That was most likely the built-in safety guard on the standard model after they saw the movie. Every engine was tuned so that it would never ever come near the 88. That way DeLorean made sure that you would never travel through time by accident, which would have caused lots and lots of insurance cases. Well, there is a reason why the flux capacitors never got available on the regular model, too.
Cars collapse on impact because of crumple zones, it's a safety feature. Research and testing have shown that these crumple zones absorb more energy during impacts than the rigid body structures of old. Basically, you sacrifice the car for the safety of the people inside. It's not of much use to have a car that's nearly perfectly intact after an accident if the passengers are severely injured or killed. This is why you see race cars fly into a million pieces while the driver walks away without a scratch after a crash, different principle but the idea is the same, it's taking the energy of the crash and diverting it to somewhere else besides the people inside.
Well that happened to Doc's car, too. However, with his the flames and flashes appeared in front of the car and not within. I guess this sets a "Doc" apart from an ordinary tuner.There are photos out there of Delorians where the owner has done something to try and get more performance out of the engine, only to have the engine catch fire, and melt down!
Superman's farts act like Enterprise's navigational shieldsThey bounce off
This brings a question to mind. Let's say you're "reaching out to save someone" just as the engineer operating the transporter energizes the damn thing while your outstretched arm is outside of the "beam". Does that body part get severed and remain behind, or does the transporter account for that because you've presumably been transported before, it has your biological records stored in it's memory, and it either expands the transport beam to include your outstretched arm or adds more "energy" to replicate your arm from available records even though your original hand and arm are laying somewhere on Omicron Persei 8?
I could be wrong 'cause it's been a while since I've watched any of the movies, but I don't think they ever showed the DeLorean's engine. In-universe, Doc Brown knew the vehicle he chose needed to reach 88 MPH in order to trigger the time jump, so it's assumed he would either choose a vehicle that could reach that speed, or have one modified for that purpose. Somehow I doubt he'd do that work himself, but it wasn't in the movie so we'll never really know.
Does anyone else remember being told that cars use more gas to start the engine than they use to keep the engine idling at traffic stops? What happened? And don't give me any of that "Engines are far more fuel efficient these days" crap, 'cause if that was the case they'd just keep running. Personally I'm convinced that all of the car manufacturers these days are full of that stuff you spread to keep your flowers, grass, and gardens growing.
Which brings up another question. We all know that according to Trek lore/canon the transporter also filters out diseases, poison, and pathogens based on the data from the last time you were transported. What happens if you beamed down from your ship to a Starbase or Federation planet and got treated for something or got vaccinated, will the transported reverse all of that since they weren't present when you last used the transporter or can they be programmed to ignore helpful/deliberate changes?
This feature is normally found in higher performance engines (V6s and V8s) and from what I understand, it's about controlling emissions as much as fuel efficiency.
Oh yah, I totally get the idea. An inelastic vs elastic collision, coefficients of restitution, vehicle takes the hit for you, etc..
Computers of the future won't be anything like these slowly-lumbering-through-every-task junkpiles we use today. No, in the future medical information for each and every living being throughout the entire universe will be automatically updated so that even transporters will know more about our biology than we do. Now that I think about it, if I'm reincarnated into that future I'm going to miss driving. And cars. Unless Star Wars got it more "right" and we'll have landspeeders. Oh, wait, that was in the distant past. And we don't have landspeeders now, so, apparently, they weren't all they were cracked up to be. What was I saying?
I always wondered how he was able to fly. This might be it. Bio propellant.
The difference is one takes place over years, the other one seconds, ; )
Sci Fi in general is cans and cans of worms. Time travel, faster than light travel, wormholes, aliens, girls with 3 breasts, oh my !
All being beamed across all parts of the galaxy by a crazed Scotsman with a thick accent and a fondness for vintage Scotch whiskey.
