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Car Talk (Page 27)
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Clinically Insane
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Originally Posted by Doc HM
back end of the circuit maybe 110 flat out.
That’s 70 in freedom units.
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About 30 seconds in...Was that a giant wall of haybales along the side of the track? Like, two stories high?
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Originally Posted by subego
That’s 70 in freedom units.
I think you’ll find we still use “freedom units” in the UK as well. Only the Europeans (sadly that’s not us anymore) use cheese eating surrender kilometers. So that will have been 110 mph not kmh.
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Originally Posted by Thorzdad
About 30 seconds in...Was that a giant wall of haybales along the side of the track? Like, two stories high?
Yes it was. Did not want to pile into it so was taking it too carefully. Should have been braver.
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Originally Posted by Doc HM
I think you’ll find we still use “freedom units” in the UK as well. Only the Europeans (sadly that’s not us anymore) use cheese eating surrender kilometers. So that will have been 110 mph not kmh.
Using such low power cars is actually a big plus. This way somewhat average people (and I assume you are much, much better at handling cars than I am) can use their car at 100 % without recklessly endangering themselves or others. If you have a modern hot hatch, these have at least 300 horsepower, Mercedes’s A45 AMG S is up to 420 now, I think. When I was a child, this was super or even hyper car territory. Even good drivers can rarely use 100 % of that for an extended period of time in a safe fashion.
IMHO that’s an advantage of vintage sports cars, too. My best friend got a Porsche 968 CS for his 40th in whatever-euphemism-Porsche-uses-for-a-bright-pink. He really researched a lot, and this is a Japanese import that was kept in great shape by a Porsche connaisseur. He still had to put in a bit of money after he got it. It “only” has 240ish horsepower, but that’s enough for spirited driving. Before that he had a Miata, and he specifically said that he enjoyed that he can put the pedal to the metal and only good things happen. I had the same experience 15 years ago when I rented one. It’s not fast, but in a sense that’s good.
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For sure. It's all about getting to the fun.
Although it was revered in it's day as the king of the hot hatches, my GTi would struggle to stay with a generic econohatch from today and even a modern warm hatch would leave it stone dead.
There's also a reason that Peugeot have never managed to re capture the 205 GTi's package since, weight. It's only 800kg so it carries so little inertia into bends its scary how it holds on. Of course even cooking modern cars have bigger better tyres than mine (it's only on 185/60 14s) which are the standard size for the car so moderns also have a surfeit of grip plus 20 computers to keep you out of the trees.
Car tech has moved on but thankfully fun is always fun.
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Originally Posted by Doc HM
This is Europe so it's a manual.
Originally Posted by Doc HM
Only the Europeans (sadly that’s not us anymore)
JFC. Pick one. ![Smilie](http://forums.macnn.com/images/smilies/oldschool/smile.gif)
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Originally Posted by subego
JFC. Pick one.
OK Yes. You got me. It WAS Europe when it was built. Does that work for you? ![Wink](http://forums.macnn.com/images/smilies/oldschool/wink.gif)
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Hmmm...
Do you fill it with liters or gallons?
Full disclosure: I drink soda in liters.
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The real test is if they drink their beer in liters or gallons. I would be impressed by either answer. I'd also avoid them on the road.
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Originally Posted by subego
Hmmm...
Do you fill it with liters or gallons?
WORSE. They fill up with IMPERIAL GALLONS which are different from US GALLONS. So a car in the UK gets 40 miles per "gallon" while the same car in the US gets 32 miles per "gallon" even though they use the same amount of gas. And then in Canada the same vehicle gets 7.3 L/100km and what the everloving hell even matters anymore?
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Originally Posted by Laminar
WORSE. They fill up with IMPERIAL GALLONS which are different from US GALLONS. So a car in the UK gets 40 miles per "gallon" while the same car in the US gets 32 miles per "gallon" even though they use the same amount of gas. And then in Canada the same vehicle gets 7.3 L/100km and what the everloving hell even matters anymore?
Nice try but we actually abandoned gallons a fair while ago. Fuel has been sold in litres in the UK for well over 20 years now. The fuel companies were getting scared that the price per gallon was looking horrific. Of course now it's more per litre than it was per gallon.
Beer in pints. A clear case of everyone else in the world being completely wrong. It's the perfect size either warm or cold.
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Originally Posted by Doc HM
Beer in pints. A clear case of everyone else in the world being completely wrong. It's the perfect size either warm or cold.
Happily, beer is the one area in which the US have fully embraced the metric system. ![Cool](http://forums.macnn.com/images/smilies/oldschool/cool.gif)
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Um, pint is not metric? or does beer have a different pint from any other liquid measurement used in say, cooking?
2 cups = 1 pint
2 pints = 1 quart
4 quarts = gallon
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Ah, right. My bad. Wasn’t thinking straight. Haven’t been sleeping.
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They say you can stack the rubber blocks, don't do it. Frankly, the price of 2 post lifts has dropped so much in the last couple years that it's not that much more to get something infinitely more usable than a Quickjack.
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Is it sturdy enough to get under? ![EEK!](http://forums.macnn.com/images/smilies/oldschool/eek.gif) It looks flimsy.
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Originally Posted by Laminar
They say you can stack the rubber blocks, don't do it. Frankly, the price of 2 post lifts has dropped so much in the last couple years that it's not that much more to get something infinitely more usable than a Quickjack.
I've had a 2 post in my warehouse for years, I'm aware. But the garage at my house has really low ceilings, and isnt' very wide. I cad modeled my entire house and there's just no real advantage to a 2 post in my situation; it BARELY fits and would make moving around in my garage annoying, and I couldn't really jack things up much higher.
If I need more access I'll just go to the warehouse and use the 2 post. This will be great for swapping wheels/tires/suspension/brakes and reinstalling the engine/trans in the 911.
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Originally Posted by MacNNFamous
This will be great for swapping wheels/tires/suspension/brakes and reinstalling the engine/trans in the 911.
If you're rotating tires and need to have more than one off a time it's nice, but for swapping between two sets of wheels/tires it's easier just to jack up a corner at a time. It's kind of a hassle to pull the heavy QuickJacks out, line them up, hook up the lines, start the lift, go side to side and confirm they're on the jacking points, then finally lift the vehicle. It literally takes longer to lift it than it does to swap tires. For brakes and suspension or bigger projects it's nice.
![](http://www.mikaelvroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/eLIs8lEw-800x600.jpeg)
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Bought a new car.
Planning to make it a dual duty commuter and racecar.
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hope it was LS swapped already....
Car updates for me:
91 Civic: Just ordered new rotors/pads, I roasted my old ones on a spirited run with a friend, super bad pedal pulsation. The whole engine bay looks like ass and instead of sandblasting and painting (which would still look pitted) and replating, I made some friends in Cali who pulled parts at a junkyard for me. Perfect condition shift boot, OEM floormats, just little bits here and there. Did a leakdown test on Saturday, and didn't find any problems, which was nice.
911: Up on the quickjack, ready to install new fuel lines front to back, then it's time to put the engine and trans in.
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Originally Posted by MacNNFamous
hope it was LS swapped already....
I didn't want to buy a running one, but apparently everyone is spending their stimulus checks buying all of the non-running RX-8s that aren't already beat to shit or rusted to hell. This one needed a clutch so I got it cheaper. All I had to do was properly adjust the clutch pedal and it's good now.
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You are a brave man. I hear they drive awesome tho!
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Originally Posted by MacNNFamous
You are a brave man. I hear they drive awesome tho!
They certainly do. The mpg is an absolute killer though.
I paid £800 for mine. Bit of a unicorn, a cheap RZX-8 with a good engine and a full MOT. Ran it for about a year. Struggled to get 20 mpg, obviously careful driving was out of the question, they love to be driven right?
Anyway. We went on holiday to Crete and rented a small Citroen C3. Put €30 in fuel in ran around for the whole holiday in it and still had plenty left at the end. Came home, there £30 in the RX-8, drove to see a client, threw another £30 in to get home and the magic was worn away.
Sold it for £800 with still working engine so (fuel apart) free car. Glad I had it, drove like nothing else I have ever had. All the stories are entirely true about the dynamics. shame about the fuel but there's no such thing as a free lunch.
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@Doc HM
I hadn‘t realized the RX-8 had depreciated that much. I thought there‘d be an enthusiasts‘s market for them given that they were the only car with a rotary engine on sale. It seems less sporty than the RX-7, but still.
I had the opportunity to rent three cars, a Skoda Kodiaq with about 200 hp, a VW Touran with about 150 hp and a small Mitsubishi hybrid here in Japan. It just cemented my disdain for SUVs. (For the first two trips we had lots of luggage and wanted a station wagon, so we got station wagons on stilts.)
The two SUVs were miserable to drive, the worst being the Kodiaq. Above 130 km/h it got quite sensitive to wind and had a tendency to roll in corners on the autobahn. I didn‘t have the impression that I was going outside the envelope, but it just didn‘t feel comfortable and the car became more sensitive than I‘d like. And boy was that thing thirsty. The VW being the smaller car was way less sensitive, but still had a healthy thirst. The Mitsubishi was the slowest, obviously, but given the lower speed limit in Japan (110 km/h) it had ample power and gears. It came with a 5-speed autobox, a bit improvement over the CVTs that I tried in other hybrids. I drove about 350-400 km in the Mitsubishi and I used less than a 1/3 of a tank of gas. The Kodiaq used over 1 tank (which was obviously larger, too) for 600 km, the VW used about 2/3 to 3/4 of a tank. To be fair, we pushed the hardest in the Kodiaq in terms of speeds, but even if you put fuel economy aside,
Another thing to note was the plethora of assistants in the Volkswagen group cars. The driving feel was completely different to cars I had driven up to that point, I had to learn the quirks of the adaptive cruise control (which works well in some circumstances, but feels quite aggressive and unshmart in others). Basically, I had to surrender to the assistants and automations for otherwise I‘d always get into a fight with them. For example, even if you put the DSG into manual mode, after a while it‘ll default back to automatic. So I could just insist again and again that I want to stay in manual. Or just accept to drive that a computer chooses gears for me. And I‘d had to manage the assistants, get to know their quirks and intervene in the right instances. Sometimes when I overrode them, I‘d have to switch them back on. Sometimes, they‘d switch back on by themselves. The Mitsubishi was way less sophisticated in that respect, but was almost completely analog (apart from having an automatic).
Honestly, it seems to me when it comes to driving we are at a low point with the current crop of dinosaur juice cars: they are somewhat automated, but not quite. So you have to become an airline captain, i. e. your job is to monitor automation. Automatic transmissions kill any joy of driving. And SUVs are still quite popular for reasons I don‘t understand, which offer none of the benefits of a real off-road vehicle (the VW was 2wd) but come with many of the drawbacks (high center of gravity, low fuel economy, unnecessarily large size). On the other side you have electric cars, which seem like the natural evolution. Most don‘t have gear boxes (or they come with a 2-speed like the Porsche Taycan) and they have been designed to be completely automated. And you tend to drive electric cars more slowly, because otherwise you can see your range melting away. In those, I wouldn‘t even have the desire to drive them to have fun. Ugh. What happened to cars?
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Originally Posted by MacNNFamous
You are a brave man. I hear they drive awesome tho!
It makes my E36 feel like a lumbering dinosaur, it's appalling.
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Originally Posted by OreoCookie
Ugh. What happened to cars?
One could also argue that this is an insanely great time to be a car enthusiast. You can head to the showroom and buy a 700hp car straight off the lot will a full warranty, and comfortably drive it to work, to drop the kids off at school, or travel cross country.
The proliferation of factory turbocharged cars means you can buy a normal pedestrian car and with just a few hundred bucks for a tune, you can have a vehicle that embarasses supercars of just a few years ago.
The industry is moving in the direction of automation and driver's aids, but those still aren't a requirements, and enthusiast cars still let you disable all of the nannies and have real fun.
The absolute glut of Chevy LS engines in junkyards combined with the easy access to cheap Chinese turbos on eBay means any idiot in their garage can put together an engine making 600, 800, or 1000+ horsepower for absolute peanuts. Speed is cheap (reliability isn't, but speed is more fun ![Wink](http://forums.macnn.com/images/smilies/oldschool/wink.gif) ).
Many states have easy access to E85 fuel. Originally developed to reduce emissions, it turns out E85 offers performance greater than even the old leaded race gas, and load of enthusiasts are able to extract incredible power from turbocharged cars while still filling up at their local gas pump instead of paying hundreds of dollars to get a drum of race gas.
Tesla is pushing other carmakers to produce fast, fun electric cars with a decent range. You don't have to suffer through a Leaf or C-Max if you want to go full electric, you can do sub-3 second 0-60 times while still maintaining the range of a normal gas car.
And automakers are taking advantage of hybrid systems to do really cool things with cars, like the Ford F-150 that can power your house or boosting performance like the current crop of hybrid supercars.
What happened to cars? They got faster, more efficient, more comfortable, and safer. On the whole, consumers are making different choices now than they did 10 or 20 years ago, but the options are still out there for those looking for a little thrill. You're just not likely to find it on a rental car lot.
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Don't forget the best part Lam; all that rad shit from the 90s/00s that has fairly modern suspensions/chassis design, and reliable, powerful drivetrains (compared to carb'd vintage stuff) but WITHOUT all the safety bullshit has depreciated a huge amount, so for 10k you can buy absolutely ridiculous performance. Wasn't possible 10 years ago.
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Originally Posted by Laminar
It makes my E36 feel like a lumbering dinosaur, it's appalling.
But (and this is the million dollar question)... Is it a sports car?
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@Laminar
Good counter. The horsepower cars have have grown into the territory where it is the legal department rather than any technical limitations that puts the kabosh on further increases. When my dad had his S124 320 TE with its 220 hp engine, my classmates and I thought this was a really tall number. Not AMG territory, but local king-of-my-hill territory. (God, I loved that car as a kid.) In a sense, you can specify the horsepower of a car with a tune. Even in the luxury car segment, most manufacturers have their 2.0 liter inline-4 engine, and Volkswagen programmed the ECU to give it 200 hp in the Skoda and 150 hp in the Touran. (I realize that some other parts might have to be changed, too, to cope with the additional load.) In a GTI it’ll produce more, Mercedes can tune its 2-liter engine to produce over 400 hp in their A45S. In the past, manufacturers had to change displacement to change horsepower, e. g. the 280 TE had a 2.8 liter straight-6 based on the same engine block as my dad’s 3.2 liter, just with a smaller displacement and 28 horses less.
However, my rant was about enjoying driving as an activity. Are those 700 hp monsters really more fun? I’m sure in some senses, yes. Are modern cars more comfortable? In most aspects, a definite yes (unless they have been tuned not to in order to feel sportier …). Even my brother’s Renault Twingo comes with heated seats, an extra that you could only find in luxury cars in the 1980s and early 1990s. The adaptive cruise control in the Skoda made being caught in a traffic jam a breeze, I didn’t have to do anything but keep my hands on the steering wheel.
But in another sense, no. I’m sure I’d like extra horsepower for a while and part of anyone’s psychological make-up is a healthy dose of nostalgia. I like my dad’s S124, because it brings back nice memories from my childhood. My best friend bought a Porsche 968 CS for the same reason, he just loves the timeless design and the memories it brings back. And I noticed that Rob and you both still love your older cars, too. You have your M3, Rob had (has, I hope) an Audi S2 wagon in blue (excellent taste IMHO). These are lovely cars, but they are “slow” by modern standards. But if I had to guess, you own them, because you prefer to drive them as an activity to enjoy.
At least in my case, my complaint goes further than that: car automation is in an uncanny valley between full automation and being analog. When I experienced modern lane assist for the first time, it felt as if the passenger next to me grabbed the steering wheel and overrode me — quite startling and not pleasurable. I learned to co-exist with lane assist, i. e. I had to get used to it. On the other hand, I needed to keep tabs on automatic cruise control, because not all of its decisions were sensible. Driving just felt very different, and I thought it’d be a more pleasurable experience if it were less or more automated, if that makes sense.
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That’s just nostalgia. It’s the same reason a fancy new roller coaster is incredible and way better, but you’ll actually have more fun on the old shaky wooden classic. Or why some hipsters shave with a straight razor?
To return to an earlier car conversation, my personal mid-life-crisis car has always been a Honda S2000: an affordable ball of track joy wrapped in an innocuous daily roadster.
Honda recently came out with the Civic Type R. It’s just a FWD Civic Hatchback with ridiculous styling and performance. It’s still as analog a car as you’re likely to ever find in today’s world (ie it’s manual), but it also has the safety bells and whistles and electronic “modes” and everything else.
I’ve driven the Type R and it is truly a wonderful beast. It shouldn’t quite work but everyone agrees that it’s brilliant. And then you can put the car seat back in and go to work.
But I still want that S2000. It’s not as fast or good, and it’s far less practical and safe. But it just feels like an earlier time, a better time, a simpler time.
At our core humans are frightened of progress. We love to return to the forest.
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I don't think it's nostalgia at all. Modern cars have better specs, but they also have a lot more mass, and the increase in safety regulations requires even more mass, side impact crash tests raise the beltline higher so visibility is reduced.
On a skid pad, modern cars will win, they ahve more grip. They'll win at the dragstrip. And on a racetrack... honestly again new cars will win most of the time.
BUT... there is something about lack of mass that makes a car fun to drive. That 1990 Civic Si I picked up a few months ago? It is just AWESOME to drive. Huge expanses of glass, visibility that is not possible today, a curb weight not possible today, double wishbone suspension on all 4 corners which even honda doesn't even do anymore, the thing is just sublime to drive because you legally can't make cars like that anymore.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Iowa, how long can this be? Does it really ruin the left column spacing?
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So long term I'll be putting a head unit in this car with wireless CarPlay. Short term I'm looking for something to go from bluetooth to the factory aux jack. There are plenty of products that do this, and some that give you a physical button to trigger Siri. But I'm wondering if there's anything out there that will read my text messages to me. The SYNC 2 system in my old car was mostly junk, but it would read texts to me and let me dictates texts by just pushing a button on my steering wheel. That's a killer feature for me, to never be tempted to pull my phone out and look at it.
Last I checked the Echo Auto can do just about everything except read my texts to me, that's apparently not an iOS feature.
Is anything out there capable of this?
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Can't you just ask Siri to read your texts out loud?
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Clinically Insane
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Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Once, I was chatting with Siri over my POS hands-free at 3AM.
I forgot what I said, but Siri somehow decided it was “call my landlord”.
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Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton
That’s just nostalgia. It’s the same reason a fancy new roller coaster is incredible and way better, but you’ll actually have more fun on the old shaky wooden classic. Or why some hipsters shave with a straight razor?
I don't think so. I'm not a big retro person. Some people love retro bikes. I find them outdated. Ditto with cars — until recently. Until 2010ish/2015is I've been psyched whenever I rented a car, because it was so clearly better. If I were in the position of my best friend (the one who got a Porsche 968 CS), I would have gotten the newer Boxster instead (which he was considering), because the handling is much, much better. If I had tons of money, nostalgia would make me buy an S124 Mercedes station wagon in a heart beat, but I wouldn't be under the impression that it is better than a modern day Passat. Even stuff like lane assist warnings (where you'd get an audible chime rather than intervention at the steering wheel) is fine with me.
Likewise, I'd be fine with a fully featured, reliable autopilot. In fact, I'd likely prefer that to driving 99 % of the time.
What irks me is when cars interfere in driving while not being 100 % reliable. Because sometimes the lane assist interferes wrongly when there is construction on the highway and a plethora of lines is painted on the road, badly. Or when adaptive cruise control accelerates way too quickly, not anticipating a car that is already signaling a lane change. I reckon with time, I would get used to it more. But I'd still be in the uncanny valley of automation. A second think also bothered me, and that was the low quality of the entertainment system, lots of lag, unintuitive UI, etc. They are lightyears behind of what smartphones and tablets could do about 5-8 years ago.
That being said, my mid-life-crisis mobile is a bicycle. In fact, it is a bike that perhaps is a few years too far into the future, designed by a genius bike designer and produced in Italy. With a custom paint job. And the best, most modern parts I could afford/could be delivered within 4 months of ordering the thing. (Due to Covid everything is ridiculously backordered. I wanted a top-of-the-line crankset, but when I ordered it in January my bike shop told me that I'd have to wait until June — at least.)
Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton
To return to an earlier car conversation, my personal mid-life-crisis car has always been a Honda S2000: an affordable ball of track joy wrapped in an innocuous daily roadster.
This is a good choice for being nostalgic, you want it because of how it makes you feel. The high-revving 4-cylinder engine, low weight, great gear box. It doesn't have to be faster. If the job is to make you feel good while driving by yourself or with your SO, this is a great choice. Not so much for your commute to school.
I'd also add that some cars are special, they are milestones for one reason or another. The W124 series was a giant leap forward into the modern age. The suspension was crazy modern when it was developed in the late 1970s. It showcased the tech that all other cars would have in the future. Passenger airbags, ESC, heated seats, the innovative one-arm windscreen wiper (which I still love), etc. Yet, it still had the tank-like built quality of Mercedes of yore.
Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton
At our core humans are frightened of progress. We love to return to the forest.
No, not for me. I always wanted to live in the future. I loved Star Trek, because of all the possibilities the future holds. I am glad I get to experience some part of that (e. g. touch controls) on a daily basis now, something that seemed out of reach when I first saw TNG as a kid. I bet if I lived in the year 2472, I would want to live in the year 2872 ![Wink](http://forums.macnn.com/images/smilies/oldschool/wink.gif)
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Originally Posted by OreoCookie
And I noticed that Rob and you both still love your older cars, too. You have your M3, Rob had (has, I hope) an Audi S2 wagon in blue (excellent taste IMHO).
It's at 360-380hp somewhere ![Stick Out Tongue](http://forums.macnn.com/images/smilies/oldschool/tongue.gif)
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Originally Posted by MacNNFamous
It's at 360-380hp somewhere
It's an instant classic. By the way, have you resprayed it? I thought yours was blue ( the canonical color IMHO).
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negatory. Always been emerald.
This is what I've been up to lately:
Many, many, many, many, many, many hours later, it's looking like something:
![](https://i.imgur.com/i5XvIdp.jpg)
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Iowa, how long can this be? Does it really ruin the left column spacing?
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Originally Posted by MacNNFamous
Can't you just ask Siri to read your texts out loud?
I just tried it, and I can have her read off recent texts, but that does require me to know I've received a text. Since I'm not a monster my phone is always on vibrate so I don't always feel it. My car would alert me when I got a text and offer to read it for me. I just went with a simple Bluetooth adapter for now, when I go whole hog on the stereo I'll get wireless CarPlay and never worry about this again.
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This space for Hire! Reasonable rates. Reach an audience of literally dozens!
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Very cool. Hope the light pod is quick disconnect; even real WRC cars don't run them in daytime stages.
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Did you have to upgrade your alternator, or can the existing one keep up with the extra load?
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Yes the alternator seems happy enough.
The pod comes off in a few seconds. Held on by fasteners and snap together connectors under the bonnet. Won’t usually be on. Also local youths would find it too tempting I would imagine.
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Done some more rally!
Two days, with some night stages (sorry too dark for useful pics), and some nice gravel, mixed surface stages plus some tarmac.
All good fun and nothing exploded.
Car was feeling rather flat after a couple of hill climbs so had it rolling roaded. Was showing 100BHP at the fly. Not good for a 1.9 gti. Managed to get it to a specialist who found it was actually turning out a massively underwhelming 80BHP.
Luckily just about everything that could be out of adjustment was, fuel, timing, advance, mass airflow sensor, throttle openings, all of it. The 5 hours later the same rolling road was showing 130BHP so a 50 increase in one hit.
Certainly felt like it on the rally. A completely different car.
45th Anniversary by Andrew Stephens, on Flickr
45th Anniversary by Andrew Stephens, on Flickr
45th Anniversary by Andrew Stephens, on Flickr
IMG_1232 by Andrew Stephens, on Flickr
121632835_352746983312434_7118402444330827223_n by Andrew Stephens, on Flickr
Link to other pics of the event.
https://flickr.com/photos/108289944@N04/
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Originally Posted by Laminar
Bought a new car.
Planning to make it a dual duty commuter and racecar.
If I'm not mistaken it's a Mazda, can you tell me what Mazda it is? I'm also driving one at the moment, but it's a Mazda CX5
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