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Detroit, 5:42 AM
Sat Nov 21
31 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/04/09
11/04/09
Gas struts wear out. Just sitting around they slowly lose their charge over time. That's physics, can't change it. And just sitting around, the prop rod keeps on being a prop rod. It weighs about the same as a single gas strut - a carbon fiber one probably weighs less - and right there you've got a weight savings. One prop rod displaces two heavy, fallible gas struts.
Is a prop rod fallible? Sure. It can rust into nothingness - oops, not this one. It can bend and break under load - oops, you'd have to do something stupid, like bend the car around a phone pole to do that. It can pop out of the catch hole and drop the hood on your head - oops, that's gonna leave a mark. But with $400K invested, you're probably not going to lift the hood outside of your climate-controlled, hermetically sealed, Mafia insured eighteen-space garage. So no wind. The Mafia wouldn't allow it.
At 88 miles an hour, the two solenoid cases pop out of the Alien intake and start eating the oil coolers. #lexuslfa
11/04/09
+1 on the gas struts.
Nothing like having marginal ones and finding today was the day it was too cool to hold the hood up when a 2 mph breeze touched it.
/learned not to place hand in hood's travel without a broomstick as a backup hood prop...the hard way #lexuslfa
11/04/09
Supercars are NOT reliable.
11/05/09
This was done for weight alone. And it passed the cost-benefit analysis algorithm that Toyota doubtless subject the entire car to. #lexuslfa
11/05/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
pfft
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
Civic dx?
Is there any other kind, baby? #lexuslfa
11/04/09
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11/04/09
11/04/09
The LFA is designed for and marketed to someone looking for high performance as well as all the highest-tech and greatest creature comforts that his 400,000.00 can buy. Your analogy is like comparing a Veyron to a Le Mans Prototype. Other than that, it was....perfect. #lexuslfa
11/04/09
11/04/09
vaya con dios #lexuslfa
11/04/09
11/04/09
Wow. #lexuslfa
11/04/09
11/04/09
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11/04/09
11/04/09
@tempesjo: No, you'll have to get the transparent hood for that! Adds madd street cred too, yo. #lexuslfa
11/04/09
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11/04/09
11/02/09
10/30/09
10/30/09
10/30/09
Basically, Toyota has created a automated process that can wrap an aluminum sub-frame in carbon-fiber. Hitherto, sheets of CF where laid out layer-by-layer by hand and permeated with resin before its cured in an autoclave. Toyota has developed an obviously expensive bespoke machine that can weave dry fiber around a three-dimensional object.
The first obvious benefit is that its one contiguous sheet of carbon-fiber and not separate layers. There is an important QA/QC element to any carbon fiber product, this is especially important for load bearing components, and having CF layered one upon the other by hand makes it susceptible to defects like micro-cracking and other errors that can make itself apparent later in the products lifetime.
Secondly, the binding of carbon-fiber to aluminum (or any metal) has always been challenge. The conventional method is using simple threaded inserts that bind the CF to the aluminum. Toyota have found a unique method where it has a flanged collar where the dry fiber is weaved around the aluminum using this machine.
For larger volume production cars, this method is beneficial because it allows for carbon-fiber usage only on components where it is necessary and still allowing the usage of conventional metals like aluminum/steel. Atop that, this method is automated and not done by hand. For future Toyota products, some key-components can use this CF process sparingly to strengthen specific metal components without the raising costs dramatically. #lexuslfa
10/30/09
10/30/09
Thanks to your post I now see the many benefits and respect what a breakthrough it is. #lexuslfa
10/30/09
Very informative, thank you!
*props* #lexuslfa
10/31/09
10/31/09
11/02/09
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11/02/09
I think the whole "trickle-down" argument for the LFA's existence is a ruse. Toyota uses it to justify to its shareholders, potential customers, and a gullible automotive press the pouring of thousands of man-hours and hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development into things like this loom - which seems to serve no purpose other than constructing a couple of bits for a very limited-production car. This, in turn, is used to justify the $100K-$200K premium over its competition. That premium, in reality, has nothing to do with the superiority of the result, but everything to do with Toyota's attempt to recoup the losses from an excessive, meandering, decade-long exercise in over-engineering. #lexuslfa
11/03/09
11/06/09
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10/30/09
Also, I watched the video and it appears the loom is being run by a second generation ipod. #lexuslfa
10/30/09
@tempesjo: I setup my loom to run off my old NES... I wasn't using it anymore, except to play RC Pro-Am. #lexuslfa
10/30/09