Ford to Police: get lost!

Wow, I sure hope you don't believe everything you read on Usenet. I know how Town Cars are built and I know how Tempos are built. No way in hell is Tomcat telling the truth. Bob

Front end crashes are not the crux of the claim. These agencies claim that the fires occur upon *rear* end impact of their police cruisers.

I thought Ford had already agreed to do that, along with a couple of structural changes IIRC. I think as long as they volunteer to do that, the lawsuit should pretty much be moot.

In other words, Texas cops drive too slow?

Exactly. I'll admit that I would like to see the CV be a little bit safer, and rubber bladder on the tank (or redesign future models to reposition the tank) would be nice. But if a police agency CONTINUES to buy a car that they claim is *unsafe*, then that pretty much invalidates their claim. In fact, if they were truly serious, then the agencies involved in this lawsuit would pull ALL of their current stock of Interceptors out of service and either go back to old Caprices, or buy Impalas. Continuing to use a product you claim is unsafe and a threat to life and limb totally flies in the face of common sense.

The "no choice" argument is BS. If they're so worried about safety and truly believe that the CV is the death trap they claim it is, then the CV should not BE a choice.

By the way:

|>|> > on a bike about ten feet away when a Tempo hit the back of the Town |>|> > Car at a light.I judged the impact speed to be 15mph maximum. The Town |>|> > Car crunched all the way to the passenger compartment and the |>|> > passengers had injuries. |>|>

|>|> No way that happens at 15 mph. The town car has a full frame under there |>|> and a tempo would have impacted directly into the frame (or gone under it |>|> with brake dive) |>|>

|>| |>|I'd agree.... no way in hell is that story true. The front of a Tempo is |>|absolutely no match for the rear of a Town Car. We're talking Pee Wee Herman |>|VS Lennox Lewis type of mismatch here. |>| Bob |> |> You guys are stating an opinion that differs to what Brent saw 1st person??? |> Just because that sheet metal is formed to give an appearance of solidity |> doesn't mean it is so. | |I didn't see it. I simply find it hard to believe. The only way it could |happen is the tempo missing the structure of the vic. An improbable geometry |of a crash IMO.

I think that's just what he said - the Tempo rode up over the bumper of the TC, so you had a solid bumper against sheet-metal that was basically a big box with no internal support. If that Town Car had defective air lifts in the rear, as is very common, the rear bumper will be down 4 - 6 inches below the design height, which would put the bumper of any late-model car right where Brent P said it did - on top of the Lincoln's rear bumper.

But this doesn't really have anything to do with CVs, since they use standard shocks & springs in the rear.

|Despite all the complaints, and rightly so, which other car does the police |have to choose that is suitable for Highway Patrol. GM, Chrysler and Dodge |abandoned the full size rear drive platform, in favor of the FWD platform.

2004 Dodge Hemi Charger. 4 doors, RWD, 300+ HP

Watch for the Police Pursuit Package

|The real problem isn't ford, it's buyers in the USA who simply buy the |boring appliance vehicles and don't ever look at a technical spec sheet. |If people stopped buying the crapola maybe we'd get the nicer cars here. |That and only that is going to motivate the finance and marketing folks |who call the shots.

Gee, have you guys really looked around lately? We have a bewildering array of very good cars to choose from today. It's never been better!!

To pick on the CV is like picking the sheepdog out of the flock and saying "That's typical of the sheep we get -ugly as sin!"

The CV exists because people - fleets, cops, and business people - continue to buy. And they buy it because that's what they want. Simple supply and demand.

Other people buy cars like PT Cruisers and F150s. Different strokes etc.

Really? Where are the cars like the Aussie Ford falcons? OOps. You want an I6 and RWD you'll have to shell out the cash for a BMW. We'll see how badly GM downgrades that holden they are making into the GTO.

You cannot look at the Ford and GM line ups down under and say we get the best choices in USA with the boring front drivers they are feeding to the sheeple.

It applies to practically every domestic manufacturer's car outside a few limited possible exceptions. Ford does try occasionally to give us some decent cars from Europe on the low end of the market but messes up on the implementation. (Contour, Focus, Capri, etc)

Wow, rebodied neons and big pickup trucks. Wooptie friggin' doo.

Where can I get one of these *NEW* on the north american market from a "domestic" brand?

Or this:

The "Dodge Hemi Charger" is not here as yet, it is still a way off, so how are they going to choose it..??? Despite all the CV complaints, it has proven itself many times over. However, as I have said, there is still room for improvement. As the only full-size RWD American car "Presently" available, Ford has a captured market. They should not take that market for granted.

In article , snipped-for-privacy@REMOVEtxol.net mentioned...

Speaking of Hemis.. Does anyone remember 'way back in the late '50s and early '60s when Mopar V-8s had the holes in the valve covers, and you had to use a 6" extension on your ratchet to remove the spark plugs? Yeah, those were the days..

"Hemi"... Normally a prefix understood to mean "half".

But being bandied about today like it's "*THE* *ONE* *HOLY* *TRUTH*".

Over the years, I've also heard it applied to quite a few cars that could be considered "big, bad, and beefy"...

But just what the hell does it mean when somebody says a vehicle is/has a "hemi"???

Googling did me no good - If the answer is there, it's buried in too many hits to things that (without spending who-knows-how-long chasing a ridiculous number of links) appear to have no relationship to my question.

So, can anyone give me, in understandable terms, a useful definition of just exactly *WHAT* a "hemi" is when the term is applied to a vehicle? Somebody *PLEASE* tell me it doesn't mean the vehicle has "half" an engine :)

My belief was always that a "Hemi" referred to a Chrysler Engine with a domed chamber on the head and a domed piston.

Dome, nown: A vaulted roof having a circular, polygonal, or elliptical base and a generally hemispherical or semispherical shape.

Frank

Hmmm... OK, I *THINK* I can buy that as reasonable. It at least kinda makes sense, although the reason for the geometry doesn't leap right out and bite me.

I can't help but wonder what, if any, benefit there would be to having the fuel/air charge mashed into the shape it would be with the setup you describe versus a more "normal" flat head/piston combination. All other things being equal, it would seem that one would have no real advantage over the other, since the compression would be either the same, or close enough to it that I can't see an obvious difference. The charge wouldn't be any larger, since the geometry of head and piston match, so what's the big deal?

Now if the piston crown were FLAT, and the head domed, I could see it being a larger charge in the cylinder, but that would lower the compression by a corresponding amount. Wouldn't it?

Assuming yours is the "right" answer, anybody want to try to tell me why a "hemi" is more desirable than a... ummm... conventional? ...engine?

Especially with the recent wave of commercials from (I think...) Dodge, that take great pains to make you aware that the truck is/has a hemi.

And while we're at it, is it more proper to say "That truck/car/whatever

*IS* a hemi", or "That truck/car/whatever *HAS* a hemi"? Seems I've heard both phrasings used over the years, which has surely contributed to my lack of understanding. Or maybe I'm just dumber than a box of rocks, and it's something so screamingly obvious that I should be ashamed to even need to ask?

(Yeah, yeah, I know... I'm hopeless... If I were *REALLY* a "gearhead", I'd already know. My apologies for spending the last 30-odd years not much caring what a vehicle has under the hood, who makes it, what fancy gadgets it has, or what it looks like, so long as it reliably gets me where I want to go faster than walking would.)

"Don Bruder" wrote

Blatantly copied from

The theory behind the motor (and any motor) was that the easier an engine breathes, the greater its volumetric efficiency and the more power it produces. The hemispherical combustion chamber design allows large valves to be located across from each other instead of side-by-side, which creates cross flow and free flow between the intake and exhaust ports. What that means is a more complete burning of the air/fuel mixture coming from a central spark plug, located close-by. The design also minimized heat loss, which in turn, means more energy. The name "hemispherical" comes from the fact that the smallest amount of space that can contain a given volume is a sphere. A hemispherical combustion minimized the surface area, thus minimized heat loss.

Well, a Hemi head allows you to run more valve area than a typical wedge head. It also is slightly more resistant to detonation which allows a slightly higher compression ratio for a given octane rating. Both of these are Good Things(tm)

yes. the piston crown is not flat, it's actually shaped to fit the "dome" in the head.

More Power Argh Argh Argh ARGH!

Well, see, the term "Hemi" while referring to a shape of combustion chamber that anyone can use (and honestly, most high-performance engines probably do, or some variation thereof) has a special place in the hearts of MoPar fans since both the original Hemi (of which the 392 was the version to have) or the later 426 Wedge-based Hemi (a.k.a. "the elephant" due to its width) consistently kicked, and continue to kick to this day, the collective asses of just about every other engine available. (ever watch drag racing? The Hemi is *still* the engine to beat, nevermind that it hasn't been officially made in 30 years.) I think Dodge is just trying to cash in on the name recognition, although maybe I'm just being cynical and the new Hemi will turn out to be just as dynastic an engine as the old ones.

IMHO the term "Hemi" refers to the engine not the vehicle, although it's acceptable to refer to, say, a Hemi Charger (i.e. a Dodge Charger factory equipped with a 426 Hemi engine)

I'm trying to imagine life like that... IMHO you need serious professional help. Let us know where you're located and surely some regular will be able to suggest a course of treatment.

nate

I just Googled Chrysler Hemi and the first thing that came up was a description of the hemi history so you can't have tried very hard.