Still a Street Car the AFF definition.

[CFOUR]

With some arguing in mutiple threads not relating to the subject, I decided a good old discussion thread is in order.

The question: what in 2011 do we (AFF) consider a hypo street car and where do we draw the line.

My answer:
Things in my opinion exclude a car from being a street car:
1)non road legal tires
2)fuel not found in a bowser
3)A roll-cage+harness (half cage is fine)
4)parachute
5)external fuel cell (external surge's are fine)

Things I believe emphersise street car:
Air-con
Audio player
Cruise control

Please feel free to add opinions, I am by no means the judge jury or executioner on this subject, I just feel it's a interesting topic and will clean the air of some dissension.

[b2tf]

Number plates?

[DJM83]

Originally Posted by b2tf

Number plates?

Bingo...

[Polyal]

Originally Posted by b2tf

Number plates?

Pretty much, if the RTA are happy then its a street car.

Full cage is fine, why not, its for safety after all. If your car is quick enough for a 'chute then whack it on (but you wouldnt pick up the milk in it).

If you can legally drive it there, race, then drive home then IMO this is a true street car.

[dansedgli]

Plates and driven on the street.

RTA approval isnt on my list though. All the fast cars (hell most regular cars) in Vic wouldnt pass a regular rwc and I bet less than 1% are engineered. That would need to exclude an XR6T with injectors and a tune for example.

Plenty of old and new cars dont have air con or cruise control so that shouldnt count them out.

[Polyal]

Originally Posted by dansedgli

Plates and driven on the street.

RTA approval isnt on my list though. All the fast cars (hell most regular cars) in Vic wouldnt pass a regular rwc and I bet less than 1% are engineered.

Plenty of old and new cars dont have air con or cruise control so that shouldnt count them out.

Yeah when I posted that I thought I should have clarified. Heck even cars sold new through dealerships could have some niggly little thing that technically you could get done for.

[AMGC63]

Easy, the relevant RTA's have developed a test that is the perfect determiner, a Roadworthy Test, if it wont pass a full roadworthy with ADR design rule testing, it isnt a steeetcar.

[Supersuit]

Originally Posted by CFOUR

With some arguing in mutiple threads not relating to the subject, I decided a good old discussion thread is in order.

The question: what in 2011 do we (AFF) consider a hypo street car and where do we draw the line.

My answer:
Things in my opinion exclude a car from being a street car:
1)non road legal tires
2)fuel not found in a bowser
3)A roll-cage+harness (half cage is fine)
4)parachute
5)external fuel cell (external surge's are fine)

Things I believe emphersise street car:
Air-con
Audio player
Cruise control

Please feel free to add opinions, I am by no means the judge jury or executioner on this subject, I just feel it's a interesting topic and will clean the air of some dissension.

simple answer... rego and number plates. how cares what it has / hasn't got. if it's regoed, approved and got plates. It's a street car in every way.

[Elks]

Originally Posted by Polyal

If you can legally drive it there, race, then drive home then IMO this is a true street car.

That's it for me too. Well something like make it to Heathcote from Melb.


But I agree extra brownie points for air-con and other luxury.

[2011G6E]

Was waiting for a train at work the other night and someone had left a pile of car magazines, including Street Commodores. On the cover was a 1000 horsepower VE with a simply staggering amount of work done to it...it was literally a drag car, full stop. The cover screamed "street registered". Yeah. Sure it is. Try and drive down the shops and see how far you get. For a start there is no anti-pollution gear...not to mention the massive pair of turbos and other associated gear. Oh, he did "leave the door trims and power windows"...of course that will make the cops overlook the full cage and other stuff...especially little things like "the original steering wheel, minus the air bag"...they love that.

Street Machine magazine used to be the same...on the cover would be, in one memorable instance, an LJ Torana with a big block and blower sticking up as high as the roof, huge tubbed rear end and massive tyres, with little front runners, full alloy interior, and full cage (which are illegal on the street anway for a start).
It too was "street registered".

These sort of things just make it all a big joke...we all know damn well these things aren't legally registered and never could be.

Our son used to buy Auto Salon magazine, and it had "street car of the year" things annually. It was a bit of a sore point for some readers, as the car had to meet a long list of requirements to be a "street car". First off it had to go over the pits and pass a roadworthy inspection...that weeded out a lot of cars. It also had to pass a noise test (96db I believe), and had to also perform a braking test...with cold brakes...which weeded out a lot of guys with racing pads. The test replicated driving the thing out of your driveway in the morning and down the street to be confronted with some numptie reversing out in front of you...not exactly a lot of time for your race brake setup to be heated up properly before it works.

One memorable car that won was a nice looking but not overly outstanding R32 Skyline (no massive wings and ground scraping body kit or those rediculous "undersized" tyres with rims wider than the tyre) that was actually quieter than the standards required, passed every test, and yet still put out nearly 700hp. With proper planning you can have an awesome car that still leaves the cops scratching thier heads as you drive away laughing, knowing it's perfectly legal.

[SteveJH]

They are registered until pulled over by the police and given a defect notice. At that point they cease to be a registered car.

[SpoolMan]

Originally Posted by Elks

That's it for me too. Well something like make it to Heathcote from Melb.

Couple years ago they had a Competition true street bracket at Calder all entrants of this class had to drive there car from VPW in Epping to Calder Park.
Tyres used for getting to the track had to be used for racing, no arguments...

[2011G6E]

good one!

in Bundaberg many years back I recall one guy who had registered his HQ ute with a factory 327 in it, then took it home and slapped in a 427 big block. We said "what if you get caught?", and he said "They don't do yearly roadworthies in Queensland...how are they going to find out? And what are the odds of a cop knowing what the motor is anyway?". He still had 327 badges on it and thought that would be enough to put them off the scent.

It was all very impressive and fine until late one night when the cops were pulling us all over and doing random checks, and an older cop looked under his bonnet, looked at it for a moment, and memorably said "Boy, do you think i'd mistake a rat for a mouse?"

[prasac]

if it's fully engineered and passes RTA rules.

for instance we run a 4L Lexus DOHC V8 in our Capri as it was the biggest engine we could legally go. it's a 40yo car, there was no A/C etc back then and if u were lucky u got a stereo every single modification has been cleared by RTA as an engineer's report written. runs full exhaust including 2 cats and passed emissions test on PUMP GAS stopped by Police alot of times and they themselves commend us on how detailed the engineers report is, none have ever had a problem with the car and let us drive on

car is driven to the track, change tyres and plugs. car runs 8.34@165mph, on slicks, would never drive it on street tyres at the track as it's too dangerous. alot of magazines have featured the car, but the best thing is when true racers who driven anything from Top Fuellers, Funny Cars etc come over and suss the car out, and give compliments how they would love to own something like it.

here's a 15 minute drive to WSID before we ran 8 8-second passes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYGCT4Np6ag

[SteveJH]

Originally Posted by SpoolMan

Couple years ago they had a Competition true street bracket at Calder all entrants of this class had to drive there car from VPW in Epping to Calder Park.
Tyres used for getting to the track had to be used for racing, no arguments...

How did they go with that?

[dansedgli]

Does anyone else think "Street Driven" is a bit of a **** given to prove how good it is, it needs to be raced at a race track?

[JG65TE]

Street Registered is very different from Street Legal in my opinion.
commodore and the cats have been kicked in ?. not street legal......... suckin the bottle ? . not street legal........

What I consider a 100% street car is if its pulled by the dmt and you get to drive away with no stickers you win........ My car wouldn't pass fyi.....

As for street machine magazine, I stopped reading it when the feature cars went from build time 5 years, cost $10,000 and went to build time 3 months,cost $80,000. They lost touch with the real car scene (me) right then... rant over..

[CFOUR]

Where talking street car here or high-performance streetcar, and where the line between that and a streetable drag-car is.

[CFOUR]

Originally Posted by prasac

car is driven to the track, change tyres and plugs. car runs 8.34@165mph, on slicks, would never drive it on street tyres at the track as it's too dangerous.

I for one am happy to call blk40t a fantastic high-tech street car but a 8sec street car? in my opinion it's times are ineligible as it was run on slicks.

Once again I'm no expert and this is just my opinion, so far 2011g6e is thinking the most inline with my train of thought and reasoning.

[prasac]

Originally Posted by CFOUR

I for one am happy to call blk40t a fantastic high-tech street car but a 8sec street car? in my opinion it's times are ineligible as it was run on slicks.

Once again I'm no expert and this is just my opinion, so far 2011g6e is thinking the most inline with my train of thought and reasoning.

you have to look at the safety aspect not just for us but others racing, it's a 40yo suspension setup and when your going 0-270km/h in just over 8-secs u want to be sure of what boots ur car has on. but if u want to include street tyres, ran 9.1@151 on street slicks and that was on pump fuel (BP98). if we put drag radials on would see similar times to what it runs now 8.4-8.5

[CAT600]

Originally Posted by dansedgli

Does anyone else think "Street Driven" is a bit of a **** given to prove how good it is, it needs to be raced at a race track?

No, if it needs to be raced at a race track then is it really a street car?.... in doing what you say you are defining that it isnt a street car but a race car that driven on the street.

Wouldnt a street car be 99% of the time driven on the roads, just like every other car out there, with all the same features and benefits of said cars but just "magnified" by a factor? You then take the "Street car" to the drags and run it how its driven on the roads.... sure bolt some ET Streets and even slicks on there to get the best out of it if you are interested but the minute the focus shifts to racing the car its not a street car IMO.

So in my opinion if you hop into a car and have to fight the cage on the way in, suffer in the heat with no aircon, have no choice but listen to the engine cause there is no stereo, get blinded by the shift light, the transbrake switch is sticktaped to the shifter ( i'm being sarcastic now) and the factory dash has been replaced by a sheet of alloy with some autometer gauges.... then its almost certain you are not in a street car... it might be street legal, but she aint no streeter.

Good example of cars I believe are true street cars:

Greg Brown's Twin Turbo VE commodore 9.9 second 1/4 mile
Simon Birches FG F6 1000+rwhp
Shane Stephens VZ GTO 1300rwhp
My two cars (although I consider the AU getting close to the limits of the terminology)
Pauls TT GT-P
Tex's Scud
Ramon's F6F

These cars all fit the bill by essentially resembling the day they rolled off the showroom floor, just "supersized"... this can be further evidenced by how often the above cars are pulled over by the police to be "gone over"..... absolutley bugger all.

Daniel

[fat4D]

currently registered AND still road worthy

[prasac]

Originally Posted by CAT600

No, if it needs to be raced at a race track then is it really a street car?....

street is street, track is different. if people think going to the track and running their cars on street tyres etc is anything like driving it on the road, they are sorely mistaken


people go to the track to see the maximum they can get out of their car, if that means throwing slicks or whatever on so be it. u can't give the car 100% on the street can you? you will never find a person who is a serious racer race on a street tyre. i know drivers that even put slicks/radials on their dailies. ur putting slicks on ur car when u go to the AFF Drag Nationals, why? why don't u just leave it on street tyres? i'm sure u know it's ridiculous to have that sorta power and not be able to use it, so it's the obvious choice.

people go spend $1000's on there cars with mods to get the most out of them, why would u not spend a few $100's on street radials? it's absolutely stupid if u don't.

try running super fast times on a street tyre and see what happens when the *** end steps out on you, that's when u thank god u have slicks/radials

[SteveJH]

Yeah, but if you put full slicks on some cars you might destroy every component of the drive line due to the shock......

[prasac]

Originally Posted by SteveJH

Yeah, but if you put full slicks on some cars you might destroy every component of the drive line due to the shock......

yeah, radials are the go for those guys if ur got 250+rwkw radials are the way to go, unless ur sure the car will handle slicks

[XR8menace]

Originally Posted by CAT600

No, if it needs to be raced at a race track then is it really a street car?.... in doing what you say you are defining that it isnt a street car but a race car that driven on the street.

Wouldnt a street car be 99% of the time driven on the roads, just like every other car out there, with all the same features and benefits of said cars but just "magnified" by a factor? You then take the "Street car" to the drags and run it how its driven on the roads.... sure bolt some ET Streets and even slicks on there to get the best out of it if you are interested but the minute the focus shifts to racing the car its not a street car IMO.

So in my opinion if you hop into a car and have to fight the cage on the way in, suffer in the heat with no aircon, have no choice but listen to the engine cause there is no stereo, get blinded by the shift light, the transbrake switch is sticktaped to the shifter ( i'm being sarcastic now) and the factory dash has been replaced by a sheet of alloy with some autometer gauges.... then its almost certain you are not in a street car... it might be street legal, but she aint no streeter.

Good example of cars I believe are true street cars:

Greg Brown's Twin Turbo VE commodore 9.9 second 1/4 mile
Simon Birches FG F6 1000+rwhp
Shane Stephens VZ GTO 1300rwhp
My two cars (although I consider the AU getting close to the limits of the terminology)
Pauls TT GT-P
Tex's Scud
Ramon's F6F

These cars all fit the bill by essentially resembling the day they rolled off the showroom floor, just "supersized"... this can be further evidenced by how often the above cars are pulled over by the police to be "gone over"..... absolutley bugger all.

Daniel

Agreed Daniel

A lot of my mates have quick "street cars" that run consitent low 10's, but I love driving past them on a hot day out to the track with windows up and A/C on while they are sweating it up!

I will also say none of them would be ale to say that they have done 30k daily driven in all sorts of traffic!

Al my mates have mentioned how impressed they are with my car, the fact it gets driven like a daily and keeps producing numbers on the dyno and track!

Corey

[CAT600]

Ive run 100% dinkum street legal tyres on both my street cars at the AFF Drag nats two years running, 11.3 @ 130 for the AU and 11.1 @ 134 for the FG. Once back in Perth with the new engine, the AU has gone 10.9 @ 139 on the same tyres.

Both my cars fundamentally drive the same on the street as they do on the circuit or the track, okay you dont have the VHT on the street but its pretty damn close, with both cars using 90% of their power in first..... that's essentially a perfect example of a true high performance street car isnt it?

So by your definition a Street car can be "dangerous on street tyres" but well suited to drag slicks when taken to the drags?.... Sorry but I just dont see how that isnt a "race car that's street legal"

Daniel

[max_torq]

One of the modifications that disqualifies a car from the street but which is virtually ubiquitous in a race car is a locked diff.

[CAT600]

Originally Posted by max_torq

One of the modifications that disqualifies a car from the street but which is virtually ubiquitous in a race car is a locked diff.

I agree, hence why I wrote the AU was "close to the limits"..... it was a simple case of reliability for me having had killed my fair share of diffs to that point.

Would it change the way the car drove?, absolutley not so I consider it a moot point, albeit a defining one.

Daniel

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by fat4D

currently registered AND still road worthy

That's about it right there, no matter what state you're in.

Not to mention that if worse comes to worse, you really don't want to have to stand up in court at an inquiry and explain why your totally unroadworthy vehicle was involved in a fatal...things can get nasty very quickly and prosecution legal eagles don't want to hear "but my car is so cool, can't I bend the rules a bit? It's not that illegal is it?".
On this point it's similar to my job as a train driver...you have to do everything by the book and within the rules or, if an accident happens, they'll hang you. For example, they tell us to make damn sure when we approach a level crossing that we have sounded the horn, have our headlight on, and are doing not one kilometer over the limit for that area. They said that if you are standing in court after some idiot has driven out in front of you, and your train had been doing even, say, only 61kph instead of 60kph, you'll be asked in a very demanding way "Isn't it true you were going over the speed limit for the area?"..."But I was only..." "Isn't it true that you were over the speed limit...yes or no?"

Insurance companies will also make a meal of your backside if you are driving an illegal car at the time of an accident (not only yours, but the other guys as well) and knew damn well it wasn't in any way roadworthy.

It's just not worth it...spend the money on an engineering report and do it legally and you'll be surprised what you can register.