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How a car works (2012)

howacarworks.com

21–30 of 120 posts

Re: How a car works (2012)

#22

De Lorean Owner’s Handbook: http://www.howacarworks.com/manuals/doc/d3218-owner-s-manual Nice. It must have taken guts to build a car in Belfast during the height of the troubles. Not that it worked out that well in the end, but it is an iconic car.

There's a fantastic article on that very point: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-delorean-...

Re: How a car works (2012)

#23
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM stopped putting carburetors in vehicles in 1985 for the US market, which is 30 years ago. When can we let go of old tech?

The last carburetors in the US were in 1994 ISUZU trucks. [1] Some motorcycles still use them for simplicity and the last NASCAR season with carburetors was 2011. And anyway, why are we still teaching people how a CPU without branch prediction works? When will we let go of old technologies? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carburetor#History_and_develop...

Hi, I'm Maciek, I work on compilers. I would love to know how branch prediction in modern CPUs work, sadly they won't tell me (trade secrets).

You should really improve your metaphors.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM stopped putting carburetors in vehicles in 1985 for the US market, which is 30 years ago. When can we let go of old tech?

There is other countries which are using cars other than the United States (shocking I know !) and I have a car which has one.

Good for you! I will never understand the mostly American tradition of buying a new car every few years? Cars that are so complicated; the owner is forced to bring it to the shop for every hiccup. A lot of cars/and trucks from the late 80's to around 2008, are pretty easy to work on, and with the proper maintence can last 300,000 miles. And if your not afraid of getting your hands dirty--you will never have to pay a mechanic $120/hr to work on your vechicle. These newer vehicles are so complicated--a lot of shops do a lot of learning on your dime. (I have a Toyota with a 22R engine. It has one 350,000 miles and it's never seen a mechanic--except for smog checks, and never failed once. Actually it did fail once, but it was due to an error in a Motor Emmission publication. If you have an older car, and need a Smog check; make sure your smog shop has access to Mitchell manuals online(OnDemand5). They are highly accurate!

My dad gave me some good advice years ago. He told me to buy a year specific service manual for every automobile you ever buy.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#25

This is my site! This was a pleasant surprise to find my own site on HN this morning! I wondered why it was getting a few more FB likes than usual today. I'm happy to answer any questions. I finished this redesign last week so any feedback is welcome. The main task was to recreate labels and annotations on the illustrations in SVG format, and to reformat the articles in a way that flows nicely and is responsive, but…

The site is amazing! For someone only vaguely familiar with the mechanical-side of cars, it was a pleasant surprise to see all this quality content consolidated outside of a textbook. I was reading the sections on suspension systems and the diagrams look just plain beautiful!

Dated or not, it is definitely a great place to get some fundamentals straight. So I took the liberty of posting it on HN this morning.

Thanks for the great work!

Re: How a car works (2012)

#26
post #23
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last carburetors in the US were in 1994 ISUZU trucks. [1] Some motorcycles still use them for simplicity and the last NASCAR season with carburetors was 2011. And anyway, why are we still teaching people how a CPU without branch prediction works? When will we let go of old technologies? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carburetor#History_and_develop...

Hi, I'm Maciek, I work on compilers. I would love to know how branch prediction in modern CPUs work, sadly they won't tell me (trade secrets). You should really improve your metaphors.

Just search ACM for branch prediction papers at ASPLOS or similar conferences and look for corporate affiliation. IBM, Intel, and others routinely publish this stuff. It's usually patented first, so you can also check the USPTO.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#27

This is my site! This was a pleasant surprise to find my own site on HN this morning! I wondered why it was getting a few more FB likes than usual today. I'm happy to answer any questions. I finished this redesign last week so any feedback is welcome. The main task was to recreate labels and annotations on the illustrations in SVG format, and to reformat the articles in a way that flows nicely and is responsive, but…

Do you take submissions for articles?

Re: How a car works (2012)

#28
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that there's a lot of dated cars, I don't think the advice is unwarranted.

GM stopped putting carburetors in vehicles in 1985 for the US market, which is 30 years ago. When can we let go of old tech?

People will always use "old tech".

"Old tech" often just works. Flawlessly. I have a dumper truck I borrow from next door. Crank handle, diesel. It just works. Starts every time. No battery, no crap to go wrong.

"new tech" is often designed to last 5 or 10 years maximum. After that is anyones guess as to whether it'll work.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#29

This is my site! This was a pleasant surprise to find my own site on HN this morning! I wondered why it was getting a few more FB likes than usual today. I'm happy to answer any questions. I finished this redesign last week so any feedback is welcome. The main task was to recreate labels and annotations on the illustrations in SVG format, and to reformat the articles in a way that flows nicely and is responsive, but…

The site is amazing! For someone only vaguely familiar with the mechanical-side of cars, it was a pleasant surprise to see all this quality content consolidated outside of a textbook. I was reading the sections on suspension systems and the diagrams look just plain beautiful! Dated or not, it is definitely a great place to get some fundamentals straight. So I took the liberty of posting it on HN this morning. Thanks…

Thanks! I'm curious - did you just find the site on Google? Over the past two months I've re-mastered the old illustrations with a few filters and the difference is incredible. There's still a little more to do but I'm pleased you find it useful. The next step is to update the iOS app with new versions of the pics.

Here's a comparison of the pics:

Old - http://www.howacarworks.com/images/846/leaf-spring-suspensio... New - http://www.howacarworks.com/illustration/1333/leaf-spring-su...

Re: How a car works (2012)

#30
post #27

This is my site! This was a pleasant surprise to find my own site on HN this morning! I wondered why it was getting a few more FB likes than usual today. I'm happy to answer any questions. I finished this redesign last week so any feedback is welcome. The main task was to recreate labels and annotations on the illustrations in SVG format, and to reformat the articles in a way that flows nicely and is responsive, but…

Do you take submissions for articles?

It's not something I've thought about. No-one's ever asked before. I'd certainly take submissions of service / workshop manuals but this area of the site is still very much in progress.
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