I thought someone might wonder.
it is a genuine technical term, like you might see it on a smog technician
test,
and comes from the early hot rod era I believe.

you'll even see it in hot rod magazines sometimes...
or did anyway. lol.

is it friday ? ..think it is.
Throttle by wire ..
many modern cars have no mechanical linkage between the gas pedal and the
throttle plate on the engine.
You move the gas pedal ...sensors there tell the ECU what throttle angle you
are asking for, or how much power you are asking for.
 The ecu then decides if it should do that or not ...and how.
It might choose to run on 4 cylinders of an 8 cylinder engine with a wider
open throttle angle that you are really asking for ..but will get you the
same result, in a more effecient manner.  Four cylinders operating at a
larger percentage of what they are capable of .....and less pumping loss
from a wider open throttle ..
will get better fuel economy for a give power setting that way.

and ...should you have say  25 degrees of steering input and carving through
a turn, and ask for 100 % throttle...it might say , nope, yaw sensors and
road speed and steering angle all are saying full throttle right now is not
safe , so sorry, can't do it.

then it starts getting integrated ........say it's electric steering. Right
there .....the ECU or various computers are going to know steering angle, so
rather than having to put a sensor on a mechanical steering system, they
just junp to electric steering, and the neccessary signal is built in.

then we might as well integrate all of this ...so lets go CAN-BUS and have
multiple digitized signals going down main arteries of information ..and
each system can tap off what it needs..
then the entire handling stability programs for the car, and the ABS brakes,
and the electroncially controlled throttle all have this information to work
with ..input from wheel speed sensor, yaw sensors, steering angle...even
sensor that measure G's of lateral acceleration .....
 a modern mercedes might have up to 20 electronic aids like this ...mostly
all intergrated too..
like , forget the name the use ..it's Panic Assist braking ..
 the cars brains ..computers 'learn' what the driver's typical braking style
is ..
and in a total all out panic stop ..since many driver's don't really ask for
every last bit the brakes can really delvier ....the involved computer sees
that the brake pedal has been moved much faster than usual..then electrons
take over and apply the brakes full force ..
  and that's probably electro-hyduralic brakes.
When you step on the brake pedal ....you're just telling a computer how much
braking you want ..
you're not actually supply any physical force for that as in conventional
brakes. I believe the braking force is generated complmetely at the wheels
in electro-hydrualic brakes ..I should look that up , wik-it.

gets crazy ..
vanagons are so nice.  So analogue.  So mechanical.
considering all the electronics in modern cars ..up to 20 computer
controlled systems on them, even more..when I consider a diesel vanagon I am
just amazed at the pure mechanical-ness of it ..
like this should be illegal now almost ..
 if you just get 12 volts to the injection pump fuel shut off .........12
volts at all to that little part in any way ...the whole van will function..
 it won't recharge the battery ...need just a few more signals in the right
place for that ..
but *everything* about the shifting, the gear ratios, the steering , the
brakes ..pure, pure mechanics.

enough already.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Wolz" <wolzphoto@Q.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2011 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: Strange problem in Belize

> Waste of Time, as in decaf, sugar free Coke.  For the purposes of this
> discussion, Wide Open Throttle.
>
> Karl Wolz
>
>
> |
> |            What does WOT mean?
> |
> |