Coming soon... SRS-20 with a 6750RPM rev limit. Let the fun begin!
http://www.i-speed.us/programming/impreza-rs_ecu.shtml
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
GT-R
Ahh yes, GT-R. The three magical letters. The combination that says both agile (GT) and powerful (R) (or vise versa, but I like this way).
For those living under a rock, the new Nissan R35 GT-R is coming to US this (2008) summer. With a twin turbo V6, AWD, and probably more performance related electronics than any other car on the planet - the new 'Skyline' is definitely impressive. The base price being in the mid 60k range, it is more of a competition to the C6 Z06 and entry level 911's, than the kind of cars I enjoy (Evo's and STI's) and can afford... but one can dream!
The Winding Road did a very nice article about it in the last issue, read it here - http://www.windingroad.com/
Old school 80's fun
I love 80's cars. To celebrate that fact, here is a cool article about them - http://jalopnik.com/344660/pch-80s-japanese-muscle-edition-ae86-or-
Sunday, January 13, 2008
The Devil a.k.a. Salt!
Michigan is one of those states that, in my humble opinion, uses way too much salt on the roads. Whether it is because Detroit sits on salt mines, or a huge conspiracy by the auto industry to get cars to fall apart faster, is a matter of some debate. What annoys me the most is that it's very hard to wash the car and get it home without getting it all salty again! I washed the M3 yesterday to get some of this stuff off, when I got it home the car was covered with a fine layer of salt dust again.
Common sense tells us that salt needs water in order to be corrosive, so this dust is harmless as long as it's dry, right? To some extent, yes. However, the geniuses decided to start adding Calcium Chloride and Calcium magnesium acetate to regular road salt, which has the ability to attract moisture directly from the air. Well, let's hope that all the wax I put on the car helps hold that stuff at bay.
Common sense tells us that salt needs water in order to be corrosive, so this dust is harmless as long as it's dry, right? To some extent, yes. However, the geniuses decided to start adding Calcium Chloride and Calcium magnesium acetate to regular road salt, which has the ability to attract moisture directly from the air. Well, let's hope that all the wax I put on the car helps hold that stuff at bay.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Cheap cars = expensive gasoline
I have a feeling that this $2,500 car will make us pay $10/gal for gasoline.
I think that people like Mr. Tata are doing a very socially irresponsible deed. They are targeting markets which have done perfectly well without wide availability of personal vehicles to this point. They have well developed public transportation systems, so bringing these cheap cars will only waste resources, increase pollution, and cause for crazy traffic in the cities. Some may say - "hey, you have two cars, and neither one of them gets close to 50mpg! Why can't those people?!" Well, I live in suburbia, the land of no public transport. If there was a bus I could ride to work every day, I would gladly do so... I could really catch up on my sleep that way!
I think we are closer to electric cars than we may think... but more on that some other time.
Friday, January 11, 2008
On pedal layouts
Every time I drive a new (to me) car, it's always interesting how different the layout of the interior is. Especially the layout of the controls.
What is even more interesting, is that I find the greatest distinctions depend not on the make of the car, but more on where it comes from. i.e. not between Honda, Toyota, and Ford, but more between Japanese, European, and American.
A good example of this is pedal layouts
Japanese cars always seem to have the pedals close together stuff
ed into a corner. I've heard that Asian people have thin feet, maybe that is somehow related? If you have a bigger than size 12 shoe, or like to wear boots, dress shoes, running shoes, or anything besides a driving shoe, or something made by Puma... don't buy a stick shift Japanese car. However, besides that, the pedal layouts are usually indicative of motorsports. The gas pedal is long, with the bottom tilted in to make heel-toe downshifts easier. This is generally true from an Evo to a Toyota Corolla, although more apparent on the former.
Europeans are fans of the floor mounted gas pedal. I have to admit that I'm a fan of that as
well, having your foot flat against the pedal without sliding as you are pushing down does give you more control... at least once you get used to it. Heel toe down shifting is a dream in BMWs, and many other cars from across the Atlantic, the pedals are close to level and the bottom of the accelerator is almost right under the brake. They definitely put some thought into it!
American Cars are hit or miss. Generally the pedals
are fairly far apart, and the brake pedal is large enough to land a small jet onto. Some cars have very nice setups (Firebirds/Camaros for example) that remind me of the higher end Japanese ones. Some, like Mustangs and Focii - not so nice. In fact, in those two, you need to be double jointed to heel toe... I don't think the engineers tho built those cars went to open track days very often, which is a shame. Drag racing on Woodward anyone?
I think this may go deep into the cultural fabric of society... somebody really needs to do their Masters Thesis on this.
What is even more interesting, is that I find the greatest distinctions depend not on the make of the car, but more on where it comes from. i.e. not between Honda, Toyota, and Ford, but more between Japanese, European, and American.
A good example of this is pedal layouts
Japanese cars always seem to have the pedals close together stuff
ed into a corner. I've heard that Asian people have thin feet, maybe that is somehow related? If you have a bigger than size 12 shoe, or like to wear boots, dress shoes, running shoes, or anything besides a driving shoe, or something made by Puma... don't buy a stick shift Japanese car. However, besides that, the pedal layouts are usually indicative of motorsports. The gas pedal is long, with the bottom tilted in to make heel-toe downshifts easier. This is generally true from an Evo to a Toyota Corolla, although more apparent on the former.Europeans are fans of the floor mounted gas pedal. I have to admit that I'm a fan of that as
well, having your foot flat against the pedal without sliding as you are pushing down does give you more control... at least once you get used to it. Heel toe down shifting is a dream in BMWs, and many other cars from across the Atlantic, the pedals are close to level and the bottom of the accelerator is almost right under the brake. They definitely put some thought into it!American Cars are hit or miss. Generally the pedals
are fairly far apart, and the brake pedal is large enough to land a small jet onto. Some cars have very nice setups (Firebirds/Camaros for example) that remind me of the higher end Japanese ones. Some, like Mustangs and Focii - not so nice. In fact, in those two, you need to be double jointed to heel toe... I don't think the engineers tho built those cars went to open track days very often, which is a shame. Drag racing on Woodward anyone?I think this may go deep into the cultural fabric of society... somebody really needs to do their Masters Thesis on this.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
A must have tool
Anyone who has ever done any work on a car has experienced this. Most of us just either come to live with the fact that we can't see anything, and develop an higher sense of touch; or get one of our less mechanically competent friends to be the dedicated 'light bitch'. The fact is - the usual methods of lighting in a garage just plain suck!
First of all, no matter how many lights you put on the ceiling, they will not help you any when you're laying under the car trying to get that steering rack in place. Actually, the brighter the lights up top, the darker it will seem in areas where you actually have to work.
Second, flashlights are just plain impractical. Any time I have to use one to work on a car I always remember Doom 3, and the #1 reason why I quit playing it about 20 minutes through*. The beam is so focused, you have to:
Third, shop lamps. Specifically designed for mechanics, and used by such for thousands of years. I don't know what it is about them, but they always end up shining in your eyes instead of at the area you are working on. It's inevitable. If you have an incandescent one, they will also burn out and leave you stumbling in the dark with a transmission on your chest. A quick fix with one of the living room bulbs, but annoying still!
Well, getting off of my rant and to the point -
Last weekend my brother and I ran in the Son of Sno*Drift TSD rally. Since a good chunk of it happens after dark, I bought a headlight to make reading the route instructions easier. Just a cheap LED Energizer one at Wal-Mart. I will spare you the detailed review, but I decided to give it a try and use it to do some work on the RS and Accord these past few days. Let me just say that this thing is amazing! It runs forever (specs say something like 50 hours) off of 3 AAA batteries, it is brighter than any smaller flashlight, it shines EXACTLY where you want it to, and obviously never in your eyes. It is so incredibly convenient that I am kicking myself for not buying one sooner. For under $10, it is definitely a MUST HAVE tool!
* For those not as nerdy as myself, in Doom 3, the flashlight is considered a weapon... but not in a sense that you can actually kill something with it, rather in a sense that you can't have another weapon active while you're using the flashlight. Considering that the game is extremely dark, you either can't see where you're shooting, or can't shoot at what you're seeing. Quite annoying!
First of all, no matter how many lights you put on the ceiling, they will not help you any when you're laying under the car trying to get that steering rack in place. Actually, the brighter the lights up top, the darker it will seem in areas where you actually have to work.
Second, flashlights are just plain impractical. Any time I have to use one to work on a car I always remember Doom 3, and the #1 reason why I quit playing it about 20 minutes through*. The beam is so focused, you have to:
- Point the flashlight very precisely at the specific part you're working on, remember where it is and what it looks like.
- Put the flashlight down, grab a tool, and try to work on that part.
- After failing, grab the flashlight again to look for that part, and make sure you haven't already broken it.
- Grab the tool and fail again, since you just haven't developed that sense of touch just yet!
- Try and prop the flashlight somehow to shine where you need it to, only to have it fall into the engine bay, usually somewhere between the engine and the firewall.
- Spend the next hour trying to get it out.
- Since it was on that whole hour, the batteries are dead, and you (of course) don't have any spares.
Third, shop lamps. Specifically designed for mechanics, and used by such for thousands of years. I don't know what it is about them, but they always end up shining in your eyes instead of at the area you are working on. It's inevitable. If you have an incandescent one, they will also burn out and leave you stumbling in the dark with a transmission on your chest. A quick fix with one of the living room bulbs, but annoying still!
Well, getting off of my rant and to the point -
Last weekend my brother and I ran in the Son of Sno*Drift TSD rally. Since a good chunk of it happens after dark, I bought a headlight to make reading the route instructions easier. Just a cheap LED Energizer one at Wal-Mart. I will spare you the detailed review, but I decided to give it a try and use it to do some work on the RS and Accord these past few days. Let me just say that this thing is amazing! It runs forever (specs say something like 50 hours) off of 3 AAA batteries, it is brighter than any smaller flashlight, it shines EXACTLY where you want it to, and obviously never in your eyes. It is so incredibly convenient that I am kicking myself for not buying one sooner. For under $10, it is definitely a MUST HAVE tool!* For those not as nerdy as myself, in Doom 3, the flashlight is considered a weapon... but not in a sense that you can actually kill something with it, rather in a sense that you can't have another weapon active while you're using the flashlight. Considering that the game is extremely dark, you either can't see where you're shooting, or can't shoot at what you're seeing. Quite annoying!
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
On Hondas
You know, I have never been a fan of Hondas... and what bugs me the most, is that I don't really know why. They have their share of stupid annoying little things, like all cars, and they are mostly front wheel drive... but they have incredibly well engineered motors, unusually strong chassis, and suspensions that blow away most other compact cars.
Case to point, I was just swapping the exhaust on my Dads 96 Accord wagon. Yes, it was a pain in the ass, but that's beside the point, because exhaust is always a pain in the ass - on any car. What amazed me is that, when I put the car up on 4 jackstands on our not so level garage floor, one of the jackstands ended up being slightly loose. The car was balancing on 3 jackstands... which makes sense if we were talking about a rigid object, but car chassis are generally very flexible... and this is a wagon! The more flexible chassis type! The weight of that corner of the car should have flexed the chassis down onto the stand. It didn't. Amazing!
Maybe I need to go buy a Honda...
Case to point, I was just swapping the exhaust on my Dads 96 Accord wagon. Yes, it was a pain in the ass, but that's beside the point, because exhaust is always a pain in the ass - on any car. What amazed me is that, when I put the car up on 4 jackstands on our not so level garage floor, one of the jackstands ended up being slightly loose. The car was balancing on 3 jackstands... which makes sense if we were talking about a rigid object, but car chassis are generally very flexible... and this is a wagon! The more flexible chassis type! The weight of that corner of the car should have flexed the chassis down onto the stand. It didn't. Amazing!
Maybe I need to go buy a Honda...
Shock Dynos
Shock dynos
and How to Read Them
The curves for KYB AGX look pretty good, but not much in terms of adjustability. This is strange, because the manual, or 'butt' dyno says different... then again, I can only test the low speed anyway.
I wish I had access to a shock dyno, could lend all kinds of interesting results!
and How to Read Them
The curves for KYB AGX look pretty good, but not much in terms of adjustability. This is strange, because the manual, or 'butt' dyno says different... then again, I can only test the low speed anyway.
I wish I had access to a shock dyno, could lend all kinds of interesting results!
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Shock Tuning
A couple good articles on adjustable tuning adjustable dampeners. Good read!
http://www.ozebiz.com.au/racetech/theory/shocktune.html
http://www.ozebiz.com.au/racetech/theory/shocktune1.html
I think this paragraph says it all -
If the weight movement is helpfull, stiffen that shock (or shocks). This will speed up the weight transfer. If the weight movement is in the wrong direction, soften that shock (or shocks). This will delay the weight transfer. For road racing, we change both front and/or both rear shocks so that the car behaves the same for RH & LH corners.
If some of the concepts there confuse you, some more background on weight transfer might help -
http://www.turnfast.com/tech_handling/handling_weightxfr.shtml
http://www.ozebiz.com.au/racetech/theory/shocktune.html
http://www.ozebiz.com.au/racetech/theory/shocktune1.html
I think this paragraph says it all -
If the weight movement is helpfull, stiffen that shock (or shocks). This will speed up the weight transfer. If the weight movement is in the wrong direction, soften that shock (or shocks). This will delay the weight transfer. For road racing, we change both front and/or both rear shocks so that the car behaves the same for RH & LH corners.
If some of the concepts there confuse you, some more background on weight transfer might help -
http://www.turnfast.com/tech_handling/handling_weightxfr.shtml
Hello World!
As it goes in the great computer science tradition. A tradition without no good software is written, no good deeds are done, and no fun in general is had:
"Hello World!"
"Hello World!"
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