BoldUlysses.com

I wish I could come up with a way, even just on the side, to make money off my car repair interest. I know it sounds like the answer is in the question (repair cars!), but the logistics are more complicated than they might initially appear:

• My time in the evenings and on the weekends is limited.
• My collection of tools, while appreciable, isn’t perhaps complete enough to tackle every job.
• The liability issue.

Honestly, from a purely ROI potential perspective, web design would be the best possible thing I could do—the hourly rate I could charge would probably be the highest, and all the software I need I either already have, or can acquire free on the Internet. But…the act of it is like pulling teeth. By contrast, I have and will undertake the most menial car repair task freely and willingly. That’s where my motivation is. And I just understand cars better than I do computers. There’s a present limit to my web design knowledge, and it’s limit I could expand through additional instruction, but the principles that govern car operation are so completely ingrained in me that I could undertake almost any task, even on an unfamiliar car, and have some degree of certainty that I would emerge successful on the other side. The difference in my confidence in approaching the two endeavors is significant.

I’ve been thinking about second jobs more lately, mainly because money’s been tight, and it’s nice to be self-reliant to even the small degree a second, self-generated job provides. Also, I’ve gotten back into touch with Ben, a friend of David’s from high school who’s been through a number of classic British sports cars, made money off a few of them, and is currently borrowing my engine hoist. I have crazy ideas of “joining forces” with him and others, like some giant car repair/restoration Voltron, but that’s a pipe dream at best. I can’t even begin to visualize how that would work out.

One thing I do know: Whatever I decide to do on the car repair front will have to wait until the garage is up to par, completely organized. Fortunately, my motivation to do that is sky-high as well.

I wish it didn’t take me so agonizingly long to finish books. I’ve been working on my library copy of The Silmarillion for ages now… I’ll read a few pages once every couple of days, and I’m only just now about halfway though. I used to read much faster. Maybe I had more time in high school, or maybe, because the activity was encouraged or required then, time was made for me. In an event, I remember the first book it took me longer to read through: Dickens’ Great Expectations. I loved the book; it just took me forever to read for some reason, and it’s been like that ever since.

Both cars continue to hum along without a hitch. They both need cleaning, inside and out, though; they’re filthy. Between the mist that’s been hanging in the air the past few days, not washing away anything, but just causing grime to be stuck to the cars, and the bird population explosion in our yard over the past month or so (they seem to consider the cars worthy targets), the cars have just been in a bad way. I feel for the Minkevan particularly; it doesn’t live in the garage at the moment, so it just seems to stare longingly at the E34 in the garage every night, wishing it could be inside too. Needs some love. Thankfully, both cars engines are in good shape—they both recently had oil changes, the Minkevan with some good ol’ dino 5W-30, and the E34 got a new formula: I’m trying Castrol Syntec 5W-50 instead of the usual Mobil 1. The lifter tick at idle drives me up a wall, and it’s still present (albeit softer) after the oil change. I’m going to have to try some MMO, I do believe.

1. They reported late last night that Osama bin Laden was killed. I feel strangely numb about the whole thing. I’m glad justice was done (at least, as close an approximation of justice as can be done in this world), but part of me hesitates to rejoice in the death of another. As evil as he was, he was still an image-bearer of God, however corrupted and twisted that image might have become. But, on the other hand, there are many verses in the Word where David, a man of an upright an pure heart (but a man nevertheless), pleads with God to avenge him, and tells God how much he hates his persecutors (see the end of Ps. 139 for an example). Is that prescriptive? I don’t know. Suffice it to say that while I firmly believe bin Laden was killed justly, and by the proper agents to perform such a task, it’s still a strong reminder we live in a fallen world desperately in need of redemption. I’ll leave it at that.
2. I’m sure the link will stop working eventually, but for the time being, enjoy this. Make sure you listen to the 250 GTO—the sound is like catnip for a car buff. Unbelievably good.
3. Luke and I went stargazing for the first time Friday night. He stayed up late, until it got dark, and we went out there around 9 p.m. We used his new telescope, the one he got for his birthday, and it worked well. It was a really “productive” first time, and I was happy about that. We saw Arcturus, Capella, Sirius, Betelgeuse and Spica, as well as Saturn and the Beehive. I was really proud of Luke; he remembered from his excursions on Google Sky that Saturn was supposed to be in Virgo this time of year, and sure enough, when I checked the star charts, there was a “star” in that constellation that wasn’t “supposed” to be there. And it was Saturn. Pretty neat. We both had a great time.

Sitting here at work putting off eating my turkey and cheese sandwich. Dave is out sick today, Charlie’s off to get his allergy shots, and thunderstorms are popping up here and there. The brunt of them is supposed to arrive tonight. It’ll be nice to have the rain. I love a good downpour.

Luke’s home sick, and Penelope amused herself this morning by getting into the (gas, thankfully) fireplace downstairs and emptying every last bit of dirt and soot out onto the white carpet. Diane called me in exasperation this morning and told me about it. Amazing how she chooses to ignore the dozens, nay, hundreds of toys downstairs and decides to mess with the fireplace. Unbelievable.

But we’re all well. Our latest home improvements are as follows:

1. Painted the outside shutters black to match the front door. They look awesome.
2. Spent all day Friday and Saturday putting up beadboard on the kitchen walls. Nearly cursed at my utterly useless stud finder.
3. Built a big, long work table for the garage. It fits between the cars and has storage on the bottom shelf.
4. Scored some free wood on Monday, courtesy of a crate the company was going to throw out. It’s good plywood and two-by-fours I’ll use for additional shelving in the garage.
5. Finished painting the hallway and front room Seashell Gray. It looks wonderful, cool, calm and refreshing. Love the color.

I’ve been really itching to start on the Datsun restoration, even though I know

• It’s a multi-year project,
• It’ll be far more expensive than we can budget for now,
• Home improvements are the first priority, and
• I really should be focusing more of my time and attention on my family, given where they all are.

So that’ll definitely have to wait. I might just move it to our house, though, just to help Mom and Dad by freeing up some space in their garage. And there might be little things I can tackle without spending any money. Ahh…we’ll see.

The wind is really blowing outside now. I can see the pollen and leaves come off the trees. Storm’s coming.

A few little things to update you with:

1. Home improvement continues apace. Diane and I (mostly Diane, whilst I tended the kids) completely painted the family room downstairs, and she’s been painting other things like the TV cabinet, doorknobs, picture frames, decorations, etc. I installed stick-down vinyl tile flooring in the main bathroom upstairs, and it looks surprisingly good considering what it is. We think we might actually install stick-down vinyl “hardwood-look” flooring in the kitchen as a cheaper, lower-maintenance alternative.
2. There have been a few car repair successes to report. The ripped PCV hose on the Minkevan (causing a check engine light and very rough running) was repaired by using a copper pipe, heater hose and hose clamp pliers to remove the old unit. The E34’s ICV hoses, throttle body gasket and intake boot have all been replaced, along with its fuel pump and filter (after it failed to start on me last Monday morning). So things are good on the car front. If only I could get a longer hose so I could give them a proper bath…
3. Luke continues to be obsessed with stars and planets, but particularly stars these days. I want him to learn the constellations before I pull out the telescope, and I plan to use the H.A. Rey kids book to teach him, the same book I used when I was only a little older than he is. There’s a local astronomy club I want to take him to as well. I think he’d like that.

Drove the kids in the E34 back to my parents house for our annual New Year’s visit. My car’s original owner is a lady who lives on their cul-de-sac. She replaced the E34 with a new-ish E90 325i, but still misses her old car a good deal.

Parked by the curb on Friday afternoon, she saw her old car for the first time since selling it last spring. She had to run to an appointment, but the incident reminded me to ask her something I’d been wondering about for a while. So I sent her an e-mail later that weekend asking for her story of the car’s purchase.

Here’s her reply. It made me really happy.

I would love to tell you the story:

In about 1994 or sometime around there, I was in Germany on business and rented a car for business purposes, as I was traveling to another city for a second meeting. The car they offered me was a BMW 328i, and I drove it from Frankfurt far into the countryside (I can’t remember the town), on the Autobahn. OMG, that just took me right out re: BMW’s. It was a manual shift.

I had driven a manual shift earlier in my life (school bus in high school, old Volkswagens, Mazda 626, which I had at the time)), so a manual shift was very much at home to me, and frankly, what I consider…shall we say…driving.

Back in the US, I started thinking about how nice it would be to have a BMW, but what a dream that would be. I went to the Performance dealership, and thought they were snotty and arrogant, but I did connect with a sales person there who took me for a test drive in a white 525 with black interior. It was pouring rain and we’d stopped on a dime in the rain on a back road, so that was impressive to me.

But black interior? High price? Arrogant dealership? Automatic? That was 4 votes for NO.

Sometime later I was having dinner with my then insurance agent, Peggy, and her husband Ed. Over the course of dinner I learned that Ed loves BMWs and is always on the lookout for good deals. In fact, Ed loved hanging out at Leith in Raleigh and knew the guys there. He’d be on the lookout, but you know how people say those things, so I didn’t think much of it.

And then…about 4 or 5 months later, out of the blue, it was December, and Ed called and said that Leith had a 525i with manual shift in house, at the price of $34,000. It had 4,000 miles on it because it had been driven by an Executive at the recently opened BMW plant in South Carolina, so it had been really packaged nicely for the Executive (hence the burl dash, which was new at the time). He talked to the sales person and they would hold it for me if I was interested.

I went to Leith, drove the car, and (remember this was December, 1995, and car salesmen were not as equalitarian or enlightened in the awareness of Women as Legitimate Customers). The sales men (I emphasize the men word here) were commenting with some shock that I could drive a manual shift. (Huh?) They couldn’t imagine that I would want a manual shift.

OK, but I did and yes, I bought the car. I had incorporated my business, so bought it with profits from my business. I paid cash for the car. That same unenlightened salesman said, (brace yourself for what’s coming) “So, little lady, who’s going to be paying for your car?” I replied, “I am.” “Well, I know that you will be making the transaction today, but who holds the loan, or who is giving you the money?”

I looked him square in the eye and said, “I own a business. I earned money in my business to buy this car. There is no loan. There is no one else. I am paying cash for this car. T O D A Y. If you have a problem with that, I can speak with someone else.”

He sputtered and said something about little ladies today, blah blah blah, and we proceeded with the transaction.

I only mention that as laughter as to how times have changed. I noticed that salesman was not there very long afterwards.

For the entire time I owned that car, I had all service done at Leith, as you can see from the records. I never had one lick of trouble with it (except for a water pump that went out 3 years ago in 100 degree heat, and Chapel Hill Tire replaced that in an emergency).

All service was performed by the same mechanic, Conrad, their top mechanic, until he moved to Virginia. Then I interviewed Conrad’s recommended replacement, who I think was William.

The service manager at Leith in Raleigh, Kelly, knows me and this car like his own child. They were always good to me.

And that car represented my business ownership, my success beyond my dreams as a small business owner, and a real sense of pride for me. It also drove like a dream. I “fit’ in the bucket seat (no small feat for a 5′ 1” tall woman with short legs)

I had grown up in a large family where we were always limping along with second hand cars and Dad doing the repair, and we crossed our fingers on big trips, so it was important to me to be religious about preventative maintenance.

Mostly that car represented to me Dreams Realized, and I’m not just talking owning a BMW (I was always a little embarrassed about that, I don’t like the Ego stories that people make up. It was always less to me about having a BMW as having a nice car that I had didn’t have to worry about, that I could be proud to drive up in, that I paid for from my business and that I loved loved loved to drive…It was so much about the way that car drives).

Thank you for taking such good care of this car, and for understanding that sometimes a car is more than a car.

And thank you for asking….

Happy New Year,

Bailey

Yet again, in the interest of posting more frequently (and not having anything particularly compelling to discuss today), here are some of my driving habits/quirks:

• In order to maximize current to the starter motor and minimize initial load on the engine, all accessories, including A/C, are always turned off when I start the car. My only concession on this point is that I do put my foot on the brake pedal, even though I know electricity going to the brake lights is unavailable to turn the starter. Only after the car has “cleared its throat,” so to speak, by running for half a minute or so, do I turn on accessories like the A/C, stereo, headlights or defrost.
• I only turn on the A/C if I either:
  1. Have other people in the car, or
  2. It’s absolutely, unbearably hot outside.
  The A/C imposes an extra load on the engine, disconnects and isolates me somewhat from the immediate, tangible outside environment that affects my driving and it introduces extra heat to the engine bay through the condenser, further reducing efficiency. Not worth it except in the most extreme cases.
• I hate long keychains flopping around while I drive. My keychains always detach so that only the car key and (possibly) the keyfob are dangling from the ignition.
• Everything must be buttoned down or tucked away in the car. Nothing loose. I want to put the car on like an article of clothing, and I want it to feel like an extension of my body–it just makes me feel more alert and in control, and thus a better driver.
• I always try to heel-and-toe and rev match when downshifting on a manual transmission car. This is (arguably) a bit harder on the clutch, but much easier on the transmission, and given the choice I’d much rather replace a clutch rather than a tranny. Besides, heel-and-toeing makes for a very smooth drive if done properly, and performing it well is very satisfying. I will say, though, that the mushy brake pedal on the E34 doesn’t make it as easy as it was in the E24. I think the brakes could use a good bleed.
• Despite my long limbs, I actually like to drive close to the steering wheel and pedals. The effort required to hold up my arms increases with the length of the “lever arm” when they’re extended, so it’s easier to drive up close. Not only that, but my first car (Twinkie) was very small and had very limited adjustability from the driver’s seat, so I drove for years in the “bent arms, legs splayed about the steering wheel” position. Guess I got used to it.
• My only major concession to James May-ish-ness, all vents must be aligned and in the center of their respective ranges of travel.
• Finally, I always use the handbrake when parked. It’s there for a reason!

Finally sold the E24 a few weeks ago. I’d been on the fence about selling it for a while, and gone back and forth more than enough times to make Diane uncomfortable about the stability of my intentions with respect to the car, but finally, firmly decided to sell it.

Why? For the reasons enumerated here, along with a few extras:

• Diane’s always hated the car’s color (white), and even I would concede it didn’t flatter the car’s lines,
• Something with four doors is vastly easier to get the kids into (the 6er had two),
• The E24 would have been very difficult to teach Diane how to drive, being a particularly finicky manual,
• I was absolutely paranoid all winter every time I had to drive the car through the salty slush–the BMW rustproofing of that era was notoriously bad, and
• It required too much cash to be brought up to a level where I felt like it looked acceptable visually. It was the kind of car that was so good-looking that you were doubly motivated to spend money to get it “all the way there,” so to speak. Less attractive cars can “stop” in a less demanding visual state.

I was all set to trade it for an Audi 200, but the would-be seller lost interest. After a few weeks of poking around, the net result of the car wrangling is detailed here. It’s a perfect car for us–stickshift and RWD to satisfy my “needs” as an enthusiast, much better rustproofing, four doors, less tempting to “improve” mechanically and cosmetically, and Diane loves the color and the shape. It worked out really well, and I’m grateful to my parents for setting us up with the opportunity to get it.

However, my enthusiasm for the car is tempered by the fact that it’s not quite as classic, not quite as “interesting” as the E24. I think this is a good thing–my time spent thinking about the older car was approaching excessive levels in those last few months. I’ve been a car buff for years and years; I know how my emotions respond to these things, and I should have known better–I should have known how wrapped up I would get in the car and staved things off from the beginning by getting a different car or, heaven forbid, keeping the one we had at the time. I made a bad decision, and I own that. Doesn’t lessen my gratitude for how well things turned out. I certainly didn’t deserve for them to.

A side effect of all this, combined with my “rediscovery” of my journal and rereading past entries, is that my emotional desire to pursue a specific interest has been blown wide open again. During the past nine months (the span of ownership of the E24), my emotional focus was “dialed in” to the car and my attention to other spheres of interest faded proportionally. But now I’m all over the map again as far as my feelings as concerned. The funny thing is, I don’t feel unstable or unpredictable. The insecurity I used to feel when I thought about how strongly I felt about so many interests that often seemed to pull me in mutually-exclusive directions is gone. I just feel liberated. I feel like my life has been greatly simplified, and if you know me at all you know that I love the scope of my life in any given moment to be simple–even though it rarely is.

Where to go from here? The Lord knows. We’ve got a plan to purchase a house early next year, send the kids to school and invest in our church and community. What happens in the periphery only time will tell.

I feel a weird sense of similarity between my emotions about our family’s financial state and my impression of the current political landscape.

The car purchase referenced a few posts down fell through—not because of any reluctance on the part of the seller; rather, what little sense I had in the whole affair prevailed upon me to get a local 6er enthusiast to do a pre-purchase inspection before committing to buy the car and flying out to Texas (yes, that Texas) to pick it up and drive it home. The car was a wreck. The paint job looked good in pictures but in person was terrible, the engine bay was a mess, the seats were okay but the rest of the interior was slipshod, the rims were trashed and the rear valence was missing from the bumper conversion. Needless to say, I passed. However, we’d already been approved for the loan and the money was just sitting in our account—something that can be a recipe for disaster if not checked.

My natural propensity toward researching and investigating potential car purchases has run wild for the past couple of days, but now I’m finally coming around. The loan money will be repaid and car projects relegated to a future time. It felt profoundly irresponsible of me to be consider burdening our family with more debt, considering:

1. Our first priority, financially, is a house purchase. We need to save all the money we can, and work on our credit. Extra debt may not derail those efforts, but it’ll make them more challenging.
2. I can’t afford to get distracted any farther from my family by a car. By the grace of God, with the E24 purchase a good balance has been struck between car hobby time and family time, and the process of another car purchase would threaten to upset that balance, if not do it outright.
3. It’s Christmas and birthday season. Car purchases always involve incidentals here and there, money we’ll need to help out in an already tight season.
4. And maybe the biggest reason: There’s an unrestored 1972 Datsun 240Z sitting in my parents’ garage. It’s mine; my dad bought it new in 1972 and gave me the keys when I graduated from college. I can’t sell it; it’s been in the family for almost 40 years. It needs restoration, and I can’t devote all my attention to some new car and let the Z languish. Just can’t happen. That project takes precedence. So while my daily driver can be fun and interesting, I have to look at the big picture.

The connection with my impression of the political scene is tenuous, I’ll admit. Congress and the administration, among many, many other faults and wrong ideas, have completely lost sight of the big picture with the health care nonsense. They’re making very foolish decisions with our money in a time when the financial position of the country is incredibly precarious. Our family financial situation isn’t bad, but it’s never the wrong time to make wise money choices, and at the moment, taking risks isn’t one of them.

Things are moving forward with a potential new car. It’s a couple of states over, but there’s a local enthusiast who’s promised to scope it out for me tomorrow, so that should give me a pretty solid idea of what I’d be getting into. It’s not like I’ve never bought a car sight unseen—I’ve actually done it twice before, once with the first RX-7 (a.k.a. The Great Pennsylvania Adventure Part I) and the second time with the Supra (the purchase of which was followed by a great drive from Atlanta back down to St. Augustine). We’ll see what happens. I’m excited but tempering my expectations about it all. One thing at a time and if it doesn’t happen, I won’t lose sleep over it.

The advantages of it over my current car are several. The most significant is that it’s an automatic—bummer for me (at least until I have the time and space to swap in a 5-speed, an easy enough task), but Diane will be able to drive the car from the get-go, so either it or the van will be able to be fully functional as our primary car should something happen to the other. Beyond that, it looks exactly like my eventual goal for my current car, and I do mean exactly. Right color, right bumpers, right rims, right spoiler, right everything (except lowering—again, easy to accomplish). Not to mention the fact that the interior is in much better shape than mine: The dash is only cracked in one or two places and the seats and headliner are in excellent shape. So no cash outlay there either. From what I can tell, assuming I maintain the exterior and interior in as good condition as they appear to be, the only potential issues would be mechanical ones, which I am much less intimidated by than cosmetic ones. So in the long run, it has the potential to save us a lot of money. It’s really the working out of what most car enthusiasts of any stripe will tell you: The best way to modify your car is to buy one that’s already been modified. We never (read: NEVER) get all our invested money back when we sell these cars.

Unbelievably gorgeous. Was there ever a car made with more appealing proportions? One day, mine will be there…

Bartering services is a tricky thing, I’m finding out. I do Web and graphic design and tutoring on the side to supplement my day job’s income, and recently connected (through my car community) with a pair of guys who run a car restoration outfit and car care products retailer. I e-mailed them asking if they needed help with their websites, since the ones they had up looked pretty bare-bones. I do “cold e-mailing” from time to time and don’t usually get a response, so I was pleased when they wrote back, interested in working out a deal.

They’re relatively cashless, and my car needs a little work here and there, so we’re in the process of working out a deal whereby I provide them Web design services and they tackle a few projects my car’s been needing… But good gravy, it’s hard to come to an agreement.

First of all there needs to be agreement on the value of the services provided. When dealing in cash the process just ends there, since everybody wants money; that’s the advantage of it. But to barter services we both have to be in agreement about the nature of the services provided as compensation, too… And there’s the rub. There’s one thing I want for my car, quite badly: the bumper conversion mentioned a few posts down. And they’re unwilling to tackle it, for a number of reasons. So I’m disappointed about that, and conflicted as well, since I really do want to design their websites—it would give me a chance to “make a name for myself,” as it were, in the car community I frequent, among other things. But I don’t want to sell myself short. I’ve done Web design for quite a while now and know how these things can balloon and spiral out of control.

So we’ll see what happens. The ball’s in their court at the moment. I sent them at e-mail last night relenting from my dogged pursuit of the bumper swap, or at least of having them do it. I hope we can work something out.

Replaced the 6er’s water pump and thermostat over the weekend. It was a fairly straightforward job. Other than the fan nut—a 32mm nut securing the radiator fan to the water pump pulley, reverse-threaded—there was nothing unconventional about the setup at all. This differs greatly from other water pump jobs I’ve done: The Audi’s was driven by the timing belt, requiring a re-time after reinstalling the crank pulley (ugh), and the Volvo’s had to be installed dry (no silicone) and leveraged into position against the cylinder head. The 6er’s water pump was blessedly ordinary in comparison. Got everything buttoned up late last night and drove it to work this morning; everything’s nominal. The car doesn’t leak a drop any more and cools very well—too well, almost, since I got a cooler thermostat. But it runs great, which is a nice feeling.

The big news on the upgrade front this weekend is progress finding Euro bumpers. My car came with massive US-spec “diving board” crash bumpers. They protect the car; it’s true, but mar its appearance in ways unacceptable to me, as a designer. Aftermarket replacements are nonexistent, so for those interesting in making their 6er look like it was supposed to, there are three solutions:

1. 1982-1987 E28-chassis “wraparound”-style Euro bumpers
2. 1976-1981 E12-chassis Euro bumpers
3. 1988-1989 “world” bumpers

I wrote this on a 6er-related forum:

Can’t stand ’em. Especially on a white car… The contrast of the white paint and the black moldings just makes them stand out all the more. It’s just a tragedy of function over form. On an E28, E23 or E30 they’re more palatable, but on our 6ers, which we buy (let’s be honest) for their looks more than anything else–not that other factors aren’t important–the bumpers are just a sin.

I completely appreciate the added protection they provide. Totally get that. But at the end of the day, using that argument as the primary one to placate myself into being okay with them is like justifying the purchase of one sports car over another based solely on trunk size. When it comes down to brass tacks, it’s a minor reason—at best.

I have got to get different bumpers on it. Euros transform the way these cars look. They actually improve the already gorgeous lines of the car. World bumpers are neutral, and US-spec bumpers detract from the lines.

Something’s just gotta be done to my 6er in this regard. I want to do it before I do any other appearance-related mods (rims, lowering, spoiler, etc). I know the hassle involved–especially with Euro bumpers–but I’m one motivated individual.

As mentioned above, the big news this weekend on the bumper front was progress: I found a gentleman willing to part with his E12-chassis Euro bumpers and deliver them for $350. We’ll see if anything ultimately comes of that. Here’s hoping…

Unprivatized a couple of entries from last month.  Nothing revelatory; just the usual drivel.  Many times I post a sentence or two in a private entry to remind myself to return later and flesh out the thought, but just as often it doesn’t happen, or at least doesn’t happen in a timely manner.  Ah well.

Web design was quite busy for a while, and it occupied the time in my evening, sitting here in bed next to my sleeping wife, usually reserved for journaling.  Business has tapered off lately, so I’m going to try to post more, with the eventual goal being to try to strike some sort of balance where I’m not all bent out of shape if I don’t post every day, but I don’t go too long without recording something someone might consider of value.

Another element conspiring against my hoped-for prolific-ness is my diversity of interests.  One day it’s traveling overseas, another day it’s getting back in flying, the next day it’ll be really focusing on my guitar playing, then it’ll be astronomy and space exploration, after that’s it’s tweaking our website, and so on…  It’s not an ideal state of affairs, and I should point out that all these interests are in effect the "icing on the cake" of investment in my wife and kids and home life here–without a doubt the most important "interest," if you can even call it that.  Everything else comes second or lower.  If there’s time available for a more icing-like interest, great; if not, that’s fine too.  Loose hands.

Lately, however, it’s been cars again.  I introduced Diane to Top Gear last year and to my surprise and delight she totally loves the show.  We had a few seasons on DVD, and this past spring there were many weeks in which we’d watch one a night, just about.  As one might expect, it had the side effect of really rekindling my latent passion for all thing automotive, and if we’re honest with ourselves, one of the eventual results was our purchase of the minivan a couple of months ago.

If you’ve been reading my journal for any length of time you know that I have a real weakness for project cars, especially from the ’80s and early ’90s (most of them are at the bottom of their depreciation curves so it works out well).  After buying the minivan, we had three cars, and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to sell one, bide my time with the cash in hand, waiting for the right car to come along, driving the other car in the meantime, and snapup a good example once it came along, selling the remaining car once that purchase was complete.  I talked it over with Diane and she was mostly okay with the idea, her only real stipulation being that she’d like it to have four doors so that it could be used more easily as a family car, in a pinch.

I went through a labyrinthine series of decisions, settling on one car, then another, deciding to keep one of our existing cars after all, then the other, and back again.  It was exhausting in more ways that one.  Initially I had my heart set on a late-’80s BMW 3-series (E30), stickshift, but for divers reasons that didn’t pan out, then I was very interested in a rarer version of the Volvo we currently own, the 780 (our is a 940 Turbo).  That plan didn’t work either, and the end result of it all is that I’ve decided to keep our Volvo and I sold Diane’s old car, a Saturn station wagon.  So we’re down to two cars again.

I have to say, though, I’m still holding out for that 780, one day when our debt has been driven down a bit and the dust has settled in other ways.  It’s boxy, yes, but the proportions are exactly right for me–the balance of visual masses, especially from the side, is perfect, and it’s comfortable and something special (only 5600 of them were imported to the US).  And mechanically it’s almost identical to our 940 (rear-wheel-drive), so that’s a known quantity.  They’re all automatics, but a manual swap can be done, and it’s not terribly expensive.  Diane was even a fan of it, calling it "academic-looking" and "pretty."  I would be quite happy commuting to work in one of those.

But for now, I’m resolved to be content.

For those of you bored out of your minds when I lapse into bouts of car-related mudanity, this is the only time I’ll do this, and is mainly just so I can have the whole thing compiled somewhere. If there’s one thing I have endless stories about, it’s cars (well, and Europe), and I’ve always been on the fence about whether I should uncork that part of my experience in here.

But as I’ve been meaning to do this for quite a while, my car history

Here’s what I’m not going to do: I’m not going to assert that the cars are attractive or explain why they look good or bad. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the cars certainly have a few admirers. That said, my personal feeling is that the cars are hideous. Absolutely ghastly and a massacre of BMW’s, nay, Germany’s styling traditions. There are many ways to push the envelope stylistically, be progressive, and Bangle’s methodology is not it for everyone.

That said, I admire the guy and have what I think is a plausible theory for why the cars look they way they do. I’m an industrial designer by degree and I know that at the professional level car stylists operate, there are reasons behind almost every design decision. Styling and design may seem arbitrary, nebulous and terribly subjective to the outsider, but one of the fundamentals of design theory is to have a reason, a tie, behind as much of the design as is possible; something beyond “It just looks good.” Styling isn’t purely art, and it’s not purely engineering; it’s a combination, and it can be understood and reasoned with, not fully, but to a much greater degree than is commonly thought.

What does this mean in practical terms? It means that in all good designs, the lines were drawn, sculpted and placed where they were for a purpose, whether that purpose is more on the functional (Ford GT40) or aesthetic (Series 1 E-Type) end of the spectrum. A well-styled car’s lines communicate something, and that’s the reason we can attach adjectives to a car when viewing it like “fast” for a Maserati Ghibli, “feminine” for a Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso (or conversely, “masculine” for a BMW 850 CSi), “capable” for a Hummer H1 or “stately” for a Rolls-Royce Camargue.

So with that established, we can introduce another premise: Since Bangle has been hired and supported by as prestigious a company as BMW, it’s because they believe he’s a good designer. And since the vast majority of good designers operate to some degree on a more rational, conscious level than pure intuition (the “it just looks good” level) we can infer that Bangle probably has certain thought-out reasons for making the cars look the way they do.

So why do the cars look the way they do? What is Bangle thinking, and what, if anything does he want the cars’ looks to communicate about them? The reasons are especially hard to infer when dealing with cars whose aesthetic qualities (read: ugliness) are difficult to look beyond, with the goal of speculating about them on a more objective level, but they’re there. The primary reason may seem far-fetched, but I think it holds water. It’s best illustrated by drawing a connection between 19th century art history and Bangle’s recent efforts in the realm of car styling.

German styling has traditionally relied on proportion above all else. This means the cars weren’t necessarily flashy, but instead garnered adjectives like “understated,” “classy” or “conservative.” We almost didn’t process the styling elements of the car on a conscious level, we just knew the car “looked good.” The design of the typical German car didn’t stand out, but was functional, efficient, neatly packaged and confident.

And there was something immensely appealing about that, even if we may not have even realized there was a styling process present in the cars’ creation. You see, design is like art in that there are two elements to it—the process and the product. In a painting, for example, these would be the act of creating the painting itself (the technique, paint, movement, studio, subject, circumstances, emotions), and the piece itself, the finished expression. Traditionally, in German cars (pick any BMW, M-B or Audi from the ’80s) and in cars in general to a lesser degree, all we saw was the product. For all we knew the cars’ styling sprang fully-formed from the drawing boards, and the cars looked that way too because of the deliberate confidence of their lines. We only saw the finished expression. German styling at this point was analogous to artwork of the early 19th century–the ideal was the power of the finished product. The smaller and less obvious the brushstrokes the better. More photorealism, more rigid compositions, more structure. And the best paintings of that era certainly have an appeal, both aesthetic and intellectual.

But then the Impressionist movement came along in the mid/late 1800s. All of a sudden we noticed the process behind the product. We saw the brushstrokes; the artists wore their technique on their sleeves. Seurat’s main appeal was his Pointillist technique. Van Gogh’s brush strokes were integral to his artwork. And at the time, many people thought the paintings were aberrations, grotesque, hideous—but the movement revolutionized art.

This, I believe, touches on the reasons behind Bangle’s styling decisions. The lines may seem arbitrary, yes, but we finally notice that the cars are styled, for better or for worse. Basic design “building blocks” of the cars stand out like the trunk on the 6-series or the flanks of the Z4. We may not like the way the cars look, but we have to admit that our perceptions of the process have changed, even if it’s the simple act of noticing there is a process in the first place. It’s almost as if we can see the “brushstrokes” still present in the styling. Simply put, “Bangle-ism” is Impressionism for cars.

Take it or leave it, but think about it the next time a 7-series drives by or you read an article about an M6 in a magazine.

* * * * * *

Small sidebar: The recent attempts to “scale back” Bangle influence (read: E90 and 7-series restyle) and incorporate more traditional BMW styling themes are not a move in the right direction. I’ve always been of the opinion that if you adhere to a design philosophy, adhere to it fully, and the resultant “hybrid” styling creations have none of the intellectual appeal of Bangle’s initial, unencumbered work or the intellectual and aesthetic appeal of the traditional BMW look. They’re not hot or cold but lukewarm in terms of their styling loyalties but represent inferior styling efforts to Bangle’s more radical work.

Originally posted here.

What’s wrong with the American auto industry?

The Big Three’s bread-and-butter cars are decidedly lackluster compared to their foreign counterparts. In the latest issue of Newsweek, there’s a two-page ad for Buick inside the front cover. The central selling point of this advertisement praises the plant where the car is manufactured for having won a J.D. Power award. The ad doesn’t spotlight any of the car’s attributes. Not even standard feature lists or warranty comparisons (that Chrysler was so fond of in the early ’90s when all their cars were dogs). No–the plant is evidently the car’s strongest selling point versus its competitors. Have we really sunk that far?

GM is offering ridiculous rebates. Everywhere I look market share is dropping. But as I’ve heard it said many times, the problem is that American car manufacturers, on average, just aren’t making anything Americans want to buy.

Toyota’s introducing a very well-engineered line of hybrid luxury cars. Honda’s making forays into the SUV/truck market with the Ridgeline, which despite naysayers is going to be a big hit. And the list goes on… Technological innovations are being incorporated left and right in mainstream cars–mainstream import cars. Where’s the long-term vision of American manufacturers?

It’s clear a radical shift of the business model is in order. What I see happening is another event like the one that transpired in the auto industry in the early ’70s: Another energy crisis will hit, and American manufacturers will scramble to adapt to market conditions foreign companies had forseen and prepared for years in advance. Market share will plummet, and just as import carmarkers grabbed a much larger slice of the pie back in the ’70s, the upcoming energy crisis will be their cataylst for outright dominance of the American market.

What do you think? What should American manufacturers do make themselves more competitive, beyond a simple answer like “build better cars?”

Originally posted here.

First off, let me say that the small-block Chevy is the best all-around engine ever made. Period. The performance potential, the popular tuning expertise, the power-to-weight ratio of the latest iteration: put it all together and you have the best engine ever. This position can be backed up by any number of car enthusiasts; venture to contest it and I’ll wager at least a half-dozen SBC buffs will produce numbers and stats reasserting its superiority.

This declaration may come as a mild surprise to some of you acquainted with my general import car and specific rotary engine fandom. But a clarification is in order–the arena of appreciation of a particular powerplant is big enough for more than one exclusive attribute, or in my case two: respect and interest.

That said, do I respect the SBC and its virtues? Absolutely. Does it interest me? Not in the least.

Put two vehicles side-by-side, say a Corvette Z06 with the factory performance catalog added and a Miata with a homebrew turbo system scavenged from various cars and run with a owner-programmed EMS, and I’ll invariably be drawn to the latter. The Corvette may blow away the Miata in every way, but how many times have the standard parts (cam, headers, etc) been added to an SBC in the pursuit of power? Yawn. Yes, it may spin the tires through third and run 10s all day every day, and I have nothing but respect for that. It’s power and that’s always a draw. But let’s do something different. That’s where the interest lies.

Respect is about those qualities I admire in a car: power, handling and the like. Interest is about those qualities I’m drawn to in a scope wider than just the automotive realm: innovation, creativity, new solutions to old problems that may at first be inferior to their elders but could potentially, with enough development, eclipse the traditional “best way” to do something.

I have a hunch more enthusiasts than just me view their automotive passion this way. If nothing else, maybe it will explain why a lot of car buffs persist in focusing on forms of internal combustion that are seemingly inferior in so many ways to the tried-and-true-and-effective. It’s a matter of interest.

Originally posted here.

I thought my power mirrors and door locks were broken in expensive and/or time-consuming ways, as in the switches or the actuators. I even discovered that the door lock vacuum pump from the trunk was missing altogether, got one from a parts car and was confused as to why it didn’t do a darn thing when I plugged it in.

Turns out all I needed was the 10A fuse.

It was completely missing from the under-hood fuse box, and it protects both systems. There was evidence of a good deal of fuse box chicanery when I bought the car about a year ago, so I’m not entirely surprised.

It’s nice when you can “repair” two of your car’s systems for $2.50 (for a 6-pack of 10A blades) and 3 minutes.

That made my morning. Just thought I’d share.

Originally posted here.

How long have you worked on cars? Not loved then, not driven them, but really worked on them? How has your approach to the hobby/obsession/all-consuming passion changed in that time?

I’ve been into vehicles and specifically cars for as long as I can remember (well before my age acquired a second digit, even), so in a sense I had always been accumulating knowledge about them before I really started getting grease under my fingernails. I didn’t really work on them, and even shied away from that pursuit to a degree until I bought two first-gen RX-7s (on a whim–is there any other way to buy a car?) as project cars about five years ago. After that, my experience and knowledge of cars ramped up exponentially as I’ve averaged about one engine swap a year since then, with varying degrees of success.

When I first started wrenching under the hood I didn’t have the touch with tools that I do now. A fastener that took me ten minutes to loosen then would take me a matter of seconds now, and on the other end I can sense when a bolt or screw is really tight enough. I don’t have to consciously think about which way to turn a nut to loosen it when reaching around the back side of a component to get to the fastener–my fingers just know which way to turn it. And I can visualize the engine and drivetrain as a system and in terms of their specific subsystems in a heartbeat after I pop the hood, or even just driving down the road thinking about the internal combustion that’s taking place on the other side of the firewall.

In spite of all this, I think my appetite for digging around under the hood has mellowed somewhat. Within the first couple of years I would work on the car at all hours of the night for hours at a time with no food, tools in disarray, multiple bandaids on each hand. More of my evenings and weekends were spent fixing this or tweaking that. Now, though… I think about my approach to working on my Audi, and it’s almost like I need to organize my garage, block off a whole Saturday, get the boombox, shop towels, etc, just to begin to undertake a repair or upgrade.

Maybe I’m just more realistic about the time it actually takes me to do what I used to think I could get done much more quickly. I certainly don’t leave as many “projects” half done and come back to them the next day or the next week. I’ll usually only start on something if I have all the necessary tools and parts–before it was almost like I needed to compulsively disassemble something otherwise I’d go nuts.

Maybe I’m just less enthusiastic about cars in general. I’ve certanly been more frugal in my spending lately, and for the first time in a while I don’t have a project car, at least not one in progress (the 240Z resto is still waiting for takeoff, as it were). Having a project tends to spur my interest and involvement in the hobby, I think.

I dunno. I could conjecture further about reasons why I feel like I’ve mellowed out but the attitude remains. And I think it’s a good thing. There’s more balance–I’m not as voracious about turning wrenches and it’s given place to other pursuits in my life. So in the end it’s not a negative thing, or really overwhelmingly positive, but more of an observation than anything else.

How has your own interest waxed and waned over the years? Where does it stand now?

Originally posted here.

Spent 15 straight hours on Saturday putting an engine into a car, a ’90 Supra, to be precise.

It’s all part of a deal I arranged late last year in order to get a 1JZ-GTE into my ’88. See, the car I was pulling the 1JZ from had already had the conversion done, but I wanted the engine in my car, so I pulled it and installed it in mine with the understanding that I would drop an engine into the donor vehicle and restore it to saleable status. Lesson no.1: When conducting a transaction that involves labor as part of the deal, be very, very sure of what you’re getting into. I won’t say that cash is always preferable, but in my case at least, I tend to bite off more than I can chew with these deals.

Of course, it wasn’t just the engine that needed to go into the ’90. One of the tie rods was bent, so I swapped steering racks and wheel hubs (easier than popping off the steering knuckle ball joint, trust me). The subframe needed a little prepping, and the engine to go in itself was basically a bare long block, and needed to be dressed and bolted to its transmission before installation. This was the part that I thought was going to be much easier than it actually turned out to be.

I had a spare engine and transmission lying in my garage that would serve as the donor for the needed parts on the long block to go into the ’90. This is where the first major snag came up. The long block didn’t have a pilot bearing for the transmission input shaft, and I didn’t have a pilot bearing puller for the necessary part off the donor engine. After some scrounging around, halfhearted attempt at careful prying, head scratching, and many minutes spent just staring at the rear main seal area and stewing in frustration, it was decided to just cook up a makeshift puller. Took a piece of angle iron, fired up the drill press, found a pair of suitable bolts and one arm off a small puller, and tried out the solution. After a few minutes of wrench turning, the pilot bearing popped out. I don’t have many success stories to tell involving fabrication, so I figured I’d share this one. Picture 1 2 3

The second major snag occurred when I realized I didn’t have a clutch alignment tool either. This was a bit more straightforward and didn’t involve any fabrication, just a lot of elbow grease. Installed the clutch disk and pressure plate, but only barely tightened two bolts opposite one another on either side of the pressure plate, allowing the clutch disk to slide around somewhat. Lifted the tranny, and after several attempts, finally got the thing to slide all the way on and touch the bellhousing to the block. This step completed, my assistant and I (Joel, who was with me the whole time–kudos) slid the tranny off very quickly and carefully, and tightened down the rest of the bellhousing bolts.

So we got it all done and the engine in. About halfway through the experience Joel remarked that I was a very goal-oriented person (as opposed to someone who just gives themselves a time limit for how long they’re work on something), and I couldn’t help but agree, since my one goal was to get that engine in the car, no matter how long it took that day. But through the course of those two experiences (and several others which aren’t coming to mind at the moment), we probably squandered several hours and a lot of patience… Next time I’ll be sure to have everything I need. The right tools are good for the temper, the time, and the knuckles.

Had any experiences involving the absence of the right tool?

Originally posted here.

Had an (all too rare) moment of insight last night while working on the Supra.

Replaced the water pump yesterday. This is one of the (few) aspects of Toyota engineering I’m not too fond of, and I’m sure they had their reasons, but in order to replace the water pump on a JZ-series engine, the front pulley, timing belt, and even the timing belt tensioner must be removed–the pump just tucks in behind everything on the front of the engine. So last night I was bolting everything back together, and the time came to torque the main pulley bolt something fierce–the spec is somewhere around 175 ft-lbs. I have my trusty 1/2 in. drive torque wrench for this and other suspension-related fasteners, but the trick as far as the front pulley is blocking the engine in order to be able to torque the bolt down. In most cases I would just remove the starter and wedge a hefty screwdriver in the flywheel teeth, but in this case the starter was inaccessible. The car is awaiting installation of the diff (4.10 Torsen LSD–yay), so the driveshaft is hanging free, and I decided to block the driveshaft yoke against the underside of the car to prevent it from turning. Problem was, every time I tried to put any sort of torque on the front bolt, the bar blocking the driveshaft would work its way loose. I had the car in first gear, and then it occured to me–the torque I put on the pulley bolt is being multiplied through the tranny, causing substantially more force on the driveshaft block than I’m applying. So I hopped in, put the car in fifth so there would be a torque reduction through the tranny (overdrive), and clicked the bolt down to 175 ft-lbs without breaking a sweat.

Finished rewiring the harness (again). Should start this afternoon if all goes well. Wish me luck.

Originally posted here.

…I don’t know what I’ll do.

Sadly, Mazda has been the worst offender recently. Whatever happened to cars looking like, I dunno, cars? There seems to be a spate of anthropomorphic styling of late, for reasons unknown… But then do most trends ever really have a reason? Come back, pop-up headlights. Come back, cars that don’t look like video games on wheels.

*sigh*

/rant

Originally posted here.

question du jour
What automotive makes are you partial to, and why?

I think it goes a bit beyond the domestic/import question into our own personal experiences as gearheads and shadetree mechanics.

So speak from your own experience, giving rational reasons why you favor or dislike a certain brand. Something they always seem to do? A way that a dealer’s treated you? The way a car is put together? Or maybe you were a fan of a certain brand until you owned a car of theirs that really let you down. Let’s hear it, in context of brand loyalty (or disloyalty). Maybe you’ve not had experience with more than one make–do you find things you think could have been done better, objectively?

I don’t wanna hear, “Well, my pop says all _____ are crap, so I agree with that,” or such like. Real reasons.

I’ll always be partial to Toyota. The cars seem designed with a certain intelligence in mind–everything is screwed or bolted together securely, not snapped, and quality (in my mind) aluminum is used instead of plastic in many cases. Most simple repairs are just that–simple. It’s as if the engineers consciously thought of what would have to be replaced in relatively short intervals, and made those bits more accessible. All bolts and nuts are either 10, 12, 14, or 17 mm, which makes repairs quicker without the guesswork, and instead of things being done half-assed (i.e. wiring harness routed too close to exhaust manifold, so wrapped in flimsy heat shield), they’re done right (wiring harness re-routed completely to avoid conflict).

This stands in contrast to my experiences working on Fords. I’ve singlehandedly done an engine replacement in a Taurus wagon and a transmission swap in a Foxbody Mustang. Most bits are well-designed, but many simple, simple parts require disassembling half the engine bay to access, and I’ve seen more than one item simply screwed into the sheet metal of the engine bay wall without a nut welded onto the other side of the metal–so guess what happens when you overtighten just a hair (as is easy to do)…

Other observations along brand lines have to do with quality of operation. For example, every GM car I’ve ever driven has had the most abominable turn signal lever I’ve experienced. You flick it one way or another to indicate the direction you’ll be moving, and instead of the pleasing, positive *thunk* I get from a Toyota, the result is the most sickeningly flimsy, plastic *click* imaginable. It just doesn’t speak quality to me. Every Honda I’ve driven has a uniformity among switchgear operation (no play, precise movements) that seems like it would be worth paying extra money for, even if a certain car came with fewer features outright. And finally, every German car (Audi, VW, BMW) that I’ve had the pleasure to drive has had a tautness, a lack of slop, in the suspension that engenders real confidence in the handling and makes them fun to drive.

Maybe I’m just overly picky, but these are the details that shape my experience with a certain make, and influence me greatly (more than anything else, really) when I’m considering another car.

Originally posted here.

Getting extraordinarily frustrated with the car. About a month ago I pulled the engine harness off the car and rewired the ECU side of it, getting rid of all the splices and generally cleaning things up pretty well.

Got everything reattached last night, and the car persists in doing the same thing it had before the rewire: Starting strong, revving to ~1500 rpm for a second or two, then completely dying. Every possible course of investigation into the causes of this has been pursued–sensors, wiring, ECU, connectors… Everything.

I know it’s going to be something simple. It can’t be complicated and not change at all as I plug and unplug various peripherals searching for the culprit.

It had been be worth it to drive; that’s all I have to say.

I’m not as bummed out as you might imagine, though. If nothing else I was encouraged by the fact that I ripped the whole harness off the car, rewired and cleaned up every wire leading to the ECU, and I didn’t screw up the car more than it was before. This is good.

I hooked the battery charger up to it earlier and sat in the driver’s seat, listening to the stereo and shifting aimlessly, left hand holding the steering wheel. Between bouts of frustration with the harness, I needed some re-motivation.

Random pictures:

The mass of splices on the ECU side of the harness, pre-rewiring.

The cleaned-up and lengthened harness, all soldered and buttoned up.

1JZ-GTE. Stock a 280 hp mill, assuming I have decent compression from the ~25K mi. engine (and happy turbos), with the 3″ exhaust, intake, and boost bumped up to 10 psi, I should be over 300 comfortably. For a while. Assuming I get this running by February (please God), I’ll have some hard numbers after a dyno day.

Poor man’s BMW 850i. Apologies for the lamppost in the middle of the photo. The rims are loaners–they’re from the engine’s donor car and the owner of said car wants them back. I couldn’t resist putting them on, though. They’re only 16×7 (stock size), but it’s definitely the style I want, albeit much larger (18×9-10). All in good time. I just want to drive it… Wish me luck.

Update 12/30/03: It RUNS! Thanks for all the help, guys. It wasn’t getting fuel, as most of you suspected. After poking around for a little bit I did the one thing I hadn’t done yesterday that I knew to do–jumpered the fuel pump from the diagnostic block on the harness. It fired right up and didn’t die! There are still a few more quirks to work out, but this is HUGE, and I’m elated.

Originally posted here.

I had gotten everything hooked up, and after splicing about 25 wires last Wednesday and spending almost all of my free time the rest of the week and Saturday debugging the TPS and MAP sensor wiring, I got the car to a point where it would start, rev to 1500 for a few seconds, then die, without my touching anything. If I tried to keep it alive with the throttle, it would just die all the more quickly. I wired up custom harnesses, bypassing the main harness from the sensors in question to the ECU, to no avail–same deal.

It was clear a couple of days ago that the harness on the car, pre-extended by a gentleman in California but of questionable quality, had a short or a crossed wire somewhere in the loom, not to mention the glove box area was a rat’s nest of splices. I had visions of wrestling with the harness for a few more days, getting the car running for another week, then getting inexplicable electrical issues that put the car out of commission for months or worse, damaging the engine. I did not want this. I had spent about 30-35 hours on the car in the past week and was getting extraordinarily frustrated at its lack of cooperation. I had a couple of options:

1. Go standalone. MoTeC makes aftermarket ECUs that would adapt to the 1JZ, and the Haltech E11 will actually even use the stock Toyota coils, ignitor, CPS, and include a base fuel map, enough to get me to the dyno so I could work the rest of the fuel and ignition curves out. The processors inside either unit are light-years ahead of the ~1990 programming in the factory ECU. Going standalone is arguably the acme of my tuning goals–it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.

2. Pull the existing harness completely off the car and rewire everything from sensor to ECU, doing it right, no splicing, but solid wires, shielded where necessary, soldered, heat-shrunk, and zip-tied. This has the advantage of being free, minus the wires and such, and I have wiring diagrams and pinouts already for the ECU. It also doesn’t require any tuning after the fact. Double/triple check everything, hook up connectors, and turn the key. Hopefully.

3. Triple blow-through Webers, a la early Esprit Turbo. Just kidding.

So it looks like no.2 is the way I’m going. I don’t want to have to take off the upper intake manifold but it looks like I’m going to have to.

On the plus side, I’ve gotten a set of mk4 550cc injectors (straight drop-in w/resistor pack) and mk3 Supra-specific coilovers for really cheap. The shocks are gone on them, but hopefully that should be a simple matter of finding replacement cartridges. Also, for the little time the engine was alive, the car sounded beautiful, what with the 3″ HKS downpipe and GReddy catback. Very deep and powerful–nothing raspy or tinny about it at all.

Originally posted here.

How can a sports car driver ever be happy with their car?

Sports cars, by and large, are about speed. Speed in the twisties, or speed down the strip on a Saturday night, even speed to a halt (braking). But here’s the thing many of us realize, especially after embarking on our car’s modification program: There will always be someone faster than you. There will always be cars that cling to the corners more tenaciously, are more direct in their responses, and hook up better off the line. How does one reach automotive contentment, then? How can you be really happy with your car when you’re annihilated at a stoplight race or humiliated around the road course? Can you be?

The key I think is to own a car that is special to you for reasons unrelated to pure speed. A car that agrees with you. A car that feels like home when you sit in it and lets you breathe more deeply when you sink into the seat after a hard day at work. A car that makes you smile just tooling around town at 25 mph. A car that is your car.

I used to ponder the owner loyalty of cars I was familiar with–the FB, the Z-car, FD, the mk4 Supra, etc… and why for example many, many first-gen RX-7 owners will hang onto their cars through thick and thin, whereas more than a few mk4 drivers go through a couple of cars in a year–and I think there’s more at work than simply the financial ability to buy and sell cars frequently. For a lot of owners there’s something the FB has that the mk4 doesn’t (and vice-versa of course), counterintuitive to many of us who are acquainted with the latter car’s prowess, and I think those subtler qualities are lost on a lot of the performance-fixated automotive community.

We’re all addicted to speed, sure, but that intangible special quality of a car we’re really attached to is beneficial in more than one way, I think. It’s that knowledge, that feeling, that promotes a sense of contentment when we’re approached a light and revved on and we decline to go, just knowing that we don’t have anything to prove. It’s that knowledge that makes us humble about our cars, and fosters an atmosphere in which we can genuinely appreciate others’ cars without getting defensive. We see our car’s flaws, to be sure, but somehow they’re okay; they’re inconveniences cheerfully borne.

And that’s what made me keep the Supra. With the addition of a few mods, I felt myself getting caught up in the Great Speed Race, uncomfortably so, and wanted an “out,” another car where it might be easier to sense its other endearing qualities upon an initial drive, and I immediately gravitated towards my first automotive love (the FB). But then I realized I could have that with the Supra too. All I had to do was to re-experience what made the car special to me. It just took a moment.

It was a cold night when I slipped into the perfectly contoured seat, surveyed the dash, with all the controls and switches ideally placed. I turned the key, the car started with an elastic smoothness and settled down to a rock-solid 700 rpm idle. I flipped the lights on; the headlights popped up and the gorgeous analog gauges were lit up with a pleasingly pale green. I gripped the thick steering wheel and rested my hand on the shifter. Everything felt substantial, solid. The car just fit me. I thought about the way the car looked and the image that projected–not the flashiest, most curvaceous body style, but understated, well-proportioned, and attractive–and I thought about my own self-image. My impression of the car and my concept of what I wanted to project lined up perfectly. It agreed with me; it was home–and I wasn’t even moving. After that moment even the metallic rip of the inline-six up to redline and the whistle of the turbo on the way home were just fluff–the car and I shared a bond deeper than raw speed, and any thoughts of parting with it were pushed from my mind.

What makes your car your car?

Originally posted here.

Minor swap progress, since my hands were absolutely trashed Monday night from bolting the turbos back on the 1JZ. Looking at it sitting on the garage floor got me thinking about engine appearance and attractiveness, specifically, which engines I found most appealing just by looking at them in their cars’ bays. I narrowed it down to a top four, in no particular order:

1. Series 1 Jaguar E-Type 4.2L inline six, with the polished cam covers
2. Skyline R34 RB26DETT (gives the impression of a great deal of sophisticated mechanism crammed into a very tight space)
3. Second generation 1JZ-GTE
4. BMW 850CSi S70

I think the common link between all these, besides that they’re all multiples of six cylinders, is the look they have of pure mechanical efficiency, rather than raw, brute power. Granted, some of that feel is necessary too, but the primary link between the top four is one of effective engineering.

For me a lot of it has to do with how much of the engine I can actually see. I mean, does it look like an engine? This is why rotaries will never make it on the list–while I have nothing but affection for those engines, they’re so compact and buried under their assorted vacuum hoses and manifolds that the actual substance is hard to find. Not just rotaries, though, as other engines like the ’70s-’80s Jag V12, while impressive technically, just don’t look the part. There’s also a trend nowadays, and rightly so, of incorporating more plastic into engine design, what with the development of plastics that can withstand the heat cycles and chemicals present under the hood. They’re used more often for manifolds and intake piping and especially engine covers, and while practical, from a design standpoint this just doesn’t do it for me like being able to actually see the cam covers or a few cast aluminum intake pipes. There’s nothing like metal to give the impression of substance.

If there’s one constant I’ve noticed among particular brand nationalities, it’s German engines, VWs, Audis, but especially MBs and BMWs, and the absolutely rigorous organization of the accessories and mechanical bits under the hood. I get the impression that each peripheral and accessory could go no where else in the engine than where it is–there’s a definite purpose to every placement.

Side note: Interesting how our affinity for a particular engine’s appearance stems in large part from the power output we know it can conjure on any casual foray with the right foot. At least, that’s how it is for me. I tend to feel better about an engine I’m examining if I can stand over it and make revving noises. I suppose I’ll get a life one of these days…

Originally posted here.