofy system add to the sticker price?
The Boss system is specifically to simplify the addition of track-use dump valves. There are tuned plates attached when shipped from the factory, so there was some development cost spent on adding the tuning, but not much compared to the rest of the car.
Honestly, I don't mind a company spending some money to make a car sound right. The previous body GT Mustangs exhaust system was partially designed by sound engineers using the "Bullett" soundtrack mustang as a baseline. Part of the performance car experience is the sound. I'm sure flow dynamics wasn't the only reason behind the C6 Z06's butterfly valves that open at full throttle.
Using electronically generated exhaust noise seems a bit lame to me. Now, if you could select from a palette of sounds based on vintage racers, well then...
FWIW, several new cars (Mustangs too, i think) use some kind of additional resonator in the intake tubing to transfer specific sounds to the cabin. Also lame, IMHO.
But back on topic to the OP, I had an 89 Accord coupe with the seatbelts mounted in the doors so they unrolled out of the car when you opened the doors. I took the car in to the shop when they started popping loose from the buckle. I was told that they were designed to NEVER BE RELEASED AT THE BUCKLE except in an emergency. You were supposed to leave them buckled when you open the door, so it would string out, and then wade through the stretched belt to get into the car. It was supposed to force people to wear the belts.
umm, whaaaaaa.......?
Great idea, especially in a torrential downpour.
Supposedly, unbuckling the belts caused the buckles to eventually stop holding securely, even in an accident.
Yikes.
DrBoost
SuperDork
12/5/11 12:27 p.m.
The soft top in my CJ-2A seemed to be self defeating. Without the top there seemed to be less drafts, it was quieter, and the inside of the windshield didn't ice up in winter!
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:
pinchvalve wrote:
The new M5 adds engine noise to the cabin by playing a special soundtrack through the car speakers. How much time did Claus spend on that farce?!?
New mustang boss 302s have side exits that split off the main exhaust for the sole purpose of piping v8 music to the cabin so the Germans are just doing what Ford does - only without the extra weight of actual tubing
If my car is going to play engine noise through my speakers, I want my engine to sound like an X-Wing or TIE Fighter.
That is all.
In reply to ultraclyde:
GM used belts like that for a while too. I always wonderd what would happen in a nasty roll over incident. The NJ state troopers did too, after their first batch of caprices with those belts they switched the whole fleet over to Fords. (I used to work at a service station that did tire work for the State Troopers on the Turnpike)
