Released American 80's Fullsize Series 2.1

I'm not an expert lol just judging by what I have seen in the Jbeam so far when I took a quick look

 

We will probably have to redo the light bars animation, but we are tackling the engines for now. We found a lot more issues than expected with them, especially when we started looking deeper in the models and textures. The whole system might have to be redone to be based on what the Bluebuck has (reusable base block model with swappable covers, air filters and wiring), all engines will be the same model, textures selectable separately in the paint slot. That way we can have a single modular engine and tuning that makes more sense and is more accurate to real life (for example, if you want to put a supercharger on, you need to swap the diesel long block on the engine so it can survive the extra torque). Currently the tuning is hilariously unrealistic, 600hp from a small block with some Diesel parts and custom carburetor... I will make realistic tuning based on vanilla cars. That will also add the ability to use all intakes, exhausts and transmissions on all engines, and we will have the ability to add more engine options that these cars had irl too. You will be able to swap the fuel system of any engine too, make a Diesel out of a gas engine by swapping the intake, just like the factory made them lol. For your info currently most engines in the mod are almost all the same model with little changes, one exception being the Chevy big block which is from the Fleetwood Bounder mod originally, we might scrap that one due to shading issues and just texture the normal engine model to look more like it. There is also a mess of duplicate parts that look literally identical but have different names, especially the cooling fans are duplicated way too many times. Other parts only differ with textures and have the same models, for example slightly more rusty exhaust or different colored engine blocks. So yeah this begs to be fixed for file size reduction, and the engine color slot will be more useful now. We may also add some V6 engines if they turn out easy to make, but can't promise it.
Side effect: All configurations will need to be redone so the new system works with them. But that just gives the opportunity to add more realistic factory configs which the mod is missing currently.

 

Engine slots rework done! There are 9 selectable engines in total, 4 of which are new in the mod.


Each engine has the amount of tuning you would find on a vanilla car and more! The catalytic converter, EGR valve and aircon pulley are removable if you want a bit of extra power and torque. (in case of catalytic converter and EGR valve, it comes at the cost of more exhaust smoke.) Irl removing this kind of parts is mostly what makes the difference between the civilian and military grade Detroit Diesel V8, hence no need to have separate versions of this engine anymore.


Previously engines had separate colors by default and the engine color slot contained only dusty and rusty versions. Now every engine (with the exception of the Chevy Mark IV, I'll get to that later) can have any color in clean, dusty, rusty, and dusty&rusty version. (This doesn't work on air filters yet, we need to rework the textures of them.) Some of the options:


Long block slot contains separate stock blocks for gasoline and diesel. If you use the diesel block on a gasoline engine, it can survive more torque.

There is also a WIP project car block that does this... Removes one of your cylinder heads and causes a lot of smoke if you try to start the engine lol. Generally intended to use with other WIP project engine parts.


Exhaust headers largely unchanged, except all headers can be used on all engines (except the Chevrolet Mark IV) and the derby exhaust was moved here because it makes more sense. The project engine one is like the dual header but only the right side, and only allows right exhaust pipe.


These intakes are available for all engines except for the Chevy Mark IV. Quadrajet carburetor adds more power compared to the Dualjet one. Most intakes change your engine sound to one of the sounds provided in the mod (only the sounds that still work). WIP project engine intake is missing half of the ignition and doesn't let you turn on the engine. Diesel fuel injection changes your engine into a Diesel, it is intended to change the Rocket 350 into the LF9 and also to be used on the Detroit 378 Diesel, but generally you can change any engine between gasoline and diesel, just remember to change the fuel tank and long block, and install the proper ECU for diesel!


Speaking of ECU, there are 2 stock Diesel ones, and additionally race diesel and race gasoline.


Due to having a completely different 3D model that doesn't allow to swap most of the modular parts, the Chevrolet Mark IV big block has different slots than the rest. There is a different selection of long blocks, intakes and exhaust headers (note the different default intake). Due to using a different texture set, custom colors are not available, only rusty and dusty like currently in the mod.

But we didn't want to make this engine feel left out, so we decided to add the option to put Bluebuck superchargers on it!


Overall the changes are pretty drastic as the engines are completely new. But you can still recreate all the engines from the old version of the mod in this version (some may look different visually though, and all will vary in performance since torque curves are completely redone).


I hope (but I'm not sure if that's the case) that the engine rework was the hardest part of this update and it will get easier from now on for me... Meanwhile others are tidying up the mess that is this mod's file system, and putting everything into more fitting folders and stuff to make it easier to find stuff and to maintain the mod in the future.