well, the back of his bald head anyway :crY:

read the stuff he's worte about in there and i have to say it's very very informative

i know it's a ford site and all but the suspension stuff he was on about explained quite a bit

i didn't buy the mag though, but i might be tempted in the next few days if it's still on the shelves

 

total vauxhall more like total shite lol.

 

lmfao

 

i used to have a sticke in the back window of my old s2 that said "This is ford county, wher on a quiet day u can hear the vauxhalls rusting" lol

 

Fpmsl.

 

He was so good with suspension other people had to fit it for him!

Ginge

 

 

pot kettle black

 

Ford and Vauxhall are shite ..............

Go Vag

 

we used to get that free!just used to end up on the toilet floor!

 

Ashamed to say i bought it this month,and its a good read! Im going through a nova phase! lol. But tell everyone that iv got a vauxhall for economy(1.2 merit nova) and ford for performance.(1 cossie,yb capri,xr4i turbo,xr4i 24v).So a ford man at heart.
Theres a good bit in there about the new focus rs,the oposition,they say if you have a astra vxr and come across one on the road to fake an injury as u got no chance!

 

What are you on about?
If you are on about on my nova, the suspension on it now was designed by me, made partially by me and partially by Phil from VS (he made the toe control arms and I did the rest) and then it was bolted on by me and Gary from VS who is one of my best mates and we often work as a team on both our cars as its more social than just doing stuff on your own, its not a case of he "had to" fit it with me, either of us could have done so on our own but I think working on cars is an excellent hobby to share with mates as you learn from each other along the way and more important you get to have a laugh and a joke and its just generally more enjoyable.

The article being mentioned though, is nothing to do with my car anyway or for that matter on fitting suspension as it is about setting up the suspension on a vx220 properly based on live tyre temperature readings and GPS cornering force data and suspension travel potentiometers, that sort of thing.
Have a read and then maybe when you comment on this thread next you can do so with some accuracy instead.


Busy month for me this month as I also did the article in there about mapping.

 

well, for what it's worth, chips writing style is a fair bit different to the likes of ff etc, althoguh i've only read these 2 articles so he may be having an off day or soemthing

the other thing that i've noticed, and it isn't a slight on the ford mags or the like, is that the print was much finer, probably 70% the size you get used to, i wonder why that is? more words to write and not enough paper to put it on is the obvious one, but it's not as if there were big pics in it or anythign either

 

The mapping article was quite good and easy to understand for dumbos like me i thought,so will be getting next months for the follow up.

 

just missed your post there chip, well done though, i think i've forgotten most of it already but it was nice to read about how they worked things out, and the start of the mapping article with 2things you don't want" was a nice way to put it rather than "do this and this and this won't happen" as opposed to "you don't want to do this or this because then this will happen"

didn't use my piston though

 

Ive written several articles for fast ford as well mate over the years, when you write you tend to write in a "house style" for that magazine generally, and potentially you get edited after you submit anyway, so the final article isnt always what the writer has sent in, although for technical stuff all the mags will try to avoid heavy editing as obviously the whole point of having a technical expert to write for you is that they know what they are talking about in the first place, so you risk altering the meaning of the words if you change it too much.

As far as house style goes, it can be quite extreme on some mags, so if for example I was writing a feature for your car to go in max power in the 1990's it wouldnt be a "v6 ford sierra turbo" it would be a "phat modded chariout that snaps knicker elastic at 200 paces"

Younger audience mate, their eyesight is better

 

This months was part 2 of 3, but the first one was just about different types of management and how they compare, rather than about the actual mapping itself, well assuming its this mag you are talking about that you have just read:



Its always hard knowing at what height to pitch any technical article.
Generally if its for a modified car mag, it needs to be readable by people with limited experience, as its more intended as an introduction to a subject than as a detailed reference.
Ultimately even in a 3 part article like that one its still only about 5-6K words total, so I try and make things as readable as I can for people of limited experience. But at the same time you dont want to bore the people who do know a bit more, so I try and have some good technical info in there too, finding a balance can sometimes be difficult, luckily on the mapping subject I do a bit of mapping teaching for various people anyway, so I tend to have quite a few people I can get to proof read it who are at different levels, for some other subjects I write about im not so spoiled for a test market though!

 

 

you can just make out chip in the bottom right hand corner

 

Same thing I always teach people with mapping, the most important things you need to learn when you start mapping are the things to avoid that can kill the engine, as if you dont get that bit right, you wont ever get to the stage of making more power etc, so that comes later.

Thanks to JDM and that shocking map that I posted on here a few months back form Gary Hurn's corsa, I managed to find a picture of a really badly mapped vauxhall piston to use instead, where possible I try and keep to using pictures that are as relevant as possible to the target audience, thanks anyway though mate

 

Yeah that bit made me chuckle when I read it.

 

I'm genuinely surprised and shocked that car enthusiast magazines publish technical info/advice from people whom are not currently working in the tuning/car modification trade or haven't had a comprehensive history working in the trade.

Suppose it's like anything else though - jobs for the boys/whom you know??

Id imagine most magazines would carry articles from people who run/manage tuning company's who've had years of hands on day to day experience and not just people who spend hours and hours a day reading car forums and tinkering with a few track toys and or mapping the odd car on the side

Surprised you've got the chance to do that chip, credit where credit's due on your part for getting the opportunity

 

Thats the one.I found it very interesting as i havnt a clue myself about mappin but am keen to learn but as you said that was easy to understand and gave the basics,well worth a read.

 

Magazines publish articles written by writers mate, thats how magazines work, if the writer has the technical ability required for the article then they can do so entirely from their own experience if its sufficient, if however (like on the suspension article mentioned here) the writer doesnt have, then they colate information from expert sources who do have, in the case of this months suspension article, that was "cornering force" a company up near harrogate who specialise in setting up racecar and roadcar suspension, they provided me with input for the article, they also proof read the article for me when it was finished to insure technical accuracy.

Just like im sure im is sometimes the case for Stu writing for fast ford, when its on something like Mapping he is doing so purely from experience, when its on some of the other subjects he has written about (brake fluids perhaps, not sure on his background on that but I remember an excellent article he wrote on the subject and wouldnt be surprised if he drew on additonal experts to get all the info) he will have had to do research in addition to his own knowledge occasionally I would imagine.

Thats what most jouranlists do mate, not just in the world of car magazines, but in all forms of media, they use a combination of their own knowledge and knowledge from other sources to put together a finished article containing the correct information from that combination of sources, the questions and answers section of a car mag is a perfect example, I dont think any magazine has a single one person in house who answers all questions without referring to outside experts, I certainly used a number of people who know more about various subjects than me when I was responsible for writing the question and answers section of a magazine for a couple of years.

In the case of these mapping articles (the ones this thread is about and you are presumably commenting on without actually having read them), as they are only an overview not a detailed technical reference, its an example where my own 6 years of mapping experience (including a few circa 400bhp c20let vauxhall engines like my own 457bhp one, robs one, neils one), and 10 years or so of engine tuning on carbs/dizzy before that was suffficient to write the article without outside reference, in the case of the suspension article though, I needed expert help as it went beyond the extent of my own knowledge as I mentioned above.

Pick up a copy in the garage and have a read of both the articles, it wont cost you anything to do so, I doubt you will be dissapointed with the content of either if you can take off your silly little blinkers you have wherever I am concerned without actually knowing the first thing about me or what I do just cause you have seemingly got offended or upset by me on the internet at some point and held a grudge. (not just going on this post by you about me, on all your others posts you make about me too, whoever you are) then comment here after reading them, id genuinely be interested in your feedback after you had done so despite the fact that im sure you will try and make it as negative as possible, as after all a critic who is specifically looking for faults because of a personal vendetta is likely to provide useful information for quality control purposes in the future as im sure they will find every little fault far better than someone with an open mind could, and like any professional writer im keen to improve (although am not interested in spelling mistakes on forum posts before someone starts pointing them out, I mean in terms of my actual work!)

 

Do you post your articles online anywhere Chip, like Stu does with his Fast Ford Tech ones, or are they magazine only?

As I would love to have a read of them all.

 

No mate, I dont have any sort of personal or business website like Stu, so nowhere really to post them particuarly, occasionally total vauxhall themselves do so though.

There is a link floating around for one I did about putting an XE cam into an LET engine, that was alongside Jamsport as we used their rolling road to get the numbers.
EDIT: here it is http://www.totalvauxhall.co.uk/resou....tech_LPDF.pdf

Thats from a couple of years ago though, the style has changed slightly since, but fundamentally same sort of thing we still do.

 

That xe cam change article is very impressive. Great gain for not alot of effort

 

Yes I was quite surprised at the gains myself, I knew it worked having done it myself in the past, but had never quantified it on the rollers before to know exactly how much by.

Im on the same XE inlet cam on my nova, with 457bhp, and specky made 489bhp recently on the same one too. (unlike the article we also both have the XE exhaust cam too)

Id like to go a little hotter though at some point and compare again, as I think on the bigger turbo installs some of us are doing these cams are starting to get restrictive now.

 

So could the same idea work with say a zetec cams in a zetec engine, just timed correctly and mapped to suit on a turbo application.

 

I assume you mean into a focus RS engine?

Potentially yes, although I havent looked at the figures to know, but its something quite common in terms of turbo engines in general, as they are normally milder cammed than their N/A equivalents from the factory.
From what I recall, there are a couple of variants of N/A cams to choose from too on the zetecs, so some time on the rollers to find the best set would be time well spent im sure, perhaps for a mag like fast ford or performance ford for example.

I first came across the trick about 15 years ago with the hotter MG Metro N/A cam giving good gains on MG Metro turbo engines for example, so its far from specific to vauxhall.

 

Yeh I guess a Focus RS aplication. Would be good to see if FF or PF would be willing to try if they could get somebody to put there car up to it. Only problem on the FRS is solid lifters would need to set??

 

Yes that could well be an issue on that specific application, and also you then have the fact that hydraulic cams are noisey and wear faster on solid lifter applications as they dont have the initial ramp to take up the slack, maybe a better example would be an N/A volvo set of cams into a focus ST or whatever.
Or even an xr3i cam into an rs turbo for that matter, im sure something along the same lines will have been done at some point with success in the ford world, but I dont know specifically what.

 

Or use it to wipe your arse on. But then again there is already shite on the paper and its called GM generaly moderate.

 

Jap crap is so boring.

 

youll get shot for that lol

chip youve been involved with future for ages now haven't you ?

 

Yes mate its been quite a few years now.

 

Awesome, thanks for that link. Was a very interesting read with great results!

 

so chip what else do you do for a living then.

 

Chip mapped my transit and did a damm sight better job than the company i payed over £600 to get it done at.

He has also spent the time to teach me how to map too and if you want to see a dyno graph of my focus rs engine just to see how good it is your more than welcome.

I would say Chip was a fantastic person to write an artical on mapping because not only does he know his stuff. He can write it in a way that a total amature can understand it!

 

I have two jobs mate, the freelance motoring journalism and I also write software, mainly financial software for lexus and toyota, although I also do work on other aspects of their business such as on the toyota website as well besides the finance.
My background is in real time systems, ie programming ECU's etc, but I havent done that for a few years now, its all client server or web based these days when I write software.