Re: '95 M3 Over-Rev/Class action law suit?

[Gleb Arshinov <gleb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    Gleb> How about hydraulic clutch actuator, controlled by DME and
    Gleb> trigerred by the same input that makes DME store the overrev
    Gleb> info.  I've never heard of any car having anything like
    Gleb> that, however, it seems simple (but probably is not).

    Nick> Gleb, OK, let's say your method would work. How much more
    Nick> expensive would it make the car? Probably enough so that we
    Nick> (the customers) would complain about the increase in
    Nick> price. It's a double-edged sword for BMW. They chose not to
    Nick> include such a feature to keep the cost of the car down, and
    Nick> trust the driver to drive properly (again, their mistake,
    Nick> right?).


    John>   A hydraulic clutch actuator is one solution, but a complex
    John> and expensive one.  But this line of thinking gives me the
    John> idea that some sort of gear engagement gate setup could be
    John> employed to prevent shifting into the wrong gear.  Our
    John> big-engined Firebird driving friends have a gate that forces
    John> them to shift from 1st to 4th gear when they don't have
    John> their right foot planted on the firewall.  (Strictly for EPA
    John> gas mileage reasons; many drivers disable the device because
    John> it's so annoying) It seems entirely possible to construct a
    John> similar device that would not let you downshift into any
    John> gear that is currently too far beyond the RPM range of the
    John> engine.  Of course, racers would probably want to
    John> immediately disable such a device, but it would be handy for
    John> street use I'm sure.  I won't even speculate on how far a
    John> manufacturer should go to protect a user from his own
    John> mistakes...

John,

I like this solution _much_ better than the one I mentioned before.
It is simple, which should make it cheap and reliable.  There is no
good reason one would want to over-rev their engine, but the system
could be made user-defeatable (like ASC-T). BMW's own SMG (which BMW
claims to be superior for racing) won't let you over-rev, so I with
proper marketing such a device would not detract from BMW sporty
image. 

Gleb

PS Btw, now that I think about it, real racing gear-boxes (I am not
talking about high-end sequential kind here) with straight-cut gears
and no synchros would not let you over-rev by down-shifting, either
(as you'd have to purposefully spin-up the input shaft beyond the
redline of the engine while double-clutching).

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