Gentlemen

Mark

 

There are 2 basic ways to deal with members who post things that ruin a thread. One way is put them on your ignore list, and poof they don't show up in the threads you want to enjoy. The other way is to read their posts, shake your head, and hope that if enough of their posts get reported, action will be taken so that you can remove them from your ignore list, and poof their gone.

Mark

 

there are a couple ways to test things for downforce that don't require wind tunnels....

For pure downforce measurements... Get a data system and add ons to measure suspension compression. Drive fast and look at squat vs speed. The springs will compress more with added downforce. You should be able to get a small fraction of an inch resolution and that should be good to about 10 lbs of downforce resolution. Then all you need to do is go real fast! But remember, downforce adds drag.

For testing diffusers and drag, that one is easy. Measure the delta in speed vs time when in neutral. Reduced drag will show up as longer times needed to drop speed. Since drag goes as the square of the speed, the results are most pronounced at very high speeds.

There are expensive ways to test, and cheap ways to test. The cheap ones tend to have less resolution, but can yeild very good results.

Matt

For the newbies, read the original AGS thread to see how lots of these seeds were planted.... Many who posted there have moved on, but it will be instructional none the less.

 

But what about cross/head/tail wind?

 

Gee all this negative vibe, thats so "UN" MINI. The Yellow Coop W/ M7 parts looks bad ***. For the price we'll pay for these parts, sure some test figures would be nice, However I would rather M7 take the time as most good shops do and complete adequate real world testing. Hell these parts look just like the Challenge MINIs so if 2+2=4 I could positively believe these parts work.
I dont have any M7 products yet but I can definetly see my future credit card statements with M7 all over it. M7 keep up the nice work.

 

AGS thread?

I think he has said he did that already. Peter gave his "real world" assement way back in this thread and most scoffed at it. Even if M7 were to have these parts tested in a "NASA" windtunnel, people here would question it.

 

Ya I guess they want to see some colorful chart or something, Cause thats the best way to prove somethings worth.

 

is that they're mostly calibrated by the hit they make in the credit card statement! This is what I've seen with my own but dyno compared to actual data logging at least...

I did a little searching and came up with this thread...
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ir+Gain+System

Reading over it, there are a lot of names you newer memebers won't recognize... JLM, Randy@ross-tech, SFJAMES2, JCAMPOS, macncheese, tonyb and even a few you will! But it's an entertaining read none the less.

Here's another one... https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ir+Gain+System

And another one...
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ir+Gain+System

One thing that is sad about this day and age of internet immediacy is that most stuff has a very short shelf life and good information is burried very deeply very quickly. I'd guess than over 90% of the questions asked have really already been answered, but it's hard to find all the "wheat among the chaff" so to speak....

Anyway, for some real fun look at the very early threads in the forum. Heck, I've been here for a while and a lot of the initial discovery was done by others before I even showed up!

Happy reading,

Matt

 

Like I and Rally@Stancedesign said.... it's mostly for aesthetics anyways. For the 1%'ers that use their car exclusively for racing, the rest of us weekend warriors would buy it for looks.

The ironic part is, the few naysayers that have a complaint about it probably don't do anything more with their car than the rest of us except for as I said... "weekend warriors" that go to the track a few times a year. I'm sure if they are looking for exponential results from a wing, they already have suspension, LSD, race tires, harnesses, racing seats, etc, etc....

Mark

 

Yea that about sums me up, nothing radical done to my car, just $30k or so in mods (Plus the 30k for the car) over the last few years...

I've got everything on that list except a set of race seats (Can't give up that Lapis Blue interior!).

I go to the track as often as I can afford it. Actually every one of the "Nay-Sayers" is at the track at least every few weeks.

Wait, I haven't nay-said anything yet in this thread, am I allowed to post?

 

Ahhhh shaddup smarty pants....lol. Okay, okay, you know what I meant.... so you're one of the few 1%'ers...

Seriously, I was just saying that the "majority" of people that would be purchasing that spoiler are "probably" doing it for looks.

Of course they'll always be the diehard, hardcore guys that really race their cars.... I'm just saying the average buyer.

Mark

 

Ohhhhh, and technically, it was directed to the naysayers.... the diehards such as yourself probably think it's a good thing....

 

good testing technique is for.

Matt

 

You're right, but I don't think anyone naysaying was concerned with that. They were concerned with the fact that (Like most stuff that comes from this particular vendor) it was WAY overhyped, with unnecessary information about wind tunnel testing that we all know will probably never happen.

Most people could give a crap about aero, the wing and stuff are for aesthetics. If (Like most vendors) they had just said "We haven't tested this for aerodynamics, we mainly made it for looks, but if you notice any differences with aero and handling at speed, let us know!" or something like that, nobody would have said anything.

Less hype, more results. If you're going to add random marketing BS to every product, at least back it up. If you design and market things as "Performance Parts" people are going to want to see "Performance Results".

 

Strictly for the sake of discussion....

I'd say that for 90% of the people out there......butt dyno is going to be the only thing that the driver will ever experience....and a positive butt dyno result is all they're looking for.

People buy mods so that they can feel the extra oomph in some of the spirited day to day driving. Maybe it's a placebo effect....maybe their brain is telling them they feel something because they just spent a lot of money on it......but if the buyer installs it and "feels" an improvement....isn't that all they're looking for? Especially from a spoiler?

Yah....there are a select few who are trying to get the absolute highest numbers on a dyno because they think the value of their car comes from those numbers......and there are a select few who are competitive racers who need to shave every second off their lap time that they can....butt dynos won't do anything for them......but for the majority of the MINI modders out there, they just want to perceive a positive differences in how fun their car is to drive and how well it handles or accelerates, etc.

Take a fishing lure for example. There are a select few professional fisherman who need absolute proof from long testing that the new fishing lure will catch them X number more fish in Y hours....not cathing X fish could lose him the championship or whatever so they would be unhappy if it didn't live up to that.... But for that fisherman who goes out on weekends for fun on the lake....all he needs to be happy about his purchase is that he perceives that this lure is doing better than the last lure. He may go to the local bait shop and hear a bunch of other weekend-fishers sharing their equivalent of a butt dyno by saying "I got this new lure, and I feel like I'm catching a lot more bass than my old lure"..."yah, me too....I used to never catch anything. This new lure is way better". For the pro fisher....this statement would mean very little.....but for the weekend fisher, it's plenty for him to decide to give the lure a try...and even if it doesnt get him X number more fish, he may still be perfectly happy with the lure because of a perceived increase in performance (his own butt dyno).

 

So basically, you're advocating deceptive marketing practices as long as a significant percentage of your customer base never actually test the products you make.

So as long as they "Feel" like they're going faster, even if they're not and just wasted 2k bucks, it's fine.

I'm glad you only sell t-shirts!

That's a pretty scary business rationale.

 

Again prove me wrong....you can't, and you are telling everyone that the Aero with my package doesn't work.... please explain.

Peter
M7 tuning
562-608-8123

 

How is what I advocated deceptive? If they were straight up lying and saying "Yes, I see improvements in A,B, and C when I test drove it" and it wasn't true because they felt no improvement......than yah, that would be deceptive. I would not promote that action.

If they lie about the butt dyno...and I go out and buy the product and DON'T feel an improvement...that's immoral. I never suggested this was a good business rationale and never advocated this action.

But if they HONESTLY felt an improved difference....and shared that with others....I'm all for that as a valuable bit of information for a certain demographic of buyer...and I see no moral complication with Peter sharing it. The only argument I was making was that butt dynos are perfectly helpful and valuable to some people....so they are worth sharing and are a legitimate form of "testing" despite be.

Did you even read what I wrote ? I was suggesting that the Butt Dyno test results (which Peter did test) are a valuable bit of information for some people. Butt Dyno testing was done in this case....

Explain to me how a customer will "never actually test the product"....Seems like they'd be testing any performance mod the second they put their foot on the gas and drove off. It isn't a dyno test....and it isn't a track test.....but it's a personal test of how a the car drives now.

Since this is the argument against my side of the discussion.... Do you have any rationale to back it up or explain why you feel that way?

An alternate analogy since I assume "rusty" is a surf reference so we can relate on it(just an assumption...sorry if it's wrong)
If I go out and buy a new surfboard for $600 bucks.....and the next few swells I ride it and feel that it's an improvement over my last board and that it rides really well....and I'm happy with my $600 purchase.....you're going to tell me that I wasted my $600 because someone goes ahead and tests the board and concludes that it's performance wasn't good enough based solely on numbers.....even if I personally enjoy the new feel of the product that I purchased? So.... just because a few numbers from a test tell me that my new board doesn't work as well as it could.....I should regret and feel bad about my purchase even if I like the improvement that I feel and I'm happy with the purchase?

 

Ok you, your off the computer! Oh wait I thought I was talking to my son, he has your know everything, knowbody knows what I know attitude, but thankfully he is only 14 and will grow out of it.

 

and that's what happens if someone does test whatever is percieved to provide benefit and it doesn't. Then the butt dyno balloon is popped and the perception will evaporate. The placebo effect doesn't work if you know it's a placebo.

I'm all for people being satified with thier purchases for whatever reason that they choose as the criteria for success. But look at how much stuff is sold out there based on false perception (I really don't know if these products work or don't, I'm just suggesting ways to test that don't require a wind tunnel so that those that want to know the quantifiable effect can be satisfied). You like the look of the wing or the diffuser and want to adopt that look, fine, buy it or them. If you want them to provide more downforce or reduced drag, getting them and testing them yourself is one way to go, maybe the only way to go. It's nice if vendors provide numbers to back claims, even though there are still ways to finess even these numbers as well.

Really, living in ignorance isn't bliss, it's just ignorance.

Matt

 

Hi Matt..

The problem here is not that numbers can't be had or generated in some fashion, the problem is when competing vendors friends and family
are taken upon them self (or spurred on by above vendor) to knock each and every product put forth, no matter if you show numbers or not.

The Mods on this board is a bunch of spineless individuals that can't put their foot down and say enough is enough. I even asked them to take down the
"not so motivational poster" that Goaljnky put up without my consent but no luck there Hello Lotsie... depressing.

peter
M7 Tuning
562-608-8123

 

Is it really a placebo though? Completely and utterly in your head? In my case I don't think the numbers have ever burst my "placebo bubble". I had a cooper and installed a simple exhaust...felt a great amount of difference in the driving from day to day....on an MC nearly any of the testing done shows that the gains are minimal at best from an exhaust and the numbers people suggested that it's all in people's heads due to the money spent and the sound. Even after reading it....I still enjoyed the extra oomph I felt and was perfectly happy with the 400 bucks spent.

Same goes for my surfboards. I ALWAYS buy them based on "butt dynos" shared with me buy the surf shops and my buddies who have the boards. My friends will say "hey, I just got this new board....it carves so well....etc"....and I'll hear the same from the shop owner who has ridden the board. Later I can read a surf magazine or website that says they've tested the shape of the board or its fins and determine that they cause a lot of drag or something...I still feel that it's an improvement despite reading numbers "proving" otherwise.


I wasn't suggesting that the butt dyno was a replacement for other forms of testing. I was simply stating that there was SOME value in a butt dyno. I agree....it'd be awesome if a vendor shared BOTH the butt dyno and numbers....I'd prefer it that way. I was simply standing up for the butt dyno since some wouldn't agree that it's a legitimate form of testing.

 

Your consent? Seriously? Did you have Webb's consent when you were robbing him blind?

 

which vendor is this? I can't speak for anybody else, but my comments are my own opinion or observation and not spurred on by anybody or any vendor.

a) why is it the responsibility of a moderator to hand you a ladder to climb out of the hole you dug for yourself?

b) perhaps if you stopped using the report button like you were a contestant on Jeopardy, your request might have a bit more weight

quite ironic, but it's the most accurate representation of your product's performance yet. sure, it looks damned good.....why the need to fluff any more than that? 99.9% of your demographic cares more for the looks of the thing than what it does for smoothing airflow or hi-speed stability.

 

and so much goes into stuff. You get performance parts, and then press the go pedal a bit harder..... Then you have increased performance... Then for things that sound better, that goes into the mix as well. Look at all the gas mileage improving gizmos that have wonderful testimonials that don't work.

I used to trust my butt dyno, then I got testing equipment. Guess what. My butt dyno sucked big time.

I'm not a surfer but used to be a close to expert skier. A good skier could really tell the difference a set of skis made... A bad skier couldn't really tell at all. But that didn't stop a lot of novices from buying the stuff the experts used, sometimes with less than stellar results.

If you hang with people really good at what they do they've developed a sense of what's up that can be trusted... But (and this isn't meant to be harsh) that's not the world of internet boards, where most are relative newbies.

Really, there's a reason that double blind testing is the only really good way to get true answers.

Matt