At Home Mechanic

May 4, 2006

A Natural Progression

Some things in life are natural, expected and in some cases inevitable. Spring follows winter. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Salmon return to their home streams to spawn. And a new driver will crumple a fender within weeks of receiving his or her driver’s license. While it can be unsettling for a new driver to make his or her “mark” on the driving community, a small amount of sheet metal damage should be viewed as an opportunity to learn a valuable lesson about paying attention to detail and not being overly confident behind the wheel.

It only took me less than a week after receiving my driver’s license in the summer of my 16th year to stuff the right front corner on my Mother’s 1971 Pinto Runabout into the wheel well of a parked truck while making a U-turn in a strip mall parking lot. The heavy gauge sheet metal of the truck barely noticed the intrusion of the tiny Ford. The truck driver wiped away the smudge in the paint with the moistened tip of his finger and told me to be more careful. The fiberglass headlight surround and the first three inches of tinny fender on Mom’s Pinto were crushed like my hopes of ever dating the Homecoming Queen.

I do not remember Mom’s reaction to the way I had re-sculpted the compound curves of her car’s front fender, I suspect that she was less than pleased about what I had done to her car. I do remember that Dad was philosophical about it and glad that the damage was not far worse. For my sins I had to buy a new headlight surround and Dad supervised my work with a jar of Bondo to put the fender back into a semblance of order. While the body and fender work I did on the Pinto was something less than perfect, the experience made me a much more careful driver; in the following 35 years I have barely done more than brush a bumper.

I now have a 16-year old son of my own who is a new driver. Rather than have him experience his first accident in a car that I care about I bought him a nearly pristine, though very used, 1990 Honda Prelude. Clean, straight and mechanically sound I figured the Prelude would offer a young man a modicum of style and performance in a reasonably economical and reliable package. Normally I would have insisted that my son use his own hard earned money to acquire a car; I see this as a character building opportunity. But our family’s circumstances are not normal and it is to my advantage to have my son fill in as second driver for the household. I console myself by knowing that I have bought him a car that will serve him well through the remainder of his education through graduate school.

When my son first started to drive I would hold my breath and wait for the cell phone call telling me to come help sweep up the debris from his first accident. A month passed and I never got that call. A second and third month passed with no incidents. By the fourth month I began to relax. But it was while I was lulled into a false sense of security that I finally got the call.

Parking is tight at his high school and he must jockey for a spot on the street. While backing into a spot he lost track of a telephone pole and clipped the corner of his car. The actual damage is minor; it could even be ignored, as the damage does not affect the car’s safety or performance. But my son is proud of his car and the thought of a self-imposed blemish marring the otherwise virgin flanks of his car is more than he could bear.

If we took the car to a body shop the repair shop, I expect that the repair bill would top $500 easily. My son does not have that kind of scratch rattling around in his pockets and I may be an indulgent Dad but even I have my limits. So I have sourced a piece of replacement sheet metal and a generous supply of rattle can spray paint. I will provide the supervision but the boy will supply the labor.

My son will get some hands-on auto repair experience and maybe a life lesson about paying attention. I get the satisfaction of seeing my son learning the consequences of his actions. And my Dad gets see to how life repeats itself.

Posted by Scott at 8:45 AM | Comments (2)

March 3, 2006

Hollywood is different

I had dinner last night in a fancy Hollywood restaurant. The kind of place with a platoon of recent immigrants parking cars out front and no sign to announce that this is restaurant or any other kind of business. A consciously casual patio ambiance belies the scary menu prices this French-cum-Moroccan joint charges. The wait staff sport faux French accents and crisply pressed slacks while the patrons schmooze in the patois of the Movie Biz in their designer denim. The diners are slim and beautiful; the handsome young Best Supporting Actor nominee sitting at the table next to ours blended nearly unnoticed amongst the tables of Actors, Script Doctors and Producers.

At my table I was the only "civilian" not "in the business." My fiancee, the Movie Editor wanted to get together with her friend the Writer/Director who was celebrating his recent Vegas marriage to the Production Designer and so we made two couples to share a table for four. We talked about past productions and future projects, movies we had seen and movies we will see soon. The philosophical content of the evening covered the difference between hiring a stranger for sex or casting an actor to engage in real sex for the camera. The table's majority felt that an Actor in a role is vastly different from a Prostitute in a business transaction. But we all agreed that there is probably no difference between a Pimp and an Agent.

And we talked about cars. Cars we own and cars we will purchase or lease in the coming year. My fiancee the Movie Editor has always driven performance cars, possibly stunting her children's growth by making them ride in the vestigial back seat of her 924 Turbo during their toddler hood. The lease on her G35 Coupe is due to expire at the end of the year and she is reluctantly considering making a BMW M3 her next lease. Reluctantly because she really would rather drive a rear-engine Porsche but its rear seat is too small by even her standards.

The Writer/Director's Maserati and the Production Designer's Audi TT are both two-seat roadsters. The Writer/Director's son from a previous marriage makes three, a potential baby adoption will make four and so they must exchange one of their cars for a more practical four-seater. The Writer/Director has no intentions of loosening his grip on the paddle shifters of the Maserati. The Production Designer has an eye for design and she insists that her primary transportation must not offend her aesthetic sensibilities. She wants something stylish... although she was impressed by the Land Rovers she drove on African safari and could see herself crushing the Los Angeles landscape in a Brit bog-hopper.

I ventured a suggestion that maybe the newly weds might want to consider something less than an Armored Personnel Carrier for the mean streets of Los Angeles. Maybe a Mini would be stylish enough while offering four seats.

"Ooooo," the Production Designer purred happily, "those cars are cute." "Nah," said the Writer/Director, "I've done the Mini thing in a script I sold. It would look bad to revisit old territory."

"How about a Lexus IS250 or an Acura TSX? They have four doors, 200 horsepower and nice features," I said. "If you are lucky enough to adopt a baby you will really value the back seat access of a set of rear doors."

"Four doors? Forget it," said the Production Designer. "I need something sporty."

I sighed, asked the waiter to bring the desert menu and changed the topic to wondering why the handsome young Academy Award nominee at the next table did not have seem to have a date.

Posted by Scott at 7:21 PM | Comments (2)

February 12, 2006

A Modest Proposal

I have a “modest proposal” to make, something along the lines of Jonathon Swift’s Modest Proposal made back in the late 1700’s. Ol’ Johnny boy was a leading whit and political satirist of 18th century’s London, sort of the Bill Mahr of his time. Swift’s famous proposal was that the best solution to the pressing issue of hunger amongst the working class was to “eat the Irish.” While the joke may not translate today, at the time it was a considered a shocking and obviously satiric answer to a legitimate problem of the time.

While hunger and poverty continue to plague the world today, this is not a political blog but rather one devoted to automotive issues. One of the most pressing concerns in the automotive world is the rash of nasty, unnecessary traffic accidents involving teenaged drivers racing on the streets. Young blood runs hot and rational decision-making is not a long suit of that demographic. The consequence is that young people look to test their cars and the limits of their abilities with illegal and often dangerous street racing.

My modest proposal is that every young driver be compelled to take a driving instruction course on a real racecourse in real racecars and instructed by real racecar drivers. Put the young drivers at speed, allow them to lose control of a car and teach them how to recover. Make practical physics come alive for the kids by showing them how to toss a car into a drift and how to recover from traction loss.

And then let them race. Put them out in groups of a dozen or so in matching sedans with complete safety equipment suites on a track and let them run against each other. Instruct them to run hard, let them run off the road, bask fenders, even roll over if they play too rough. But give them that experience and show them that the track is the place where that kind of behavior belongs. Make auto racing accessible to young people; make sure that there is a drag strip and an autocross course available for “run what ya brung” events that kids can test each other in their street cars.

Showing kids that there is an appropriate place for exercising their youthful enthusiasm for fast cars will only serve to make our street safer.

Posted by Scott at 5:29 PM | Comments (0)

January 24, 2006

The secrets of automobile photography

In the last installment of my rants into the void of the Internet, I gave some pointers on getting your beloved automobile to the attention of journalists and editors who might be persuaded to put your car in their magazine. To get your car into the pages of an enthusiast’s magazine is the pinnacle of achievement for the home automobile hobbyist. It is the recognition for all the hours of labor in the garage devoted to building, restoring or improving your car. Even if your friends, family and significant other can not understand your slavish devotion to a pile of inanimate parts taking up space in the garage and making a dent in the family finances, the thrill of seeing your car in an enthusiast’s magazine is nearly enough to compensate for the abuse you have endured to achieve this confirmation of your automotive addiction.

The major points in my strategy to get your car noticed by the jaded decision-makers of the enthusiast magazines is to have a car that is a bit different from the rest in the crowd; an unusual engine, rare option packages or some other feature to make your car stand out from similar models is always the best attention getter. I also suggested that doing a bit of the work for the hard working journalist who is charged with covering your car for the magazine is always helpful. Provide a well-written background sheet on your car, including details about the restoration/improvement of the car. And be sure to include a bit of background information on yourself as the owner/builder that the magazine readers can relate to. And the extra tidbit that may tip an editor’s choice in your direction of placing your car in his magazine is a well-crafted set of pictures of your car. A picture is worth a thousand words, seeing is believing and all those other clichés will come true if a stunning photo of your car catches that editor’s eye. This entry will help you take great pictures of your car.

Taking good photographs of any subject, including your car, is fun and easy once you really learn how to make a picture. Notice that I say, “make a picture” rather than “take a picture” because good photography is a deliberate act, not something left to chance. And you do not have to spend hundreds of dollars on fancy cameras, trick lens or expensive digital software to create a great picture. A good photographer with an instamatic can take a better picture that a clueless amateur with the most expensive camera equipment.

All photography, digital or film, is about the use of light. The quality of the light you use to illuminate your subject is half the battle to good photography. Soft, low angle light from a sun low on the horizon that occurs early in the morning or late in the afternoon is ideal. What you want to avoid is using the high angle, harsh light of mid-day when photographing anything or anyone. If you cannot shoot in the early or late hours, try to shoot your subject in the covered, even light of the shade. One of the many reasons so many movies are shot in Canada (beyond the very attractive economic inducements the Canadian government provides film makers) is the relatively low angle light of the northern latitudes that is so flattering for photography.

Fill the frame of your photograph with the subject of your picture. Placing the subject of your picture off to one side or in the corner of the frame immediately drains the impact of the subject from the picture. As a photographer I like to shoot my pictures a bit wider than normal to insure that all of the car/person/scenic view/subject of my picture makes it into the frame (you would hate to cut off the top of someone’s head for example). But I use simple digital photography editing software to crop and center the picture on the subject.

A clean, unobtrusive background and foreground will help keep the focus on your picture’s subject. For automobile photography, I like to find a spot that offers an unobstructed vista in the background and a smooth, featureless foreground. Ideally, a grassy hilltop at sunrise or sunset would yield the nicest pictures. If grassy hilltops are in short supply in your neighborhood, consider shooting your car against a neutral background like a brick wall, or a leafy hedge. What you are looking to avoid is things like a telephone pole sticking up through the roof of your car. The foreground should be a stretch of clean pavement, try to find a spot without parking spot stripes or ugly oil stains. If you notice, most professional photographs of cars are on a wet surface. The water covers stains on the pavement and makes a pleasing reflection of the car’s image.

So now you got the spot, you have waited for just the right light, you even hosed down the pavement for that extra special professional look; it is time to start taking your pictures. A front, side and rear views of you car are OK, but frankly they are pretty boring. Move to a ¾ angle, a position where you can see both the front (or rear) of your car along with the side for a more interesting view. Turn the front wheels to better show off your cool wheels and tires. Get down on your belly and take a low angle shot from the ¾ angle. For an even more dynamic angle, bring a step latter and take your ¾ angle shot from above the car so that you can see the roof as well as the front (or rear) of the car as well as the side.

There you have it, all the tips you need to take a really nice set of photos of your car. Polish up your car, find that perfect spot, wait for the soft low angle light of the dawn or sunset and snap away. Package your pictures with a clearly worded, concise history of your car and have them ready to distribute to the journalist covering the car show, track event or show and shine you go to next. The chances are good that a well-prepared car owner can get his car an even shot of being featured in a car magazine.

Posted by Scott at 6:54 AM | Comments (1)

January 21, 2006

Inside the mind of the automotive media

The “Buff Books,” as they are known in the magazine trade, are those titles that appeal primarily to enthusiasts who have a narrow focus; for the purposes of this forum: automobile fans. The Buff Books are deluged with heartfelt offers from readers to begging the editors to please feature the reader's car in their magazine. For a car nut, the pinnacle of achievement is to have his or her car displayed on the pages of their favorite magazine. Let me tell the secrets of getting your car into your favorite magazine. But first, you have to understand what motivates a journalist and his editor.

As a working journalist with nearly thirty years of professional experience with one of the largest and prestigious broadcast media conglomerates in the world, I believe that I can speak with authority about the mind of the media. Although there are many media outlets that approach any topic with a predetermined point of view, the vast majority of American broadcast, print and Internet professionals bring a detached and impartial mindset to the issue or event that they try to illuminate for their audience. And nearly every journalist is a hardworking and diligent seeker of the truth, willing to sacrifice nearly everything (including a decent pay check) to serve the public’s right to know.

The classic image of a journalist is of the “ink stained wretch” that toils long and hard to reveal corruption, criminal intent or breaches in public safety for little remuneration. The satisfaction of seeing one’s word in print, revealing the truth, is the best compensation that a dedicated journalist can hope to receive because the thin margins of most media outlets means that there is not a lot of money in journalism. So while a good journalist is not willing to compromise his principles for a hand full of coins, a good lunch and a well prepared press release will go a very long way to swaying his opinion. A savvy Publicist or Public Relations flack knows that telling the press that food will be served at his press conference/media event/photo opportunity is a cinch to guarantee representatives of the Fourth Estate at his event.

But just getting the journalists to your press conference/media event/photo opportunity is only half the battle. Once you have the members of the working press to attend, you will have to deliver something noteworthy for them to include in their publication/broadcast. “Dog bites Man” is hardly newsworthy, but “Man bites Dog” is unusual enough to be included in the small news hole that most broadcasts and publications have after all the advertising space has been filled. The mundane will never get the attention of the working press.

But an unusual angel to your story may still not be enough to get a cynical editor to assign a writer/cameraman to cover you and your event. Those darn reporters/cameramen are a precious resource to the editor and can only be allocated for the very best prospective news events. But if a well-prepared story with newsworthy features walks into your newsroom on its own, a resource challenged editor is compelled to include that materiel into his publication or broadcast.

Thus armed with the knowledge of how the decisions are made by the editors of major media outlets, it is relatively easy to get your car featured in the pages of your favorite car magazine.

The most important factor to getting your car noticed and featured in a car magazine is to have something unique about your car. An unusual drive train combinations is always an attention getters so consider wedging a Cleveland 351 into your Pinto or powering your shoe box ’56 Chevy with an Allison Aviation motor. In the case of my hobby car, a 1987 Honda CRX Si, I have chosen to skip the usual engine swap that many Honda enthusiasts enjoy and have built an Old School performer from my car’s stock EW series engine. This is like making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and the Honda faithful recognize that this is as a special effort due to the scarcity of high performance parts for this old engine design. Playing the unique angle has gotten my car featured in Honda Tuning magazine.

But being different from the crowd is often not enough. Sometimes you need to go the extra step beyond having a talented wrench and a way with chrome polish. This is where your English composition skills come into play. Creating a press release for your car and having that press release available at car shows is a good way to insure that a hurried journalist covering the event gets enough background on your particular car for inclusion in his coverage of the car show.

A press release should be a concise history of the car: How the car has come to be in car show condition, a listing of special or rare parts that you used to create the car, and a profile on any awards that the car has won. You can also include a small biography about you, the owner, and be sure to highlight exactly the work that you did (as opposed to forking out the bucks to have a professional do the work) which always makes a more compelling story for magazine readers. This kind of background information makes the journalist’s job so much easier; it frees him of the task of having to ask the right questions.

But the real kicker to get your car into car magazine, on top of having a unique car that is detailed in a handy press release, is to provide the magazine with quality pictures that illustrate your car. At the very least, a series of good pictures that you can give a journalist to take back to the office will help to induce the editors to give your car more consideration. And if your pictures are good enough, the publication or website may just use them in their story. Rather than just providing a 8½ by 11 sheet of facts and figures about your car, the modern car enthusiast should burn a few CD’s with all the print info and a series of quality pictures that you can make available to any journalist who stumble past you pride and joy at the car show.

Your car needs to stand out from the crowd to get noticed by the reporters and editors of your favorite car magazine. But beyond that, you need to make the journalist’s job that much easier to stand out amongst the outstanding competitors. In my next posting I will detail how even a rank amateur can take great pictures of his car with any camera.

Posted by Scott at 4:52 PM | Comments (2)

January 13, 2006

Six Cylinder Cobra Clone

I have been thinking about building a Cobra kit car, but with a twist. Anyone can build one with a big V8 engine, I am thinking of building one with an alternative choice for the engine. Knowing that the V8's are wide and challenge the cramped engine compartment for space, my idea was to use an Inline Six Cylinder engine in my car. The immediate advantage of a six over a V8 is the smaller engine will weigh a lot less and leave a lot more room for things like allowing the driver's pedal to be mounted straight in front of the driver rather than offset to the left as on V8 Cobras.

So if the engine of choice is to be an inline six-cylinder engine, which one should I use? There is a wealth of powerful inline sixes available and most all of them will fit easily into the Cobra's engine compartment. The choice of engine manufacturer will dictate the choice for transmission mounted just behind the engine. Technically it is possible to connect an engine from manufacturer "A" to a transmission made by manufacturer "B" but it would be a whole lot easier for me, the At Home Mechanic, to use an engine and transmission combination from one manufacturer.

If I were interested in a foreign inline 6-cylinder engine/transmission the three major contenders would be from BMW, Nissan and Toyota. Each makes a long line of beefy inline sixes that come with matching transmissions that could be adapted to the Cobra. BMW engines are legendary for their precision and performance, but frankly BMW transmissions are not up to the same standard as their engines. Plus the cost of BMW parts is enough to remind you why BMW is known amongst enthusiasts as standing for Break My Wallet.

Toyota's inline six-cylinder engine dates from the late 1960's and is proven for strength and reliability. But the port design of the Toyota inline six leaves a bit to be desired. Still the Toyota engine and transmission is a pretty good choice and readily available with parts not being terribly expensive. If a Toyota engine transmission combination were to fall into my lap I would have to seriously consider using it.

Nissan's inline six engine with a factory turbo is the power plant of the legendary Skyline coupe, which is available only as a right hand drive sedan. Never sold in the United States, American enthusiasts have slipped a few used examples into this country but they hardly are common over here. That is a very strong, well proven, engine and transmission combination that would be a natural to make the kind of power I am hoping for in a small light package. But the availability of those engines in the US is fairly slim, even with the importation of cheap used engines from Japan so I will reluctantly take this engine off my list of potentials.

This brings us to the list of domestic engines that I could potentially use. The Jeep inline six has been produced since the 1960's when it debuted as a Rambler engine. Reasonably well supported in the aftermarket, it would not be too hard to make it work for my purposes. Gm has a brand new inline six that it sells in its line of intermediate trucks and has been well received by the motoring press. But being so new I doubt that there is much aftermarket support for that engine and may be pricey to acquire. The older GM "Stove Bolt" six came in a variety of displacements and is reasonably well supported in the aftermarket. At one point this engine was judged to be the best American inline six in terms of power production potential and there was even an Over Head Cam version created by Pontiac back in the 1960's. If I were a rational guy I would give this engine and the wide range of good GM transmissions that easily bolt up to it serious consideration as the inline six that should go into my Cobra. But a GM engine in a Cobra is like suggesting serving a Honey Baked Ham at a Passover dinner; it just is not done. So as attractive as the GM inline six may be to those who wish to defy conventional wisdom with the greatest elan, I will have to take a pass on this idea.

This brings us back to the Ford family of inline six engines. Designed in the late 1950's at about the same time as the small block 260/289/302/351 family of Ford V8's, the inline six can claim to come from the same stable as the heralded engines that powered the original Cobra to initial glory. Two similar versions were created, a smaller inline six of 170, 200 and 250 cubic inches were built for the compact cars of the Ford line that began with the original Falcon and ran through the Mustang, Fairline, Maverick, and Fairmont models. A larger 300-inch version was intended for truck and van use. Dead reliable, cheap to build and cast iron strong the Ford inline six was a solid if unremarkable engine.

The Ford inline six was so successful Ford exported the design for manufacture by their subsidiaries in Argentina and Australia where the Ford Falcon nameplate is still a strong seller (although completely redesigned since the tooling of the original Falcon were shipped overseas for foreign construction). But there was one significant design flaw of the Ford inline six that the Argentines and Australians fixed.

The Ford inline six featured a rather rudimentary engine head. With both intake and exhaust ports on the same side of the head, it did not take advantage of the benefits of cross flow design. And reaching back to the Flat Head days of Ford engine design, the number three and four cylinders shared a common exhaust port. But maybe worst of all, Ford shaved a few pennies per engine by casting the intake manifold as part of the head casting. The intake manifold on a Ford inline six looks roughly similar to a 2" section of pipe that is cast parallel to the head with a small mounting on top for a tiny single throat carburetor. This head design endured for the entire American production run, but the Argies and the Ozzies ditched that design as soon as possible.

Both foreign versions of the Ford inline six soon sprouted home grown heads that featured a more conventional separate intake manifold and a reworking of the port design, although a cross flow head never emerged. Both the Argie and Ozzie head are a huge improvement over the US head and can be bolted to a US block with nearly no modification at all. That is the good news; the bad news is that the foreign heads are not commonly imported to the US. It is not entirely impossible to get a foreign head into this country; a company in Arizona, Ford Six Performance Parts (www.fordsixparts.com), will import you either type of head on an as ordered basis. And the good folks at Ford Six Performance Parts is making noises about designing and selling a cross flow aluminum head for the Ford inline six if there is enough interest.

So the plan for my Cobra would be to source a good foreign head to go on top of a 250 inline six block. Improving the induction a supercharger and fuel injection, a modern electronic fuel and ignition controller and higher compression will create an light, narrow inline six engine with Ford heritage that will easily make 300+ horsepower.

All of the power of a 5.0 V8 at about 150 less pounds. It sounds good to me. What do you think?

Posted by Scott at 6:46 AM | Comments (15)

January 12, 2006

The AARP card is coming

The AARP card will be coming in the mail any day now; this is the year I turn 50. 1956, the year I was born, was the year of the greatest number of births in the United States of any year. That means people of my age represent the fattest lump in the population curve for the country. With so many contemporaries to compete with, the common thread for all of us 1956’ers it has been to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Succeeding in athletics, business, or politics is one way to rise above the herd, but those of us without any particular talents or charisma have to find more devious ways to make our mark on the world. My best shot at fame may be to bask in the reflected glory of my children’s accomplishments but that is not a sure bet at this point.

As I age, gracefully or otherwise, regular readers (both of you) will remember that I am struggling with the decision about what kit car to build. I am working up the courage to build a car from scratch in my suburban garage; I see this as a way to stave off Alzheimer’s Disease by mentally challenging myself with a large project during my rapidly approaching Silver Years. But I do not want to build just any kit car; I want to do something a bit different.

I do know that the car I want to build is going to be a roadster of some sort. Light, simple, open topped, nothing suggests the freedom of the road like a snug two seat sports car to blast down the highway of life into the impending sunset of my life. I may be on the road to Hell, but I am planning on enjoying the ride in style. Maybe at the end of my useful years I will give myself an automotive version of the Viking Funeral. With my last breath, I give The Man the finger and launch myself and my special hand built vehicle into an abyss of blazing glory.

But what exactly will that hand built be? I have already dismissed the idea of building a VW based dune buggy, not enough power to fulfill my lust for a low power to weight ratio. The other candidates are the speedy roller skate of the Lotus Seven or the brute power of the Shelby Cobra with a huge honking Ford V8 rumbling under the hood.

The Lotus Seven initially got short shrift from me because I thought that the kits only came from England and the mechanicals were difficult to come by. Thankfully my readers pointed me in the right direction toward some American kit suppliers who use greasy bits from easily obtainable sources in the US. And because the Lotus Seven kit yields a very small roadster, the enterprise would fit nicely in my 20’x 20’ suburban garage. But as cool as a Lotus Seven would be to build and own, it is not a Shelby Cobra.

Ah, the Cobra. To my generation of Ford-loving gear heads, the Cobra represents the apogee of the car culture. The Cobra is all that is good and light in the world of my generation. Other cars were faster and some were prettier, but no other cars strike a sympathetic cord in our souls like the coke-bottled shape of the Cobra. But the true attraction of the Cobra was the caged fury of the engine compartment. At the height of the madness, 427 cubic inches of pushrod powered Detroit Iron thumped within its breast. Seven litres of the finest in cutting edge, 1958 technology throbbed out a menacing sound and nearly unlimited torque. Imagine, if you will, more power than you can realistically put down onto the road through street tires. That is the essence of the Cobra.

But unlimited power comes at a price, as Saddam Hussein has come to discover. The Cobra is a relatively small car and shoehorning a huge lump of American V8 iron into the engine compartment is a very tight fit. Even if you opt for the smaller and lighter 5.0-liter V8 engine instead of the 7-litre monster, the engine compartment is challenged for daylight let alone space to work. And the weight of all that metal under the hood makes any suspension choice a compromise between effectiveness and heft to handle the load. The space for a V8 engine is so limited in the cobra that the driver’s foot pedals are off set to the left rather than straight ahead of the driver to make room for that monster engine.

Now here is where my latest epiphany comes into play. What if? What if instead of a massive V8 in the Cobra I built it with some other power plant? Something lighter and physically smaller that would make up for its lack of absolute power with a more compact and light package that would keep the power to weight ratio in the Insane Region?

My first thought was to adapt a V6 engine for use in the Cobra. While it would be lighter and shorter from front to back, the V6 arrangement makes the engine as wide as a V8 and the space issues of offsetting the driver’s pedals remain. If not a V6, then why not an Inline 6 engine? Long and narrow, an Inline 6 would leave lots of room at the sides of the engine and save hundreds of pounds over a large block V8. And imagine the novelty of opening the hood to reveal not just another boring V8, but the unique sight of a Six Cylinder engine in the engine compartment.

My next entry will examine the Inline Six engines I am considering for this project. Tell me what you think of a Cobra without a thumping Ford V8 in the engine compartment.

Posted by Scott at 6:32 AM | Comments (2)

January 9, 2006

LA Auto show report

Just a quick note about our journey to the LA Auto Show. Long story short: we saw a bunch of shiny cars for sale to the general public, concept cars that the public may be offered at some time in the future and a few hyper expensive exotic cars that mere mortals can only dream of owning. The most crowded display at the show was the Bugatti stand which featured the 1.2 million dollar, 252 mph dream machine that only 300 rich morons will have the privilege of owning. The least crowded display was the GM exhibit which largely deserted except for the curious who wanted to see a Pontiac Solstice in the flesh.

My Beloved Fiancée made a beeline for the BMW/Mini display and declared the Mini cute but that her next car will probably be a BMW M3 in full zoot. The teenaged boys were torn between the exotics and the food court as their highlights of the show. And I got a chance to lay my hands (and my back side in the seat) of a new Honda Civic Si. I must say that the romance of a shiny new car with 200-horse power and a standard Limited Slip Differential nearly worked its magic on my jaded soul. But at 3,000 pounds, the new Civic coupe is about 200 pounds too much car for my tastes.

I can resist the temptation to trade in my Accord daily driver for a new Civic Si and hope that the rumors are true that a new version of the enthusiast’s favorite, the CRX, will come to market in a year or two. And maybe the Fiancée will let me drive her M3 once in a while.

Posted by Scott at 8:02 PM | Comments (1)

January 7, 2006

A trip to the LA Auto show

I generally try to avoid large, crowded areas. Not because on any kind of phobia, but because I have been there, done that in my life. When you get old and grumpy like me, your tolerance for being herded like cattle diminishes with time. Consequently I am not much of a concert goer, professional sporting event attendee, or amusement park patron. The LA Auto Show is as big and crowded an event as I would normally hope to avoid, but circumstances this year compel me to go today.

It is not that I need to go to the auto show to see all the new and exotic cars. Living on the affluent West Side of Los Angeles I see every car on the market (exotics included) and some that are not on the market yet. Ferrari's and Lambo's are yawn inducers and classics are an every day occurrences. Thinly disguised factory prototypes are tested on LA streets and brand new models are thick on the roads. I am ready to declare the Pontiac Solstice the official car of West LA, because they seem to be on every side street these days.

I am going to the auto show because my dearly beloved fiancée is shopping for a car to replace her G35 Coupe whose lease will expire soon. Some of you may remember that my fiancée is a lead-footed car enthusiast. I have unleashed a Pandora's Box of racing desire in that woman when I introduced her to Autocross racing and now she is looking for something "hot" to replace the G35.

She has always wanted a 911 Porsche; her 924 Turbo was one of her favorite cars and she wants to relive the Porsche experience. But a 911 may be a bit pricey so she has her eye on a M3 BMW. As much as I respect the BMW, I think she will get more car for her lease dollar with a Mercedes CLK500. Anyway, this will be a chance for her to kick some tires for comparison sake without having to brave a gauntlet of car salesmen on the dealer’s lot. Oh and yes, she wants to see the new Bugatti, which is advertised as the fastest, and the most expensive car on the market today.

The other compelling reason to schlep downtown to the massive LA convention center is to show my Welsh brother in-law what an American auto show can be. The Grateful Dead's fans used to say that, "There is nothing in the world like a Dead concert," and the same can be said for an American auto show. Part circus, part salesroom, and part life affirming survival experience, an American auto show on the massive scale of the LA Auto Show is significant milestone in anyone’s life time. The crowd, the cars, the models in spectacularly revealing costumes decorating the manufacturers displays are all worth seeing even if one has no interest in cars.

The Welsh brother in-law is a man of the world, he has traveled extensively, seen the wonders of modern and ancient civilizations but I am willing to bet that he has never seen anything quite like LA Auto Show. The LA Convention Center building is a wonder unto itself, its lobby is often used in movies to represent what living and working habitats of the future will look like. And the main halls are large enough to swallow a fleet of 747’s with plenty of room left over for a parade of elephants to comfortably swing their trunks. The massive scale of the building’s interior is humbling as an empty structure, but to fill it with new car sales hubris is truly a staggering accomplishment in human achievement.
We are also taking my 16 year old son, the ’90 Prelude Driver and my fiancée’s 16 year old son, the ’78 Camaro Driver. The boys are LA Auto show veterans, they have been before and know what to expect. The Camaro Driver is very impressed with the exotic cars and has expressed an interest in seeing all of the cars that claim to exceed 200 mile per hour. The Prelude Driver has a passing interest in cars, but he has a dedicated interest in eating. He sees the Auto Show in the same light as sporting events, concerts or an evening at the cinema: a chance to sample a wide variety of concession stand food.

I expect an afternoon crawling through the crowds, the visual and aural assault on my senses by the manufacturers displays and the hole left in my pocket by paying for the privilege of the sensory overload I may suffer. I will let you know how it goes.

Posted by Scott at 8:33 PM | Comments (3)

January 6, 2006

A rant for the New Year

I am a professional television watcher. Literally, I am paid (and paid well) to watch TV for eight hours a day, five days a week. My compensation package includes a generous (by modern standards) health package, 401K benefits, six weeks of paid vacation and lots of paid time off for illness. Not a bad job, huh? I bet you would like a job like that. All I can say is, “Beware of what you wish for. It may come true.”

Not that I am complaining, it sure beats digging ditches for a living. But part of the deal is that I have no choice about what I watch; I have to watch my employer’s local TV station in a major metropolitan area. Part of my workday includes watching daytime television: Soap Operas, Game Shows, Judge Shows, Local News. And Dr. Phil.

Before I get to Dr. Phil (and how this rant relates to automotive affairs) let me vent about the crap you guys watch. And do not tell me that you are not watching this crap, because we make a LOT of money from this programming so somebody is watching it.

Before I found myself propped in front to a wall of video monitors like Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange, forced to watch local television programming, I used to make my living as a photojournalist at a TV station, shooting local news. I took pride in journalistic standards and my ability to fulfill the public’s right to know about issues of importance. But I left the glamour and excitement of news photography years ago for the regular hours of studio work to accommodate the responsibilities of a young family. Now, part of my workday is devoted to watching local television news, which is a constant parade of dead bodies, house fires, and car chases that passes for “informing the public” these days. Local TV news is as mindless as the rest of the broadcast schedule because YOU, the viewing public, do not demand anything more challenging than crying widows being asked to tell us, “How do you feel right now?”

Soap Operas are as timeless as human civilization. Every culture has fables, legends or myths that concern the foibles of the rich and powerful, the modern Soap Opera is just another version of these cautionary tales that are passed from generation to generation. But instead of warning of the metaphoric dangers of flying too close to the sun, or to not incur the wrath of the gods by being too proud, the Soap Opera uses the example of beautiful and fabulously wealthy perfume/couture clothing/publishing magnates to teach us that their yacht/country house/mistress/secret love child do always bring happiness.

The game shows are frustrating for me to watch; because I work “In the Business” I am automatically ineligible from ever being a contestant. I know that I could clean up on any of these shows because I have a secret weapon. An education that extends beyond the sixth grade. Apparently the producers of game shows troll the trailer parks of America to find the most telegenic slack jawed yokels. Come on people! We all know that that The Skipper’s real name was Jonas Grumby, Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln both had Vice Presidents named Johnson, and that the Panama Canal runs North/South (look it up).

A side note. Here at work we get game shows a few days in advance of their airing. We had a guy who would scan that day’s show and memorize all the answers. On his lunch break he would walk across the street to a bar and win bets answering every question on the show as it was broadcast without ever making a mistake. We elected that guy to be the President of our union.

I have to admit that I like the Judge Shows, even that obnoxious bitch Judge Judy. No, I do not like the parade of morons who need to adjudicate their petty disputes over whether it was a loan or a gift. But every case comes with a lesson in contract law, which means that I can skip the first year of Law School if I ever decide to abandon my convictions and become a lawyer.

But the reason for this rant and its relevance to the topic of the At Home Mechanic is something I was forced to watch on the Dr. Phil show the other day. Dr. Phil gets all the losers that Oprah does not want on her show and this episode just about killed me. A pair of sisters came on the show with a paralyzing problem: They were deathly afraid to learn how to drive. Conditioned from youth by an equally fearful mother to believe that they were incapable of safely controlling a car they are reduced to quivering mess when behind the wheel of a car. But they felt that they were missing something in life and so they wanted Dr. Phil to help them over come this fear. Being the self-righteous, smug bastard that he is, Dr. Phil held their hand while they drove around the Paramount Pictures movie lot and declared that they were “Cured!”

Not everyone is capable of safely driving a car; the roads are filled classic examples of people who should NEVER be allowed behind the wheel. Tentative, indecisive drivers are as dangerous as drunks and speeders because they are most likely to make the wrong decision at the right time. The fearful women on Dr. Phil’s show are the type of person who should never be driving, and just because they are inconvenienced by their lack of transportation, they feel a need to overcome their fears and inflict their inability on the rest of us who CAN drive. In fact we should be airing shows that takes incompetent drivers OFF the road. The world would be a better, if not safer place if the timid and irresolute drivers were swept from the highways.

Ahhh, I have released the rage that was building inside me and I feel much better now.

Have a happy and safe New Year.

Posted by Scott at 7:22 AM | Comments (3)

December 29, 2005

I am wrong

I have a confession to make. I drive faster than the posted speed limit. Shocking, I know. But it is true. It may be hard to believe that someone would willfully violate the law of the land, but I freely admit that I am an outlaw.

Are you smirking with self-righteous indignation at my transgressions? Are you furrowing your brow with concern for my wanton disregard for the health and safety of the rest of the general public? Before you condemn me, ask yourself if your hands are completely clean. I suppose that none of you have EVER driven faster than the posted limit. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

No stoning? Just as I thought, you are all equally guilty. We all drive faster than the posted limit SOMETIMES. Some of us do it more often; some of us exercise better judgment than others when making the decision to speed down a street, road or highway. But we all do it. Some of us (me in particular) will ridicule a driver for slavishly adhering to the speed limit when the speed of traffic would logically suggest that a driving a bit faster may be courteous to the driver's stacked behind the good citizen poking along at the legal speed.

"But Scott, you are such a pain in the ass about street racing. Isn't it hypocritical of you to be so vehemently against all forms of street racing, including the "safe" forms of street racing, and then admit that you are common speeder yourself?"

Any kind of driving is inherently dangerous, even when you are driving down a quiet suburban side street there is a chance that injury can occur when you least expect it. Racing raises the danger quotient by several factors. With as many safety precautions as we take in organized racing, there still is no form of completely "safe" racing. When you race on the street, even on a "completely deserted road with no other traffic," you are endangering yourself plus innocent bystanders. Frankly, there is no justification for racing on the street and I have no problem with Prosecutors who pursue the harshest punishment for convicted street racers.

Going a little faster than the posted limit is not racing; racing involves more than one vehicle. Making a choice to exceed the posted limit, the limit that has been deemed to be the safest maximum for that road, is a choice to violate the law. The degree of how incorrect that choice is can be rated by the amount that you exceed the posted speed limit. The faster you go, the more wrong you are.

But if loving my car by driving a bit too fast is wrong, then I never want to be right.

Posted by Scott at 1:19 PM | Comments (2)

December 24, 2005

Season's Greetings to everyone

My tradition is to compose a rhyming verse for the CRX community this time of year. This is this year's version:

'Twas the night before CRX-mas and all through the 'hood,
Not a creature was stirring, the bad and the good.

Away in their garage, carport or parking spot,
The Hondas were dry and secure, no chance of rust's rot.

Dreaming of a visit from an old jolly elf,
And of winning trophies to put on the shelf.

When from out of my sleep, a noise I did hear,
Someone was in the house, messing with my stuff, I did fear.

Out of bed and down the hall I did creep,
Getting the shotgun, and not making a peep.

Peering around the corner, who did I spy?
Some fat sweaty bastard, a red suited-guy.

Pointing my blaster, I told him to freeze.
And to put down my stuff, but move slowly if you please.

"You've got it wrong, I bring presents, I'm not here to loot
I am a good guy, I bring cheer, so please do not shoot."

Not wearing my glasses, I had to look twice.
Because his face looked familiar, he seemed kind of nice.

"Normally I work as a greeter at the Wal-Mart down the block,
I got a second job working for Santa, I got debt and I'm in deep hock."

"Santa would like to have been here, to travel his usual course.
But to save money and lower his costs, he used labor from an out-source."

"I've brought presents for the Car Guy in the family.
Parts that will bring performance, as you can clearly see."

My eyes lit up, at the sight of what he brought
The entire list of parts, stuff that I have so long sought.

With delight he described stuff that his sack did hold,
Although his voice was a bit rough, I think he was catching a cold.

"Sticky tires, light wheels and brand new bushings,
Because all cars, on the track or the road, can use those things."

"A turbo, NOS and a super charger
For those who need to go even harder."

But as he continued I thought I saw him nearly cry,
For the next thing phrase he said, he said with a sigh.

"For Ricers and Poseurs it is always hard to find stuff,
Because wings, stripes and stickers are never enough."

And so it was time for him to continue his rounds
He slipped out of the house, without making a sound.

And into his ride, a funky old car
I was not sure it would take him very far.

He fired it up and I could hear that it was actually a keeper
It was fixed up under the hood, the car was deceptively a sleeper.

So away he did drive, around the corner and out of sight
As he left I heard him say, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night."

Posted by Scott at 2:59 PM | Comments (4)

More on kit cars

My recent postings about building a kit car apparently struck a nerve with a lot of readers because that has generated a lot of private email and comments on this site. Of the responses I have received, most of them are of the, "Gee, I always wanted to do that," variety. Others have been helpful with suggestions about donor car for major parts.

I have to admit that I have not done much research on currently offered kits before I wrote that posting, the last time I looked into building one was more than a few years ago. At that time, Lotus Seven kits came from England and used European-market engines and transmissions.

Regular reader Dave Darling wrote to tell me:

"There are a whole lot of (Lotus) Seven replica kits around. Grassroots Motorsports magazine (or their sister pub, Classic Motorsports, I forget which one) did a comparo of a half-dozen or so of them earlier this year. They even threw a real vintage Lotus 7 for grins."

I did some research and discovered that there are at least two kit car companies in the United States that offer a Lotus Seven clone. One is based upon General Motors S-10 pick-up truck mechanicals and features a pushrod V-6 engine. The other is based upon the guts of the Mazda Miata and its DOHC four banger. Both kits seem to be reasonably well engineered. And it is possible to coax a lot of power of either the GM V-6 or the Mazda I-4 with commonly available after market parts.

All of this new information changes my attitude toward the Lotus clone kits. I had previously said that I was leaning toward the Cobra kit from Factory Five, which has been demonstrated to be reasonably easy to put together and results in a fairly close interpretation of the original cobra with some cleaver modern revisions. The Cobra evokes a visceral reaction from most observers; it fairly bulges with muscles and suggests that it could deliver a brutal beating on unsuspecting drivers who do not respect its power potential.

More importantly, like a duckling that imprints upon the first creature it encounters out of the nest, the Ford-powered Cobra grabbed my imagination at and early age and sparked my first interest all things automotive as a child. I was born to be a Ford fan; the family cars were all Fords, Grandpa drove a Ford, the new Ford Mustang was wowing the country and Ford-powered Cobras were kicking Ferrari hinny on the sports car circuits of the world. The ultimate achievement in Ford-dom was the sexy Cobra roadster hand built by Carroll Shelby's company in relatively primitive conditions in Los Angeles.

But there was another facet to my Ford fascination; there is a English tinge to all of this. Dear old Dad and all of his family were born in England. The Cobra was only Ford-powered; the body came from the AC car company of England. And the Beatles were raising America's consciousness of all things happening with our cousins over the sea.

Over in England another small time car builder and racer was tinkering with Ford power in a factory that was little more than a glorified barn. Colin Chapman's Lotus Motor Car Company was turning out clever little racecars, sporty roadsters and built-it-at home kits that used a variety of sturdy Ford four-cylinder engines. Most important of all, Chapman's Lotus racecars were using Ford power to dominate racing at the Indy 500 and Europe's Formula at the same time. The closest a consumer could come to driving an open wheeled Lotus was to build a Lotus Seven roadster from a kit. So while the "American" Cobra was the ultimate in my boyhood consciousness, the Lotus Seven from England was certainly on my mind.

So knowing that the Lotus Seven kit is equally available as the Cobra kit I have to reconsider my previous decision to lean toward the Cobra. From an assembly point of view, the more basic Seven is an easier to construct and the smaller size of components makes it easier for a lone workman to muscle the parts into place. And size would be a big factor for me because I have limited floor space in my suburban garage to assemble the kit.

Secondary considerations would be that the Seven would be easier for my lead-footed fiancee to drive, as she is a petite lady. The racing clutch on my 1.5 litre Honda is challenging enough for her; the clutch on a five-litre Cobra engine would probably beyond her comfort level. And it would not be fair to her if she were physically excluded from driving the new toy car in the garage. And the Seven kits and all the parts needed to complete the car are a lot cheaper than the corresponding Cobra kits. It is possible to drive a complete Seven kit car out of your garage for less than ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars barely buys you the kit for a Cobra and realistically needs nearly twice that much money to put it in driving trim.

At this point I am a long ways from making a final decision about building a kit car. I have not mentioned that I have a bunch of other important life events coming up in the next year or so, including purchasing a new home, getting married and sending my oldest off to college. All of these considerations will be factored into the decision process and I will be sure to share that process with all of you.

But if you had to choose between a Cobra and a Seven, which would you build?

Posted by Scott at 2:58 PM | Comments (3)

December 13, 2005

Daydream'n 'bout cars

It is a slow day in the office and my mind starts to wander. Besides the topics that I cannot mention on a family web site like this one, I tend to daydream about cars. Cars that I have a realistic chance of owning. Cars I could own if feeding, clothing and educating my children were not important to me. And cars that would require matching six lucky numbers for me to own.

Owning a dream car would always be nice. But it seems to me that the act of purchasing that car and then driving it home would be only satisfying for the moment. A relatively brief feeling of Sisyphean pleasure would wash over me and then I would need to go find some other consumer satisfaction fix to keep my automotive Jones alive.

What is the alternative to the transitory pleasure of buying your dream car? Perhaps building your own dream car would be more satisfying. The process could take months or even years depending upon the level of sophistication of the car and the ability of the owner/builder. Certainly it could become a long-term process that has no definitive "end" but rather a never-ending journey of discovery. Sometimes the goal is not the destination but rather the passage to that destination is experience that one should seek.

All this philosophical claptrap leads back to a dream car that I could realistically own. And because I enjoy the process of improving existing cars yet seek a greater challenge, I am aiming toward building my own car from the ground up. It certainly will not be a transitory pleasure to build my own car; allotting only a few hours per week of my available discretionary time to the project could stretch out the completion date to some point years into the future.

If I am dreaming, let me dream big. And by big I mean a small power to weight ratio. If the typical econobox sedan weighs about 3,000 pounds and has an engine that makes about 120 horsepower, then that car has a power to weight ratio of 25:1. The new for 2006 Civic Si has 200hp in that same 3k lbs. package for a power to weight ratio of 15:1 and that is considered a snappy performer. And for comparison sake, a 3400 lbs Corvette Z06 with 500 ponies kicking under the hood has a power to weight ratio of 6.8:1 which puts that street car in the range of some race cars.

For my purposes, a power to weight ratio of 10:1 is good goal to shoot for. And I would like my dream car to have no more than 2,800 pounds of bulk to haul around (Colin Chapman's first law of automobile design: Add Lightness) so I only need 280hp to get the desired result.

The basis of any car is the engine/transmission combination and for my dream car I want to use the horizontally opposed flat-four turbo engine of the Subaru WRX. Coming from the factory with nearly 250hp, it is fairly easy to coax as much as 300hp from that engine. But rather than putting the engine in the front and driving all four wheels as the Subie normally does, I would put the engine in the middle, drive only the rear wheels and eliminate the transfer case, drive shaft and associated gear needed for Four Wheel Drive. If I had the resources of carbon fiber fabrication, I would whip up a fantastic plastic monocoque for the car's frame, but realistically I would have to settle for a triangulated tube frame construction. Two seats, down force-creating ground force body panels, double wishbone suspension and not much else.

But the truth of the matter is that I do not have the fabricating skills or tools to build that car. Within the walls of my 20' by 20' suburban garage I have the room to modify an existing car or maybe build a kit car. My current hobby car, a 1987 Honda CRX has been an exercise in car modification so I have Been There, Done That. Not that there is anything wrong with modifying an existing car, I have been doing that as a hobby for nearly 35 years. The next step up will be a kit car.

The term "kit car" has a lot of negative connotations, frankly there are a lot of schlocky kits being sold to an unsuspecting public. My earliest recollection of kit cars was the Fiberglas bodies slipped over VW platforms to create a hideous approximation of the Ford GT40. The best use of the resulting mess was the highlight of George Lucas' first feature film THX1138 in which a pair of them was smashed to smithereens.

I have always ha a romantic perception of open topped cars; the wind in my hair (what is left of it) the roar of the engine in my ears, the song of the tires on the road. I know that a roadster (a small two seat sports car with a canvas top that can only suggest weather protection) is not practical. That wind in your face is either blazing hot or bone chilling cold so the number of days that you can realistically use a roadster without a top is severely limited. But as we discussed earlier regarding the Zen concept that the journey to the goal may be more important than the destination, so in this case the construction of the car is more important than the actual use.

I am evaluating three very different kit cars that share the two-seat, roadster design. At the bottom end fop the spectrum is a kit that uses the frame, suspension, engine and brakes from an air-cooled VW Bug. There are quite a few manufacturers that sell kits based on the venerable People's Car and the variety of body styles that a kit builder can use is impressive. Of the open topped VW kits, the classic dune buggy, the "bathtub" Porsche from the 1950's and the 1950's Porsche Spyder racer replica are the most attractive to me. The down side is that the VW frame used is not particularly rigid, and the air-cooled engine may not be able to generate the necessary power to achieve the target of a power to weight ratio of 10:1.

The next step up would be a Caterham 7 kit. Imagine a classic English roadster, maybe looking something like an overgrown roller-skate, from the 1950's with bicycle fenders over the tires and a tight little cockpit and you will have the Caterham 7 in your mind. Based upon a design by Lotus' Colin Chapman, the Caterham 7 is a smile producer for drivers and for passers by. But the body kit is pricey because it has to be shipped from England and the mechanical bits that power the car are not as easy to find in the US as they are in old Blighty. So this kit is not as attractive as it could be.

The ultimate choice is a bit of a cliche these days. The very symbol of aging Baby Boomer nostalgia for an icon on our youth. You know it; you love it, the 1960's Shelby Cobra. The original Cobra was a hand-built confluence of English roadster technology with a huge honking American V8 shoehorned into it. There was nothing subtle about the Cobra; it was as defiant as the turbulent times that spawned it. Working on a tiny budget, Carroll Shelby created a production car that humbled the Corvette and the Ferrari. Every schoolboy wanted one then and every middle-aged grey beard wants one now.

There are a number of kit car companies that make a Cobra-clone and it is even possible to get a newly built Cobra from the descendent Shelby Car Company. Outside of time, space and a modest amount of money, all of the Cobra kits require a late 80's to early 90's Mustang to build a dream car. And the Cobra kits can easily achieve the desired 10:1 (or much better) power to weight ration of my dream car.

Daydreams are fun, reality is tough. It would take a major commitment of time and energy to build a kit car and continue to have a life beyond my garage. I will continue to ruminate upon this decision and of course I will keep you readers up to date on my progress.

Posted by Scott at 8:00 PM | Comments (3)

December 11, 2005

Subaru

Until recently I have never been much of a Subaru fan. My initial impression of Subaru was not very good. I remember when they began imported their weird little cars to America back in the early 1970’s. The Subaru Company was the bastard child of Fuji Heavy Industries (maker of industrial machinery) and Datsun (before they changed their name to Nissan) who united to create another automobile brand and to gain some front wheel drive experience for Datsun before they put their good name on a front driver. Sadly, Datsun did not wait long enough before introducing their first Front Wheel Drive model, the F10, which was lamented by the car magazines of the era as being a Datsun product development project that was subsidized by the consumer public.

When Subaru was introduced to the American market “Made in Japan” was still a pejorative label so skepticism was high. Compounding that disadvantage was Subaru’s exclusive use of Front Wheel Drive which was a novelty rather than the rule of the current auto industry. Open the hood and you found a horizontally opposed four banger, familiar to VW, Porsche and Aviation mechanics but exotic to most Americans. And the topper was that this collection of mechanical oddities was packaged in some of the ugliest cars to grace the roads of America.

Fate was kind to Subaru, the gas crisis years of the late 1970’s created a demand for all fuel efficient vehicles and they were able to sell even their monstrosities because they could squeeze a few extra miles per gallon of gas. Looking to market their car’s being just more than being merely good on gas, Subaru seized upon their front wheel drive advantage in low traction situations to target the snow states for emphasis. Adding a transfer case and rear wheel drive to assist the driving front axles, Subaru became a low-cost alternative to pricier all wheel drive cars that continued to gain popularity amongst the gravel and steeply sloped driveway market.

Subaru tried to move up market with a 6-cylinder model that failed to ignite any market attention. That engine’s opposed cylinder design aped much more expensive aircraft engines and a whole cottage industry emerged converting the 6 cylinder Subaru engines for use in home built aircraft. The rear axle assembly of the four-wheel drive Subaru’s borrowed the design of the independent rear axle used in the Datsun 510 and 240Z. Datsun enthusiasts are still combing junkyards searching for Subaru rear axles with the highly coveted Limited Slip Differential to bolt directly into their cars with no modifications necessary.

Subaru has worked hard to build a rugged reliable car that could withstand the rigors and hazards found on Third World roadways. Their sedans and station wagons are still not beauty queens but they are acceptably bland enough to blend into traffic without garnering any attention for homeliness.

Conventional wisdom in the auto industry is that “Racing improves the breed” and “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” are keys to expanding market share. About ten years ago Subaru targeted the World Rally Championship (WRC) as the best place to race their sturdy cars in an international arena. Adding turbo power to four-wheel drive, the Subaru Rally team has had huge success racing on what would not pass for a rutted logging trail in the US but serve as major highways in the infrastructure-challenged portions of the world. Capitalizing on their unpaved road racing success, Subaru now sells the popular “WRX” (partially using the initials for the World Rally Championship so that consumers know where the model has had racing success) version of their small coupe, sedan and station wagons which packs over 200 horse-power of turbo power with the stick of four wheel drive in a package that sells for less than $30,000. In congruously, the sedate Subaru product line of granola hauling station wagons for the tweed and flannel set is now bipolar with a set of fire breathing hot rods for the generation that had its car consciousness raised by the Fast and Furious movies.

Today Subaru represents the best value in the entry-level performance segment of the car market; the WRX model is the high performance flag bearer for the Subaru product line and can be had from the factory with every boy racer item including flashy wheels, racing style seats, and a huge rear wing hovering over the trunk lid.

Subaru is offering a new model this year that is an exciting development in new car marketing and it represents a trend that I hope will spread throughout the entire automobile industry. Long ago in the 1960’s, it was possible to special order a stripped down compact or mid-sized car with the top-of-the-product-line power train springs and brakes for competitive purposes. Today Subaru has revived that choice for buyers by offering the modestly equipped TR version of the WRC that begs owners to modify it

“TR” stands for Tuner Ready and implies that the owner will customize (or “tune” in the parlance of the sport compact car culture) to his or her specific taste. The TR comes with a very plain interior, standard wheels, low-grade sound system and no exterior wings, stripes or stickers. But what it does have is the highest performance version of the Subaru turbo engine, suspension, and brakes in a plain brown wrapper. In effect, the TR is a blank canvas that allows the weekend enthusiast to build his WRX into a reflection of his own tastes.

Subaru has matured from the experimental arm of Datsun offering quirky oddities, to being a respected maker of solid family haulers that can brave an unplowed snowy suburban side street. But to a new generation of auto sport enthusiasts, Subaru is now the purveyor of pure pavement performance.

Posted by Scott at 9:09 PM | Comments (3)

December 9, 2005

Thinking of leasing a car?

Buy or lease a car? A lease will get you into a car cheaper than a purchase and the payments for a lease can be cheaper than a purchase. But is a lease always a better idea? The answer is: It depends.

A purchase is pretty straightforward; you and the dealer agree to a price, you either pony up the cash for the full purchase price or you finance the purchase with some sort of loan. Once the car is purchased for cash or the loan has been paid off, you own it. Or rather you own the residual value of the car known as equity. Because as we all know, a new car loses about 30% of its value as it leaves the dealer’s lot. And cars continue to lose value as time moves on. In EXTREMELY rare circumstances a car can actually appreciate in value, but this only occurs in the world of hand built Ferraris or similar limited production cars. This is such a rare and unusual event that we can safely assume that this will never happen to a car that the average guy can afford.

Yes some old and rare cars can appreciate as time passes. Old cars can evoke strong emotions in people with more disposable income than brains. Back during the Dot Com boom of the late 1990’s, with money flowing like water on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, collector car prices went through the roof as the newly wealthy geeks and traders sought to buy up the dream cars of their youth. But as the Internet bubble burst, the demand for and prices of specialty cars declined. The current bubble in Real Estate prices fueled by relatively low interest rates has put a lot of money back into the pocket of car collectors who feel that it is never too late to have a happy childhood. But unless you are willing to buy a Corvette Z06 and then never drive it for 20-30 years, a new car purchase is doomed to be a net money loser for you. That loss of money is also known as depreciation and that is a standard feature on every new car sold around the world. Even if your purchased car loses 90% of its purchase price over the time you own the car, you still own the 10% residual value of the car… and you get to keep the car.

A car lease is not a car purchase. But it is not a mere rental either. With a lease you lay out little or no money to start the agreement and your payments can be far less than a loan payment. That sounds pretty good, but what is the catch? The catch is that at the end of the lease you have no equity in the car you have been paying to use. And you have to give the car back

So is a lease a glorified rental agreement? No, because with a lease you are buying something, but it is not a very tangible commodity. A lease is actually the purchase of the depreciation of the car you have been using. The more your car depreciates the greater your lease payments will be. If you have the opportunity to lease a $30,000 Mercedes or a $30,000 Chrysler, it can be reliably predicted that the Mercedes will lose less of its value during the length of the lease and the lease payments will be lower on the German car. And the leasing company wants you to return their car in good condition so a lease comes with come clauses that stiffly penalizes excess mileage and less than adequate maintenance. So you get to use the car, but you better not drive it too far and you had better keep up with all the repairs or the leasing company can charge you a lot of extra money when you turn in the car at the end of the lease.

The big advantage of a lease is that self-employed people and people who use their car for business can usually deduct the cost of a lease from their income tax. Those same people can usually deduct the purchase of a car also, but the purchase price will be amortized over a depreciation schedule set by the Federal Government. Us folks who punch a clock at the behest of an employer are hard presses to find a legitimate way to deduct the cost of a lease and there is no deduction on the interest on a car loan any more (Ronald Reagan’s administration lowered the tax rates for most Americans but also reduced the number of expenses that could be deducted, including the interest on any kind of loan). The tax dodge for most home owning tax payers is to refinance their home and use any resulting cash to buy a car while deducting the new home loan interest.

The most reliable financial “smart move” in automobile ownership is to allow someone else to absorb the first year depreciation hit of a new car by buying a 1 or 2 year old used car that holds its value well like a Mercedes. Drive that slightly used car for a year or so and then sell it for nearly what you paid for it. You have the advantage of driving a different car every year and avoid the financial pitfalls of new car depreciation and the lease company’s restrictive clauses.

Posted by Scott at 1:17 PM | Comments (6)

December 7, 2005

Freedom of choice

"Back in the old days..." If your current age is younger than the average life experience of the cast of "The OC" you really must hate to hear us old folks use that phrase. "Get with the times old man, your era ended when the dinosaurs last roamed the earth," my children are fond of telling me. Well abuse me if you must, but there were some good times back in the old days.

No, the cars were not better back in the old days. Today's cars are environmentally cleaner, far safer, more fuel efficient and generally faster than anything you could buy back in the classic Muscle Car era of the late 1960's and early 1970's. And today's cars are lightyears ahead of the smog-choked monstrosities that were foisted upon the American Public during the Energy Crisis of the 70's and 80's. But way back in the day there was one fun feature of buying a new car that has largely disappeared in the modern automotive era, the long list of options that could be ordered from the factory 30 years ago.

In today's car buying environment the consumer has a fairly short list of choices once he gets inside the dealer's show room. As an example, let's examine the purchase of a mythical car that represents how most cars are sold in America these days:

If you want to buy a World Wide Wicket Belchfire, you will find that it comes in three levels of trim. The cheapest version of the Belchfire is what we used to call the "stripper model" because it does not have all the nice features and chrome trim of the next level up. Generally this lowly model is reserved for government fleet sales and rental car duty. The middle model of the Belchfire is the version mostly likely to be bought by the average consumer. It costs a bit more than the stripper, but it has a nicer stereo, plusher fabrics on the seats and shinier hubcaps. And at the peak of the Belchfire food chain is the luxo-version with a sunroof, leather seats, a bigger engine and four-wheel disk brakes.

The dealer will be happy to sell you chrome wheels, floor mats and other revenue enhancers from the showroom floor, but the basic list of choices when buying a new car today are stripper, basic and luxo. The manufacturers limit your choices not to prevent buyer information overload, but to simplify their supply and construction streams. It is far more efficient for the factory to crank out only a couple of versions of the same model than to try and customize a dazzling variety of features for every car sold. And if the factory can get all the consumers who want a sunroof to also buy the bigger engine model with the fancy stereo, etc. etc. the profit margin increases with every extra feature packaged onto the model with the sunroof.

But back in the old days (there is that phrase again) it was not so simple. When Mr. And Mrs. American Car Buyer found themselves in the dealer showroom circa 1967 they were given a very long menu of option choices they could select to create the car of their dreams. Interior and exterior trim options were only the beginning of the list, manufacturers allowed you to match as many as five different engine choices with multiple choices for rear axle, brake styles (Manual or power assisted, front disk or drums, heavy duty or standard and so on) and carburetors (single barrel, two barrel, four barrel or multiple carb setup) were available by checking off a box on the option list. At one point it was possible to order certain General Motors cars in ten thousand different variations by mixing and matching various option choices that could be custom ordered from the factory. Today, Muscle Cars from the classic era have a greater value to collectors if the original build sheet, list from the factory detailing every option ordered at purchase, is included in the car's documentation.

Consumers loved the choices but the factory eventually grew weary of stocking so many potential part combination and the dealers preferred to sell an existing car off in their inventory rather than taking a customer order and waiting 6-8 weeks for delivery and final payment from the buyer. American auto manufacturers believed that they needed to offer consumers a wide range of choices, but it was the success of the Japanese cars during the gas crisis years that proved that Americans were willing to buy a car with limited optional choices.

The long list of optional choices for consumers is not completely a thing of the past, the high-end German manufacturers are still willing to special order a car to a buyer's exacting expectations. They will even invite the buyer to come to the German factory to witness their car's construction and take delivery as it rolls off the production line. Porsche has a particularly impressive list of options available for order; maybe the most entertaining reading for a gear head is to imagine the possibilities that can be selected from the Stuttgart factory.

The next time you consider buying a new car know that you are getting a much better car than your father could have bought back in the day. But dear old dad had a lot more choice when he visited the dealership.

Posted by Scott at 6:58 AM | Comments (1)

December 4, 2005

Do you like your car?

Why do you like your car? You do like your car, don't you? If you don't like your car why are you still driving it? What compelled you to buy the car you are driving now? Was it a good price? Was the financing attractive? Does it have a flashy paint job, big wheels or a cool entertainment system? Is your car a fashion statement or a lifestyle statement? Do you care what other people think about your car? Are you driving the car you think other people think is a cool car?

The answer to these questions will shape the car buying decision made by the consumer. Every person who buys a car has a different set of values that they need a car to live up to; that is why the consumer has a choice of literally hundreds of makes and models to choose from. A car that I like may not be the car that you like. I will not assign a value to your choice and I ask you to please refrain from making a judgment about my choices.

Cars are important to me the way shoes are important to my fiancee. I own a pair of sneakers and a pair of generic black leather lace up... shoes. Shoes are such a low priority for me that I do not have the sufficient vocabulary to adequately describe the shoes that I wear for formal occasions. My lovely fiancee is a woman of taste and style that has closets full of the finest in Italian designer leather products. Every outfit in her fashionable wardrobe has a specific pair of shoes that compliments the ensemble.

My collection of cars is numerically inferior to my sweet intended's horde of shoes, but they answer a wide variety of needs that a single car could never fulfill. I own a staid and conservative daily driver that comfortably transports my family with an acceptable level of speed and economy. This mundane family-mobile does not call attention to itself yet has enough quiet elegance that parking attendants do not hide it at the back of the lot at the trendy restaurants I have been known to frequent. But the family ride is not a performance car; it cannot accelerate, turn or stop with the vigor that I appreciate. So I have a hobby car that sacrifices comfort, quiet and convenience in exchange for speed. I cannot haul the family and it associated flotsam and jetsam in my family car. The family truckster cannot carve corners like my hobby car can.

The third and final car in my fleet is a compromise vehicle in every sense of the word. My 16 year-old son is driving now and his very specific set of needs demands a very special set of automotive features. As he is a new driver and likely to have some sort of road mishap as he gains driving experience, the first car he drives regularly should be vehicle that I have no emotional attachment or great financial investment in. Safety and economy are of paramount importance to me; a modicum of style and the appearance of performance are his greatest concerns. The family car is my ride to work, the hobby car is far too much car for a youngster to drive on the street, so the kid's car is a 15 year-old Honda Prelude in sound mechanical condition.

All three of the cars in my possession are made by Honda; I think I have firmly established that I like the Honda combination of engineering excellence at an affordable price. But beyond a nameplate my cars have nothing in common. Because no single car can fill all the needs in my automotive life, I own more than just one. I like them all for very different reasons. There is no single "best" car for me.

Posted by Scott at 3:10 PM | Comments (1)

December 1, 2005

Do you enjoy driving?

Do you enjoy driving? The chances are that if you are reading this article then you have an interest in cars and driving them. Of course that is not a guarantee. I knew a guy who was crazy about airplanes, his apartment was filled with airplane models and he had literature and canceled tickets from nearly every airline in the world. But he had no interest in learning to fly an airplane. For the purposes of this entry I will assume that you are a person who enjoys driving.

Do you like driving on an empty country road that meanders through rolling hills? How about a smooth stretch of road along a lovely beach or lake shoreline? Is it driving out in the desert along a dusty track that allows you to bounce from rock to rock in your off-road squirrel stomper? Maybe your idea of a good driving experience is a wide-open super highway that leads endlessly toward the horizon in a straight line. Or is your idea of happy motoring driving slowly down the boulevard so that everyone can get a good look at you in your candy apple painted dream machine?

I am sure that your idea of an enjoyable driving experience does not include crawling through rush hour stop and go traffic. Do you hate getting stuck behind a clueless driver with one hand on his cell phone and both eyes on his GPS screen as he slowly searches for another latte store? How about that left lane bandit who knows that the national speed limit is 65mph and there is no reason in the world why he should yield his position to faster moving traffic? Have you ever got stuck behind a cattle truck on a hot summer's day when your air conditioning is not working? Or maybe it is having your significant other telling you that you are lost, hopelessly lost, and that the only way to solve the problem is to pull into a gas station and ask for directions.

Is your favorite car to drive a flashy convertible? Do you like buttery soft leather seats, a silent seal against outside noise and a sound system that can reproduce sounds that will make a dog cry? Maybe you like to strap on a sleek sports car that responds to your thoughts before you can turn the steering wheel. Do you like a floaty ride that feels like your car is riding on clouds? Or maybe you prefer a firm grip road that transmits every imperfection in the pavement to your backside? Do you like being perched up high for a commanding view of the terrain or would you rather be slung low enough to fly below the radar?

Are there any kinds of cars you hate to drive? Would it kill you to be seen in one of those funny little foreign jobbies? Or would you never be caught dead in anything from Detroit? Are you an SUV person or a small car guy? Are trucks your thing; four-wheel drive and big knobby tires? Do you like a large hauler for the entire family/carpool/trailer hitch? Or would one of those European micro-cars suit your needs to get you ten miles to the office and back?

The point to this rant is that the definition of the phrase "enjoy driving" has many meanings to many people. If your ego needs to be stroked by a Silver Star emblem on your hood then a shiny new Mercedes Benz will be the only car you can enjoy. If your self-image is of a rugged, outdoorsy, individualist then you need a four-wheel drive rock crusher... just like all the other rugged, outdoorsy, individualists.

I love to drive, but I am more than happy to let someone else climb behind the wheel in city driving. I enjoy a stretch straight, un-crowded of highway, but I would much rather fly in an airliner than drive any distance beyond 100 miles. I enjoy my daily drive to work because it allows me a half-hour to psyche up for my 9-5 job and the evening commute home allows me to decompress from the rigors of the office. But I would hate to drive a taxi in my city because the traffic sucks

My favorite hobby is auto racing. This is my definition of driving enjoyment. A racecar, on race tires, on a racetrack is the most fun anyone can have with their clothes on. But I would hate to drive racecar in city traffic because it is loud, hot, and uncomfortable. Plus there is no stereo in my racecar.

But for me, a daily driver is a household appliance. As long as it starts when I turn the key, the climate controls work and the stereo receives my favorite stations I am 99% satisfied with nearly any production car meant for street driving sold in America within the last 10 years. The difference is tipped when you ask me to spend my own money to PURCHASE any particular car and PAY out of my own pocket for the maintenance to keep it rolling. Then the field of acceptable cars narrows considerably.

My view of the world divides all people into one of two groups: Those who race cars in safe controlled environments and those who have not had the experience yet. No credit for you morons who weave through traffic and drag race from stop light to stop light; you are a menace to society and hopefully you will remove yourself from the gene pool before you reproduce.

Until you have driven at speed in a car that is designed for maximum performance with no concessions for amenities, you can not even begin to form an opinion upon enjoying driving.

Posted by Scott at 11:18 AM | Comments (3)

November 30, 2005

Comments Deux

Sometimes, someone other than Buck leaves a comment for me.

Reader Tolovemoon writes:

Hi, I think you have all the right ideas for buying a used car. I really like your point about the car stereo being replaced and how it will give you a better idea to if the car will have electric problems... I had a Ford Taurus station wagon that had many grimlins..inside lights, radio, or the dinger would all dim and sometimes not come on. A few cars I have owned even had weather temperamental problems with the electircal things. So the electrical in cars today are a big top priority for me when I am looking to buy a car or to give my opinion to wether I feel comfortable driving. Anyways enjoyed your normal entries. I was searching for tools or things to upgrade my husbands garage in the technology aspect like testers and such when I found this link.
Thank you for your nice comment. If I can help just one person...

Reader Sarah McBride adds:

When your car in not functioning properly it means only one thing that it is not in good condition. You have to check your car regularly. You must also be sensitive to know your car needs, 90 percent of vehicles show that motorists or auto users need some more consumer education on proper use and maintenance of vehicles.

Aiding my fellow consumers is the goal here. If anyone has a specific question please be sure to ask and I will answer as best I can. Or I will make something up that sounds like I know what I am talking about.

Jay Stevens contributed this in response to my comments on how a driver's personality changes behind the wheel of a car:

In fact, most drivers on the road don't fully realize the responsibility they take on every time they get behind the wheel of a car. We've all been on the freeway, stopped by an accident. Well, those accidents are common and caused by a variety of irresponsible behaviors.

Who can argue with that?

What would one of my ease to write, respond to comments, articles be without something from Buck? He also has something to say about personality change while driving.

I think that AJ(my 16-year-old son who is about to start driving) may be upset at this comment but...

I have seen a radical change in my driving as I migrated from a wimpy 1.8 with a turbo to a smile-inducing 3.5 280HP engine.

Now if your hobby car has this type of affect on your, what will it do to the mind and emotions of a 16-year-old boy in LA? I know what I was like behind the wheel of a '69 Firebird convertible. Fortunately, I have another 8 years before I have to worry about this in earnest.

Careful with that powerful Infiniti Sedan, someone in the soccer car pool may call child protective services on you for doing burn outs in the school pick up line.

Posted by Scott at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)

November 29, 2005

I love geting comments

I get comments, which means someone other than pornographers looking to link my blog to their site is reading this stuff.

In response to my article about weird GM engines, Reader Terry Brown writes:

No matter what kind of vehicle you have, make sure that the engine that supports your car is truly a tough one. Engine play a very important parts for us to control the vehicle.

Umm, OK.

Frequent Reader and commentator Buck writes in regard to my personal daily driver:

There was such promise at the beginning. I thought that Little Leadfoot (my fiancee) was having a positive impact on your automotive sensibilities (or potential lack thereof). You crushed my hope.

If my personal choice for transportation crushes what little hope you have left in your life, I suggest you get help before you hurt yourself.

Regarding my suggestion that the New Mustang is a glorified Girl Car and not worthy of consideration as a proper Sporting Sedan, Buck Writes:

While I had my summer flirtation with the Mustang (thanks again for your review, it was dead on) I went for Chocolate Chip ice cream (actually, I think it was Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough) and got the G35 Sedan. It's fun! And it works with kids. As the rear seats don't fold down (and Little Leadfoot has the G35 Coupe) it wouldn't be the right car for you.

I am going to resist the temptation to say, "I told you so," when I counseled Buck not to buy a New Mustang for his commuting needs and occasional family hauling. I also told him to consider other alternatives beside the G35 Sedan as I feel that the Nissan/Infiniti engineering quality and construction materials are at the trailing edge of Japanese automobile standards (only surpassed by Mitsubishi for the worst of a good bunch). The G35 Sedan and coupe share the same platform and power train as the Nissan 350Z which has enough power and torque to overwhelm the stock tires with the standard traction control system turned off. Power-induced over steer, yahoo!!! For a suburban, commuting, drudge, shackled with family responsibilities a little rear tire spin is about as exciting as it can get I suppose.

Buck keeps writing:

There has to be a car out there that meets your needs and has some style. Honda seems to be losing market share as its cars have absolutely no style. They are franks and beans (not even chicken in my book). Toyota is gaining and will soon pass GM as the world leader. Toyota brought us Lexus which used to have style and Scion which has style (whether you like its cars or not, they are not like anything else). Plus, Toyota leads with the Prius in the hybrid market.

If "popular" meant good, then McDonalds would be the epitome of fine dining. Toyota is going to take GM to school on being the world's leading supplier of cars for a variety of reasons; largely by never resting on their well deserved laurels like GM has done for the last 40 years. I have explained this before and I will say it again: Honda makes the best engines and transmissions in the world. Honda makes more internal combustion engines than any other company in the world (including motorcycles, generators and car engines) and they get it right.

The Toyota Prius and similar hybrid technology cars are an interesting experiment, Prius' have a nasty habit of shutting down for no apparent reason and refusing to restart. I am willing to allow other people to be real world guinea pigs while the technology gets developed. Perhaps one day when the technology has a few generations of evolution under its belt I may consider purchasing a hybrid. But even if the price of gas remained at $3 per gallon, it would take nearly 200,000 miles of usage to recoup the extra cost of purchase for an under powered Corolla on skinny tires. Modern gasoline powered Hondas are essentially pollution free and my 3,400 lbs. four door 2003 Accord gets 20mpg in hard city driving. So get back to me when the hybrids are more than a Volvo substitute for the Birkenstock crowd.

That Buck, he loves to write:

Scott, you, unlike our presidents, are a Car Guy. You have rebuilt several Mustangs and other vehicles. There has to be something for you other than an Accord!

Let's add this up, shall we? The Accord is well screwed to together, economical to operate, and is capable of completing the tasks I assign it. It is clean, comfortable and paid for. I am secure in my masculinity so I do not need a car to reconfirm my position in the social food chain. If I fail to become a slavish consumer whose choice is shaped by the expectations of others, I can live with that decision.

Keep those comments coming.

Posted by Scott at 11:31 AM | Comments (1)

November 22, 2005

Driver Personality Change

Does your personality change behind the wheel? I know that mine does. I like to think of myself as an easy going, even tempered, rational person who can see the good in everyone. But once I get behind the wheel of a car all I can see are morons out to murder me with their incompetence as drivers. When I am driving it never fails to amaze me how the shallow end of the gene pool has been allowed to continue to breed and become licensed drivers. I am continually searching for the next knuckle dragger who will run a red light or make a left turn from the right lane. Not a day goes by that I have to save my life with superior driving skills to compensate for the lack of ability of those who surround me on the road.

I also think of myself as an emotional chameleon; my aggressiveness behind the wheel is dictated by the vehicle I am driving. If I am driving my boring family car daily driver (a '03 Honda Accord LX four door) I drive like the gray-haired suburban dad. I am cautious and courteous on the road and I drive within the speed limit. I would never dream of dicing with other drivers nor would I ever weave through traffic.

But if I am driving my hobby car, a 1987 Honda CRX Si that has been modified for performance driving, I change into a much more aggressive driver. Freeway on ramps are an opportunity to feel the power of my performance-built engine and twisting roads allow me to test the lateral adhesion of my upgraded suspension. I am always take care to never push the limits of the car, the road conditions or my abilities on the public road; testing the limits of a car belongs in a controlled environment like a race track. It could be argued that I dance right up to the limits of safe driving behavior in my hobby car while on the street, but I do not break the law when driving on the street.

Posted by Scott at 6:03 AM | Comments (2)

October 12, 2005

I (finally) respond to comments

I get comments,

Reader Robyn writes:

I am wanting to find out what make and model car that Ashley Judd drove in the movie the YAYA Sister Club?

Sorry Robyn, that movie falls under the general definition of a "Chick Flick," and as such falls out of the area of expertise of the At Home Mechanic.

Regular Reader Dave Darling writes in response to my fitting a Carbon Fiber hood to my hobby car, a 19987 Honda CRX Si:

CF hood? Sweet, man! How much weight does that save? Saves it from the front, too, which is where most of the weight is in that car.

I think few things look nicer than a well laid-up piece of carbon-fiber bodywork. Sadly, they don't stay that way if you leave them unpainted. :( At least, if what I have heard is true, the sun's UV rays will start to break down the carbon strands over time, which will mar the looks and the strength of the panel.

Thanks Dave for returning the discussion on this site back to stuff I can respond to. The stock hood on the lightweight CRX model only weighs 20 pounds so there is not a lot of weight savings to found with a CF hood on that car. But as you said, any weight you can take off of the front of nose heavy Hondas is a good thing. And this hood is the "One Piece" design which means that the early CRX's plastic body panel between the headlights (called the header piece) which is prone to unsightly cracking can be eliminated. The new hood leaves a slight gap between the hood and the bumper cover so I have cut the plastic "grill" from the header piece and put that back on the car which nicely fills the gap that the new hood leaves.

I do not know much about Carbon Fiber's long term endurance in the sun, but I have also heard that it is best to keep it out of direct sunlight. Fortunately, my hobby car is always garaged and sun damage in not going to be a factor for me. But it seems to me that many cars are coming from the factory with Carbon Fiber pieces and maybe the CF parts they sue will survive sun exposure pretty well.

Painting a CF part would help to protect it from sun damage, but then no one will know that you have a CF body part if it is covered in paint. The best solution to this problem is something I have seen on a few street cars. The owner would paint all of the CF hood except for one corner that would be left exposed in its raw state, so he got the credit for the Carbon Fiber hood with the clean look of a painted part.

Keep those comments coming, I love to respond.

Posted by Scott at 7:09 PM | Comments (3)

I mourn the passing of the Honda Civic

The Honda Civic is dead as we know it. Honda has killed off their leading volume leader in the Untied States and no one is here to mourn its passing except me. The Civic nameplate lives on and the new for 2006 car that carries the Civic name is a fine car, but the Civic spirit is dead and gone. The Civic has morphed through innumerable changes since it was introduced in 1973 just in time to win the hearts and minds of the American automobile public as the first Gas Crisis struck in the Fall of '73. The original intent of the first Honda Civic has prevailed through all the model changes until the latest and largest version of the Honda Civic hit the US dealerships. The newest Civic has grown in size just as the girth of the Average American has grown over the decades and the larger, pudgier Civic is tailored to fit an audience that needs a skoosch more room to fit into its jeans.

It is not necessarily a bad thing that Honda has moved the Civic product line up a notch in the greater automotive food chain; the new car is well built, fuel efficient and handsome in an econo-box sort of way. In size and features, the new Civic is moving into territory that the Honda Accord has occupied since that nameplate debuted in the US in the late 1970's. The taller, wider cabin of the new Civic will hold four American-sized adults comfortably while the trunk will happily swallow their luggage. The fit and finish of the body and interior is Honda traditional: outstanding. The Honda drive train is Swiss watch smooth and quiet while delivering a jump in horsepower and squeezing even more mileage out of each gallon of gas than year's outstanding gas economy performance. So what is not to like about the new Civic?

Size and weight, to start with. The new Civic now tips the scales on the hefty side of 2900 pounds. What once was delivered at 2400 pounds now hauls a quarter of a ton of extra poundage. The extra weight delivers greater rigidity, a quieter and more comfortable ride and greater comfort features that were only available on top line luxury vehicles only a few years ago. Again, getting all these improvements is not a bad thing for the majority of car consumers who seek the Civic's legendary reliability and fuel economy in such an affordable package.

It is the car enthusiast market that is being shortchanged by the new Honda Civic. The Honda Civic, until outed by The Fast and the Furious movies, was the stealth performance car of choice for the new age gear head. Until the general public was woken from its ignorance of Honda's engineering and performance potential from such small packages by the laughably bad street racer movies, the Honda Civic was the car of choice for the modern Hot Rodder because it combined a small package with a high performance potential. Light weight, simple design and easily accessible mechanical bits (meaning that the average Home Mechanic could easily repair or improve his car) spawned the Sport Compact Car movement.

The new Civic in not light as we have covered, nor will it be easy for the average Home Mechanic to work on. Serious racing teams with not-for-the-street lightweight body materials can address the weight issue. But the At Home Mechanic will be stymied in his attempt to add power increasing aftermarket parts onto the new Civic due the compact design of the new car's engine compartment packaging. The engine every Civic up to the 2005 model year left the entire engine exposed when the hood was opened, the New Civic's steeply sloping windshield caused the underlying dashboard to project far forward and cover most of the engine compartment. While routine service points are still easily accessible in the new car, the tight spaces left by the new design dictates that the engine will need to be removed from below the vehicle for major service and improvement. This will definitely make an impact on the casual home hobbyist who would like do his own major work on the car.

Honda has a reason for moving the Honda Civic upscale in size and appointments while making the car that much more difficult for non-factory mechanics to work on it. The dealerships make the majority of their profits from the service bays, so anything that forces the owners to return for service is a plus for them. And Honda plans to fill the vacuum left by the Civic's departure for the next step up on the automotive evolutionary chain with an entirely new-to-the-US model called the Honda Jazz overseas and to be called the Honda Fit in the American market. Smaller, lighter, cheaper and less powerful than the Civic, the Fit will fit nicely into the current Honda lineup when it is introduced into this market next spring (allowing plenty of time for Honda dealerships to empty their inventory of smaller 2005 civic models lingering on their lots).

The good news for enthusiasts is that the Fit will swallow the Civic's bigger and more powerful drive train into its engine compartment and the tradition of packing a powerful punch in a small Honda will be continued by enthusiasts looking for a small package to propel with Honda power.

Posted by Scott at 6:13 PM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2005

I love getting readers comments

I enjoy getting comments and suggestions from my legions of readers (both of you) and you have responded quickly to my musings about buying a new car. As I stated in that post, I am tired of my boring, but reliable 2003 Honda Accord LX four door that has served me well for the past three years. My daily driver has been some sort of four-door sedan since I became a parent. But now that my kids are older and more independent it is not necessary for me to drive a bus-like vehicle to haul the entire family and I am considering what kind of car I can buy to replace the Family Truckster.

Dave Darling writes:

I would have a tough time buying any new car, frankly. I'd rather have something that has already experienced the major hit of depreciation, and something I can understand and work on. Which pretty much rules out everything new.

I'm partial to small two-seaters that are lightweight and have phenomenal handling. Most of which are staggeringly impractical (which is why I really like my CRX--it's the practical two-seater!). My vote for a new car would likely be a Lotus Elise. It's pretty much the acme of the "not practical" car, though.

The Lotus Elise is a dream come true, a slick little roadster with world class performance straight off the dealer's lot. I could feature myself carving corners in that car which looks to my eye like a 5/8's scale model of the FORD GT (if you put the hard top on, stand back about 50 feet and squint a bit). But it really small with little room to change your mind let alone a change of clothing for a weekend trip. And there are about 40 thousand good reasons with pictures of dead presidents on them that I will not be buying that car. However, if I match six lucky numbers I would certainly add a Lotus Elise to my stable of dream cars.

Dave also makes a good point about taking a hit of instant depreciation on a new car, losing something like 30% of its value as you drive it off the dealer's lot. The longer you hold a new car, the greater amount of time you have to spread that depreciation out. But I am reaching the crossover point of holding the car any longer will not justify the savings in lost depreciation.

I have been told that the "smartest" play in the auto ownership game is to purchase a one-year-old Mercedes that has come back in on a short-term lease. The first driver of the car has paid for the instant depreciation so there is little risk in holding that one-year old car for a year or so and then selling it before it begins to depreciate rapidly.

Bryce adds:

If you like sedans, and liked previous Accords, the Acura TSX might be good to look at. I'm a fan of it. It's the European and Japanese Accord. It's smaller and lighter than the Accord, while being far nicer to be in. I like the idea of a rev happy 4 cylinder with a 6 speed too.

I'd just about sell a kidney to get a Lotus Elise. It's not practical, but it calls to me like the Sirens to the Argonauts. If I had enough money to get one, I would not be able to resist buying one.

Bryce, I am with you all the way. The Lotus Elise is worthy of a selling a body part for. And it is interesting that you have the same taste in cars as Dave Darling and me. I guess birds of a feather, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But as I said before, it is too expensive and too small to be a daily driver for my purposes.

I like your suggestion of the Acura TSX, it is a more handsome and slightly smaller version of the Accord. Maybe I can find a slightly used version to beat the depreciation penalty. I have a few weeks to mull over the decision, I expect to be car shopping at the car buyer friendly Christmas season (few people buy cars when they are taking on the expenses of the holidays).

Keep those comments and suggestions coming in!

Posted by Scott at 5:24 PM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2005

Seen on the Street!

I saw one on the street today! I have seen the TV commercial, read about them in the magazines and even have pressed my nose against the dealer’s window, but until yesterday I have never seen a real live FORD GT being driven on the street. The new FORD GT, a retro reinterpretation of the Ford GT40 that dominated the 24 hours of Le Mans during the late 1960’s, is the stuff of Baby Boomer dreams. And after being released to the public for nearly a year I finally saw one on the street in my hometown.

My home town is pretty typical. Well, typical by Southern California standards. I live on the west side of Los Angles, a fairly affluent neighborhood where you are as much what you drive as where you live or what you do for a living. Around here it is important to many people to announce their perceived place in the social pecking order by the size and shape of their automobile. Intellectual arguments that a monster Mercedes is hardly necessary to transport a single occupant to their office in Century City are lost to those who are constantly measuring their car’s status symbol value against their neighbor’s.

But it is not the marginally insecure who love their shiny, flashy cars; all Californians have at least a passing interest in their source of personal transportation. At an early age we Californians can learn to tell the difference between a Buick or an Oldsmobile from across six lanes of traffic. Combine this with Californian’s notorious eccentric taste in all things (fashion, politics, cars, you name it we got it) and you will find a broad range of automobiles on our streets from Yugos to Ferraris as a matter of daily course. Square the eccentricity of the city with the dry, temperate climate and it not considered unusual for cars 30-40 years old to be used as a daily driver.

So the streets of Los Angeles are swarming with cool cars, new cars, old cars, fancy cars and sporty cars. It takes a significant car sighting to make a dent in a Los Angelinos consciousness. And my first sighting of a FORD GT on the street made quite an impression on me.

I was driving southbound on Rossmore Avenue in Los Angeles’s tone Hancock Park during slow afternoon rush hour traffic when I saw the FORD GT coming toward me. Shiny red with white racing stripes, there was not mistaking the distinctive lines of that swoopy car. Like a bobbysoxer at a Frank Sinatra concert at the Copa, I nearly swooned when I caught sight of the car. Wishing to salute the car and its lucky driver, I flashed my lights at him hoping that this simple gesture could communicate my respect, envy and desire for that car.

As the car approached my car in the opposite direction, I expected to see a look of bliss upon the face of the lucky driver. But as he got closer I could see his white knuckles gripping the steering the wheel and a look of dismay on his face. It was only then that I noticed that the low slung FORD GT was dwarfed by the towering SUVS surrounding it. Sitting so close to the ground, the occupants of a FORD GT are eye level with the never used the trailer hitches of the Toyota Land Crushers and Ford Exploders that range freely across the LA landscape. The driver of the FORD GT was scared to death that he and his expensive trophy car were in immediate danger of being crushed by a careless turn of the wheel by a latté addled soccer mom who would never see the tiny car in their mirrors if they got off the phone long enough to look into them.

The experience of seeing some other driver driving a FORD GT (the modern fulfillment of all my school boy hopes and dreams of one day owning a Ford GT40) and NOT enjoying the experience was a sobering slap in the face to me. I guess it just goes to show you that the dream car that you have always lusted after is not always the best car for use in the real world. And that is the reason why I will not spend $200,000 to buy a FORD GT and continue to drive a more mundane car.

Posted by Scott at 7:21 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2005

Time to move on

The thrill is gone. The bloom is off the rose. It is official, I am tired of my car. My daily driver is a 2003 Honda Accord LX four door, a perfectly fine family automobile. It is quiet, comfortable, spacious and economical. It has never failed to deliver all that it has promised to be, a reliable source of transportation. But familiarity breeds contempt and after nearly three years together it is time to move on.

I am not the promiscuous type, usually I am faithful to my cars and keep them for years. If I have a fault of any kind it is that I hold my cars too long, throwing good money after bad into old cars that need to be retired. I love my cars, I never would have bought them originally if they did not initially appeal to me. They become a member of the family with so many happy memories associated with them that I hate to let them go.

But the current Accord (it is the third Accord we have owned) is playing out its last days with our family. The car is approaching 42,000 miles on the odometer representing a 14,000 mile per year average, a number that is higher than average usage. If I continue to put mileage on this car at the current rate the residual value of the car at resale or trade in plummet in a year’s time. A used car with less than 50,000 miles on it is afar more attractive to potential buyers and will allow a bout more leverage at trade-in.

The car is also coming up on some wear item replacement. I had to replace the brake pads and shoes at 25,000 miles and I expect that I will need to replace them again within the year. I replaced the rear tires about 7,000 miles ago when they both suffered sidewall damage in separate punctures. The original front tires still have tread on them, but they will need replacing within 5,000 miles and I would rather not put any more money into a car that I am not planning on keeping.

This car is the latest generation of the ubiquitous Honda Accord line of family sedans, a line of cars that have always been top sellers. But over the years Honda has made each successive generation of Accord larger than the last until the current car is the size of an E Class Mercedes. Not a large car by American standards, but a larger car than I am used to driving. I prefer something smaller and easier to maneuver in traffic and parking lots.

I have owned four door sedan since I became a parent, it was convenient to load a family in through rear doors rather than having to twist and bend to get into a smaller back seat of a coupe. But my children are growing and more independent and it is no longer necessary to haul a large load of family to every destination. Now is the time to return to driving a coupe.

So the hunt begins. What car will I replace my reliable but boring Honda Accord with? I want something with a power to weight ratio of at least 18:1 or better, I deserve to drive a snappy performer at this advanced age that I have found myself at. And I want the new car to be mechanically and aesthetically pleasing to me, I have to respect the workings under the hood for me to drive a car on a regular basis. Sadly, this eliminates nearly every car made by US manufacturers.

I am open to your suggestions, perhaps someone out there has a good suggestion. Note to Buck: No Mustang convertible suggestions please.

Posted by Scott at 8:18 PM | Comments (2)

September 17, 2005

I respond to comments

I get comments and I do not often get the chance to respond directly to them. Being the lazy sort and not motivated to think up a whole new blog topic on my own I will respond to your many kind comments.

Recently I wrote about my recent engagement and the impact a new marriage will have on the fleet of cars in our soon to be combined families. My Lovely Intended who goes by the Nom De Internet of
little leadfoot writes:

Honey, I promise I will never tell you need an automotive upgrade, as
long as you promise you will smile and nod approvingly when I bring home my next impractical, zippy little sports car with manual transmission. Just be glad most of the kids have their own cars now.

I am glad that 75% of our progeny will be driving their own cars and the need to operate a family taxi service will be gone. Only the youngest one in curls will need to be driven on a regular basis and now maybe I can consider buying a fun and impractical car for a daily driver. But the practical side of me whispers that there will still be a need for some sort of hauler. Hmmmm, maybe I can justify getting that beater pick up truck I have always wanted?

I have also gotten some warm wishes from regular readers regarding my impending nuptials, Dave Darling writes:

Scott, you got yourself a winner there! Congratulations to the both of you.

Thank you Dave, I think so too. Not only is my Bride To Be sweet and loving, but also she has a need for automotive speed. One of the very first gifts I gave her was a day at the Jim Hall Cart Racing School in Oxnard, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Resident Gadfly Buck writes:

Congratulations, Scott and Little Leadfoot!!!

I happen to agree that your Accord is boring. Well, you agree and accept that. I drive similar LA roads as you and do find that a little extra power can help at time and even be fun. Those rare occasions that I get to drive Mulholland (which will increase for a year as we move up there temporarily next year) make it worthwhile to have a fun car. Plus, the road (even freeways) do open up.

Little Leadfoot, good for you! But I do think that the G35 sedan is a little more practical with kids. (Yes, I think that is what I have settled on, finally.)

Scott, I look forward to getting a ride with you in your shiny new Mustang convertible!
The last comment is directed at my less than enthusiastic response to Buck’s love affair with the new Mustang convertible. I think I broke Buck’s heart when I told him that his attraction to the new Mustang’s is more of a physical relationship than one based upon love and respect.

I made a snide remark about young men who have a challenged social life, regular reader Bryce writes:

Young car geeks often have trouble getting dates. And since they spend much of their disposable income on cars, and car related magazines, they have no money to buy Jugs and thus the auto magazines have been kind enough to add some T&A to the mix.

I will be the first person to admit that my grammar, spelling and sentence construction is less than perfect and that I really could benefit from a copy editor to fix my obvious mistakes. Fortunately I have Dave Darling who found this error:

I think the word you wanted was "decimated", not "disseminated".

Decimate: To lay waste to, or ravage. Comes from the Roman practice of
killing one person out of every ten from a large group that had pissed them off.

Disseminate: To spread widely.

Thanks Dave, I fixed that error. This is what happiness when you rely upon Spell Check. And I am partially dyslexic. Plus the Dain Bramage I suffered as a child makes it hard to recognize obvious errors. And did I mention that I suffer from being educated in Public Schools. So you see it is not my fault.

Posted by Scott at 3:10 PM | Comments (0)

September 13, 2005

Marriage and cars

Over the course of the last couple of weeks my girlfriend has become my fiancee. Along with the happiness and excitement of an impending wedding come the adjustments to one's life when you go from being a solo to a member of a pair (In my situation neither my fiancee or I are truly "solo" as this is a second marriage for both of us and we both bring two children to the marriage). The adjustments from your previous "single" life to "married" life includes domestic issues like where will you live as a couple, how to deal with household bills or who does the dishes after dinner. But the one issue that may be unique to the At Home Mechanic has to do with cars in the family.

I am a hardcore Car Guy; I love them all with a special interest in high performance vehicles. I have been modifying and racing street cars (in a safe and controlled environment) since the Nixon Presidency. I revel in my garage full of tools and I count the time spent with grease up to my elbows as quality therapy time. I have very high expectations of my vehicles and I will not tolerate less than perfect function from my cars. So you would expect that my daily driver of choice would be some sort of fire breathing road warrior.

My lovely fiancee is a petite and demur lady. She is the consummate professional in a high profile industry who has managed to successfully balance a terrific career with all the duties of Motherhood. A talented and creative artist, my Lovely Intended is brilliant with a paintbrush and cooks like a dream. Although she can hammer and nail like a professional carpenter and is proud to have her own cordless drill for home improvements, she is completely at sea when it comes to the workings of her cars and has absolutely no interest in the hands-on realities of automobile maintenance. Your first impression would be that she is driving a practical Soccer Mom vehicle or maybe a foreign luxury sedan that befits a successful professional in her station in life.

To recap: I am a knuckle dragging Car Guy and my Future Bride is the stylish professional. The expectation is that I drive something sporty and she drives something practical.

Wrong! I drive boring, practical economy sedans since I became a father 16 years ago and my Dearly Beloved has crammed her kids into the tiny confines of series of sport coupes since Day One.

While I know and love all things fast on four wheels, I also know that the overwhelming majority of my time in a car is spent in Los Angeles' slow commuter traffic all by myself. A sporty car would be great fun on those very rare times when the road opens up, but I know that hauling kids to school and groceries home from the Mega Box store is my basic domain. The practical streak that runs a mile wide through my sole will not allow me to consider anything more exotic than a Honda Civic as my regular ride to work.

The Woman I Love started driving in a 5 speed Toyota Celica as a teen and has never looked back. Her daily drivers have included a Porsche 924 turbo, a Honda Prelude Si and a Mitsubishi GT3000. Currently she makes the rounds of Los Angeles in a pristine Infiniti G35 Sport Coupe. Just as she sees nothing immoral about spending $400 dollars for a pair of tiny Italian slippers, she sees it as her divine right to burn rubber in a sport coupe that requires her children to bend themselves more times than an origami swan to fit into the back seat of her car.

I feed my need for speed with a hobby car, a 1987 Honda CRX Si that I have modified heavily for autocross and "open track" events in my local region. Faster than a speeding bullet, it is low, loud and stiff; I love this car for what I have built it to be. But I would never consider using it as a daily driver because I need my regular ride to be practical so I commute and haul the kids in my boring 2003 Honda Accord sedan.

It is said that women look at men the same way a real estate developer looks at a run-down old house; they both make a decision based upon potential for improvement rather than current condition. I can tell that my fiancee is tolerant of my current daily driver, but that she sees an automotive upgrade in my future.

Posted by Scott at 7:12 PM | Comments (4)

September 8, 2005

Honda Tuning Magazine

As you may remember, I published a warning about the car enthusiast magazine trade. I pointed out that the car magazines are not in the business of telling their readers the best information, but rather the information that will help sell their advertiser's products. In many instances, a magazine will shamelessly feature an advertiser's product in an article on the pages facing the very advertiser's ad. Rather than truthfully helping readers by suggesting less cost effective ways to solve a performance problem, the article will lead the gullible reader to believe that the ONLY solution to the problem is to buy that advertiser product.

The basis of the Magazine Business is to attract readers to the advertising. Readers base their selection of which magazine to buy upon the lifestyle that the magazine promises to deliver. Guys who daydream about a life of daring and adventure read Solider of Fortune magazine. Guys who can not get a date, and who may never get a date, read Jugs magazine. And guys who like sport compact cars read Super Street magazine. I do not mean to pick on any one sport compact magazine, the list seems to be endless, Super Street is the largest of the genre. But there is one magazine that is aimed directly at the sport compact car market, and the Honda fanciers in particular, that is different from the crowd. Honda Tuning magazine is the best of the "import tuner" magazines because they emphasize the actual hands-on technical stuff with true advise of how the work should be done.

Before I go any farther, I must disclose that Honda Tuning had the good taste to feature me and my car in the July 2004 issue in a quarter page sidebar to their story about the 2004 gathering of CRX enthusiasts called "Las Vegas CRXPO 2004." Because my model of CRX (it is the 1987 "1st Generation" of the Honda CRX model line) is so old and is not often modified for show or track, my car stood out as a curiosity amongst all the much newer and shinier CRXs. I am sure that my car was added to the story only because it was so strange to see an old car like mine as an ugly duckling amongst the swans.

But regardless of their reasons for including my car, Honda Tuning gets my praise as the only sport compact car magazine worth reading. Yes, they make a bow to attending to the hormonal interests of teenage boys by including a few gratuitous pictures of shapely young ladies in revealing garb. And tucked at the end of the magazine is a tiny review of current video games. But those concessions aside, Honda Tuning makes a point of delving into the technical fine points of specific engine and suspension jobs with step by step instructions and informative illustrations. Additionally, they make an effort to report upon the various professional racing series that concern Honda automobiles, although the magazines lead time make their reportage less than timely.

If you are a fan of performance Hondas and are serious about attempting to perform some of the work yourself, I can not recommend the magazine Honda Tuning enough.

Posted by Scott at 1:54 PM | Comments (1)

September 7, 2005

Made in Japan

The words, “Made in Japan” does not mean the same today as it once did. Today we associate Japanese designed and manufactured products with the highest quality and the ultimate in desirability. But back in the 1950’s and 1960’s Americans treated products from Japan and the rest of Asia with distain; it was conventional wisdom of the time that products imported from the Far East were cheap, inferior imitations of quality American or European originals.

The tiny Transistor Radio imported from various Japanese manufacturers was probably the product that first began to change American perceptions about Japanese products. Prior to Ipods or Walkmans, portable entertainment in the 1950’s came from AM radios that could fit in a shirt-pocket. Just as the Ipod recently created a revolution in portable personal entertainment, the Transistor Radio (so named because they could be miniaturized through the use of the integrated circuit’s precursor, the transistor, which was so much smaller than the tubes used in previous radios) became a sensation across the nation and consumers snapped them up regardless of their origin in Japan. American electronics manufacturers were concentrating on the higher profit margin they could make per unit on TV and ignored the low margin market for radios, which were supposed to be made obsolete and supplanted by Television. American companies abandoned the transistor radio market to the Japanese who exploited the niche.

Building upon the goodwill created by the success of the Transistor Radio, the Japanese swiftly came to market with an expanding line of inexpensive electronic products that also delivered good quality and attractive features. By the early 1970’s, the American consumer electronic industry was decimated by Asian competition.

The American automobile industry made the same mistake as the American consumer electronics industry. The US Big made only token efforts to meet the small, economical cars coming from Europe and Japan in the 1960’s, but they preferred to concentrate upon the higher profit margin large cars that represented the majority of the US market. Although the first Japanese cars imported to the US were tiny and not very good, by the late 1960’s Datsun and Toyota had created cars that Americans could embrace. The American manufacturers tossed some Pintos, Vegas and Gremlins at that end of the market, but did not seriously consider that Americans would want or need quality smaller cars.

With the Oil Embargos of the 1970’s, American consumers were clamoring for good quality fuel efficient cars and the Japanese car makers were best suited to supply that demand. Every rise in gasoline prices in the US caused American automobile manufacturer’s market share to decline at a similar pace.

Just as the Japanese consumer electronic industry cleverly leveraged their advantage in a niche of the market to eventually dominate it, the Japanese automobile industry has also wedged itself into the hearts and minds of the American consumer. And the American consumer now considers “Made in Japan” to far superior to than anything American made.

Posted by Scott at 8:04 AM | Comments (2)

September 6, 2005

Cars in Movies

If movies are a reflection of our culture at any given time in history, then the cars in movies are also a reflection of the times when the movie was made. Just as style of dress, manner of speaking and social interaction in the story lines of movies are an indication of what is important to the American culture at the time that the movie was made, the cars that the propels the hero on his quest to resolve the story’s conflict are an equally important indication of how the car relates to the American culture at that time.

In the 1930’s America was in a period of economic turmoil as the country’s economy was ripped asunder by the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the resulting Great Depression. Millions of Americans lost their former livelihood of the family farm and were forced to seek new opportunities away from their homes. No movie told this sad story better than the adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes of Wrath” starring Henry Fonda as the hero, Tom Joad. The central conflict of the movie is the Joad family’s journey from Oklahoma to California from their failed farm to a new life as itinerant farm workers. Their mode of transport was a battered and creaky truck upon which the family has piled all of their materiel possessions. Throughout the movie the characters are dependant upon the questionable reliability of the truck to deliver the family from starvation in Oklahoma. But in the end, the truck survives the journey that becomes a metaphor for the optimism that the American journey through the Great Depression is perilous, but in the end we will emerge alive if not better off than before we started the journey.

World War II brought a new type of peril from abroad and the iconic transportation movie of the period is a Humphrey Bogart picture called “Sahara,” the story of an American tank and its crew who has been separated from Allied forces in the North African desert and who must now survive the harsh environment and the numerically superior German enemy. The tank is a solid example of American strength and ability, becoming the foundation that holds the disparate crew of arch-types and ethnicities together as they learn to overcome difficult odds.

The post-war Cold War of the 1950’s was a time of enforced social conformity as America looked inward for hidden enemies. Individuality was frowned upon; it was the time of idealized suburban living and the concern that Teenage Delinquency would be the ruin of American Society. James Dean’s starring vehicle “Rebel Without A Cause” reflected the youthful angst and discontent that roiled American families at the time. The Dean character’s chopped and channeled ’48 Mercury Hot Rod is a classic example of the creative outlet and rebellious statement young people were making as they struggled against the repressively narrow confines of societal conformity of the times.

By the 1960’s the yokes of conformity were being thrown off and Authority Figures were being challenged. The Anti-Hero, a non-conformist whose ends justified the means, became a favorite movie theme. Steve McQueen’s “Bullitt” is remembered best for the spectacular car chase through the streets of San Francisco featuring the Bad Guy’s dark green Dodge Charger versus the Good Guy’s dark green Mustang. Cinematically the filmmakers are telling us that there is very little difference between the Good Guys and the Bad Guys with only a subtle difference in the make and model.

The turmoil of the 1960’s gave way to the cynicism of the 1970’s and the Bad Guy had become the hero, as typified by Burt Reynold’s “Smokey and the Bandit” series of car chase movies. The Bandit out maneuvered and outsmarted the police in their dull and conservative sedans with his loud and flashy Pontiac Trans Am.

Oil Embargo’s, Embassy Take-Overs and Lowered Expectations placed America in a deep funk by the early 1980’s. Looking backwards wistfully for happier days, the regret for the mistakes made in the past and hope for better times to come spawned Robert Zemeckis’ “Back to the Future” series of movies. The Fusion Energy–powered Delorean of the movie that travels back in time to correct the errors of the past to insure a brighter future is the embodiment of all that Americans could hope for at the time.

The 1990’s did not produce an iconic car movie unless you count the Keanu Reeves action picture “Speed.” The plot of the movie revolves around the need to maintain velocity in a variety of vehicles because dire consequences would occur if the hero and imperiled heroine should slow down. The movie can be viewed as a metaphor for the feverish stock trading that was driving the nation’s economy during the craze for Technology stocks and the economic crash that occurred when the Internet Bubble burst.

The new millennium dawned with a cautious attitude. Worries about the “Y2K Bug,” the growing revelations of corporate malfeasance, the near collapse of the stock market and the tragic events of September 11th, 2001 put Americans on edge. Suspicion greeted all foreign things, and in the movies the Bad Guys drove foreign cars in “The Fast and The Furious.” Ludicrously inaccurate in every detail, the less said the better about this lousy movie that launched a tide of backwards cap wearing, wannabe street racers in hopped up Japanese cars upon the streets of America.

Hopefully the first decade of the 21st Century will give us a better movie than "F&F" as an example of the movie’s use of the automobile. It would be a great disappointment if future generations will remember our current decade by a movie that glorifies illegal street racing in cars festooned with stripes, stickers and wings.

Posted by Scott at 7:05 AM | Comments (1)

I stand corrected

I like to think that I am a better driver than writer. Writing requires thought and thinking has never been my long suit. It also occurs to me that driving requires thoguht so I am totally out of luck. Regular reader Dave Darling corrects my article about car control:

Scott, you have the effects of power on over/understeer exactly backwards.

Lift off the throttle in mid-corner, and the weight shifts forward, true. This unweights the rear wheels, which decreases their traction. That leads to oversteer.

Similarly, getting on the throttle more than you should will transfer weight aft, unloading the front wheels. The front wheels lose some traction, and underseer results.

--DD

Posted by Scott at 7:02 AM | Comments (1)

September 4, 2005

Get Control

Get control of yourself, or at the very least get control of your car. So many times I see postings on auto enthusiast web forums blaming a car’s poor handling for traffic accidents. But with a little examination of the relevant facts, we find that excessive speed for the condition of the road is the main culprit.

It is not to say that cars do not come from the factory predetermined to behave in a particular manner in a given situation. Nearly every new car that is sold in the United States comes from the factory designed to under steer (under steer is the phenomenon where you turn the front wheels and the car continues to go straight) under extreme limits of traction on dry streets. While this may seem counterintuitive (I want my car to turn when I move the steering wheel, but I am funny that way) but the justification is that the understeer only happens when the limits of adhesion had been exceeded. The alternative is to have cars that over steer (the tail end tends to swing out as traction limits are exceeded.

Oversteer was a problem for early rear engines cars with a simple rear swing axle design. Ralph Nader made a name for himself by pointing out the potential for disaster of the Chevrolet Corvair’s rear engine/swing axle design in the hands of unaware consumers. Rather than suggest that the consumers were at fault for driving their Corvairs beyond the limits of the design’s intention, Mr.Nader persuaded Congress that tail-heavy, over steering designs were unsafe at any speed. Congress responded by passing a comprehensive series of laws regulating automobile safety. While there is an argument to be made on both sides of the debate the car companies have since chosen to build cars with a bit of built-in under steer in the design.

I like to drive my hobby car at speed on racecourses where the conditions are controlled and there are as many provisions for safety as possible. To get the most speed out of my car on the racetrack, I prefer that my car have neutral handling, neither under nor over steering. Knowing that my Honda CRX Si came from the factory with built-in under steer, I attacked that problem (detailing how I eliminated under steer is the subject of another posting that will come shortly) and my car now is very neutral and gets the most grip from both ends of the car.

Mechanical considerations aside, the driver still has the primary responsibility for the car’s behavior on the road. The driver’s right foot has a tremendous amount of influence upon whether a car under or over steers. “Weight shifting” is the name of the technique of changing the balance of a car as it swings through a turn.

Adding or subtracting power while making a speedy turn (speedy for the conditions, your actual speed make me relatively low) shifts the weight of the car forward and backwards. Imagine that a car is going around a turn and that the weight of the car is loaded equally between the front or rear tires. By adding power while turning, the car’s weight is thrown towards the rear of the car. The extra weight on the rear tires will cause them to overload and begin to lose traction. Conversely, by letting off power while turning shifts the car’s weight forward which overloads the front tires causing under steer.

These effects are magnifies by extreme weight imbalance; front wheel drive cars have the majority of their weight over the front wheels. These cars are particularly prone to understeer and are extra sensitive to adding or subtracting power while turning at the limits of traction (this is another way of saying, “They are going too damn fast for the turn.”)

The best rule of thumb is to brake in a straight line before you need to turn the steering wheel. If you find yourself in a turn and feel you have entered with too much speed... you are screwed.

Posted by Scott at 2:35 PM | Comments (1)

September 1, 2005

Katrina was a bitch

Just a quick note today to suggest that we all make a donation of money (even a small amount can help) to the Red Cross or similar charity organization to help our fellow Americans in their time of need.

Back to car stuff tomorrow.

Scott

Posted by Scott at 9:34 AM | Comments (0)

August 31, 2005

American Weight Problem

America has a weight problem. Not only are our waists getting super-sized but our cars are getting bigger and heavier. Regular reader Bryce writes, “Does it seem weird to anybody else that compact "economy" cars now weigh one and a half tons? As an auto enthusiast who loves cars built by the credo of 'add lightness' I think high gas prices will be a good thing for reducing automobile weight in the next few years.” Bryce has a good point, the weight of a car has a negative impact on fuel economy. Now that gasoline prices in the United States are approaching the cost for fuel in Europe and Japan there is good chance that Americans will soon have the opportunity to buy the kind of smaller and lighter cars that are favored overseas.

Cars have been gaining weight over the years; today’s Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla weights 4-500 pounds more that comparable models from just a few years ago. The new Ford Mustang weighs in 300 pounds more than last year’s model and the Porsche 911 has ballooned from 2,700 lbs. 35 years ago to nearly 3,300 lbs. for today’s version.

There are many reasons why cars have been getting heavier over the years; government regulation, manufacturer greed and consumer preference are all equally guilty for cars porking up. Government Gnomes, Insurance Company Number Crunchers and Scaredy Cat Consumers have all conspired to put a premium on crash impact and roll over protection test results. Consequently, new cars are built sturdier than earlier models. But the increase in strength also means extra weight, as steel is the most cost-effective materiel to add to a car’s frame for strength.

The manufacturers have been adding content to automobiles and this adds weight. I can remember when only luxury cars came with Power Windows, Air Conditioning, and Cruise Control. Today we expect those features plus keyless entry, sunroofs, leather seats and monster stereos in entry level to mid-range models. All of these features add weight to each car. But more importantly, each feature also is a profit center for the manufacturers; the mark-up on a dozen extra features means a dozen extra sources of profit on each car sold. So in a manner of speaking automobiles are sold by the pound and the heavier the car, the greater the profit.

Finally, consumers must take some of the blame for heavier cars. We are demanding more standard features in even our entry-level vehicles and so the weight is added. And Americans are getting to be larger people in every dimension, it is easier for larger people to get in and out of larger cars. The wildly successful Chrysler PT Cruiser is nothing more than a Neon that has been made taller (and heavier) so that it is easier to get in and out of.

Weight is not all bad, strength and safety can not be easily dismissed. And the weight of extra structure is usually engineered to add rigidity to the structure of a vehicle, which in turn makes for a more stable ride down the road. And if a car’s structure is more rigid, it is less likely to have annoying squeaks and rattles.

My prediction is that consumers have become used to the quiet, comfort and safety of modern cars so manufacturers will not be removing content from their products in pursuit of some extra gas mileage. Instead look for gas/electric hybrids and diesel engine to more efficiently power heavy cars down our highways.

Posted by Scott at 8:12 AM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2005

Chevrolet Cobalt SS/SC

You have to give General Motors credit for trying. Losing market share faster than I am losing hair on my head, America’s largest automobile manufacturer is throwing out all the stops to win back the hearts and minds of the car buying public. Over the course of the last couple of years GM has introduced a variety of new models across the automobile spectrum to lure buyers back into the fold. In order to bind a buyer to a corporate identity for a lifetime of patronage, it is important to win the hearts of minds of the young, first time car buyer. Vital to this effort for GM is the Chevrolet Cobalt, an entry-level sedan that must compete and win against the Nissan Altima, the Toyota Corolla and the Honda Civic.

Image is everything and to polish the Cobalt’s image in the eye’s of the young, hip and trendy GM has created a sport version called the Cobalt SS/SC. Deciphering the appendage to the Cobalt’s name reveals that “SS” is Chevrolet’s traditional designation for Super Sport and that in this case “SC” stands for Super Charged. In deed, the Cobalt’s double overhead cam Ecotech inline four engine is assisted by a supercharger that raises engine output to 200 horsepower in a 3,000-pound package yielding a sprightly power to weigh ratio of 15:1. Check the option boxes carefully and your Cobalt SS/SC can also come equipped from the factory with gauges in an A-pillar mounted pod, Recaro sport seats, a rear wing and a Limited slip Differential. In other words, you can order up a Cobalt that will have the looks (if not most of the speed) to gain street cred amongst the Fast and Furious crowd that may not be old enough to buy a legal alcoholic beverage, but certainly old enough to sign a purchase contract with GM financing.

GM does not have to sell a lot of Cobalt’s dressed for street warfare to build a positive impression amongst the undergraduate tastemakers that influence their demographic peers. It is merely enough to offer the model for sale and make sure that the enthusiast magazines rave about the car’s out-of-the box abilities. The design of the marketing campaign for the Cobalt and its image leader the SS/SC is to sway the crowd that is now slavishly devoted to all things Honda Civic and its corporate brother the Acura Integra/RSX over to Chevrolet and the rest of the General Motors family of cars.

The Cobalt SS/SC my draw the buyers into the showrooms, but the less well-endowed models of the Cobalt will have to deliver on the promises made by the sport model at the top of the model line. The Cobalt SS/SC fully suited will tip the dealer’s sticker price to the neighborhood of twenty five thousand dollars, rarefied air for first time buyers. The Cobalt models that retail for less than twenty thousand dollars need to have the fit, finish and durability to stand in comparison to the Japanese manufacturers. Traditionally, this is part of the competition for buyers’ affinity that has caught GM short in the past.

But the real question for the At Home Mechanic is what is the potential for the mundane versions of the Cobalt to be transformed into a performance machine by the auto enthusiast. The hot rod SS/SC will give a good showing for itself amongst the burger stand scene, but will anyone salute the Cobalt without the stickers, stripes and wings that comes with the top end model? GM is doing its part by positioning the Cobalt’s Ecotech engine as the small block Chevy engine of the new millennium and they have encouraged aftermarket manufacturers to scale up production of the typical go fast goodies that will be needed to hop up the Cobalt.

Suspension parts should be entering the aftermarket pipeline quickly; the Cobalt shares its platform with its corporate spiritual cousins the Opal and Vauxhall so there will be reduced risk for aftermarket manufacturers who risk investing in the Cobalt’s potential as a target for home improvement.

The ultimate proof of performance for the Cobalt will come in about five years. By then the cost of a used Cobalt will reach the level that the enthusiastic-but-money-challenged will be shopping for a car to buy and improve. If today’s 12 year old can be convinced that a Cobalt is worthy of consideration by the time he has turned 17, then GM will have succeeded in turning the tide of consumer perception to their favor.

Posted by Scott at 8:09 AM | Comments (2)

August 23, 2005

My Dream Car

General Chuck Yeager was once asked for his opinion of the best airplane of all time. The plainspoken aviation hero was clearly uncomfortable with the question because his loyalties were spread across a wide range of aircraft. Finally he told the interviewer, "Well I suppose it depends on whether you want to haul ass or haul manure." That is my feeling when asked about what I consider to be the "best car," it all depends upon what you need your car to do for you. There are cars I would own for personal transportation, and very different cars that I would own for fun. Business uses and terrain traveled are other considerations when shaping the opinion of what is the "best" car. But if you ask me what my Dream Car is, there is only one choice.

In 1960, dad brought home a new Ford Falcon. In early 1964 he bought a Ford Galaxy and in the middle of that same year the original Ford Mustang came to market. On the racetrack, Carroll Shelby was stuffing Ford V8's into small English roadsters and making the fancy European manufacturers look stupid. In that same era Ford had also decided to make a major effort on the Stock Car and Indy circuits and was reaping major rewards.

Henry Ford II (the old man's grandson and who was known around Dearborn as The Deuce) thought that buying the failing Ferrari factory would add some prestige to the company. He and old man Enzo got into some serious discussions about the sale of Ferrari to Ford and it looked like a "done deal." But Enzo balked at the thought of a Ford nameplate on any of his cars (you notice that the FIAT name never appears on today's Ferraris) and told The Deuce to go take a hike.

Not one to take an insult lightly, The Deuce told his underlings to beat Ferrari at their own game, regardless of the cost... and do it RIGHT NOW. Rather than start from scratch, the Ford racing guys out-sourced the car to England where Lola was operating a nice little cottage industry making racecars for customers. Ford dropped a 289 into the rear of a Lola coupe and renamed it the Ford GT 40.
The first Ford GT 40s were terrible and The Deuce was not amused. Shelby and his group of former rat racers was given the GT40 project and told to get it winning. They did and it did, culminating with the historic 1,2,3 finish at Le Mans in 1966. The rest is racing history.

I was ten years old when I got to watch the grainy satellite TV photos of the Ford GT 40's humiliating the Ferrari team with the staged crossing of the finish line in France. Today we take satellite video feeds from around the world for granted, but at that time it was a rare a memorable event when the hook-up was "coast to coast" or " live from across the Atlantic." The only other event of my childhood that was nearly as impressionable upon me was watching the first steps on the moon a couple of years later. Maybe it is a case of arrested development, but the Ford GT40 never has left my consciousness. I am nearly 50 years old but when you say "race car" the first image that comes to my mind is a MKII Ford GT40 in Gulf livery.

The modern automobile sedan has become homogenized to the point that it is difficult to tell one maker's product from another. Partially this is due to the fact that the rules of physics, packaging and aerodynamics apply equally to all cars. Partially it is due to caution about making a car that is "too different" for mass consumer appeal. Anxious to make their cars stand out without challenging the sensibilities of their customers, the major manufacturers looked backward to their legacy products to inspire the design new products. The Retro Look of the New Beetle, the New Thunderbird and the New Mustang came to market looking a whole lot like their old selves. Chrysler's PT Cruiser was loosely based upon a 1940's panel truck and the Chevrolet SSR is a modern interpretation of what a 1950's Studebaker pick-up truck would look like if it had its top cut off and a Corvette's running gear shoved underneath.

Nostalgia seemed to be working and so Ford ordered up a run of less than 2,000 modern Ford GTs to be built, not by Ford but out-sourced to Saleen, and powered by their newest truck engine. With a suggested retail price of $150,000, the limited run was an instant success and the secondary market for the cars has pushed "used" car prices to over 200 Grand. The new Ford GT (the rights to the name "GT40" have slipped from Ford's grip) is low and lean and sexy in all the ways that transports this fat, bald, old man back to his youth. Gazing upon the new car recalls the days when Ford Racing ran supreme. Cynicism and skepticism about all things American were impossible to imagine and the future was bright, safe and secure in a Wonder Bread sort of suburban ideal.

On the main street near my home there is a specialty car reseller, his showroom is filled with Ferraris, Lamborghini's, Aston Martins and Ruf Porsches. He does a good business, fulfilling the automotive dreams of successful business and entertainment executives that pass his shop on their way to Century City or the Fox movie studio. In his window, in a prime location, he has parked a new Ford GT40 that tempts me every morning has I walk past his shop on my daily exercise routine. It calls out to me; it cries for me to forgo my children's education, my retirement plans and my monthly mortgage payment. I could toss all of that aside so that I can make my childhood wish come true. This is indeed my Dream Car. The price tag says $225,000. I wonder if he would take $200,000 for it.

Ford
Ford GT

Posted by Scott at 8:42 AM | Comments (1)

August 19, 2005

I had a dream

I had the most disturbing dream last night. I am not one to put much credence in to dreams and I really do not pout any effort into trying to interpret them. But this dream was about my car, my tools and a garage. The dream was set at the garage of my boyhood home in suburban northern California of the 1960's. This garage was were my dad would work on his hobby cars. In those days I was his junior assistant, fetching tools and learning the basics of automotive engineering theory. I built my model kits there and I repaired and modified my bicycle in that old garage. For me, my Wonder Years were spent in that garage.

Back to the dream: My current hobby car, a 1987 Honda CRX Si, was parked just outside the entrance to the garage on the driveway. I was using some sort of rotary power tool, it was not clear in the dream if it was polishing and buffing motor or if it was a drill. I was using it to clean or cut a piece associated with the left front wheel of the car. In the dream, the power tool stops working, there is some sort of electrical short in the power cord or its plug. I touch the plug of the power tool with a screwdriver to fix the problem and the heat that is in the power plug of the tool is conducted into the screwdriver that I am holding.

The blade of the screwdriver heats up to the point that it begins to melt and pools of molten metal fall to the ground. I drop the screwdriver just before the heat of the melting blade cause the screwdriver's handle to melt.

At this point my hobby car, which is parked just a few feet away, suddenly drops every ounce of oil and gasoline contained in the oil pan and the gas tank. Before my disbelieving eyes this flammable combination flows up hill from under my car towards the spot on the ground where the molten screwdriver is laying. I watch in horror as the deadly liquid is about to be ignited. I know that my car, my garage and my tools will be consumed in an inevitable explosion of flames.

And then I woke up. I had to remind myself in my groggy, post sleep haze that my car is safely parked in my current garage. The car is not leaking any fluids and that my tools are not melting on the ground. The dream was so disturbing that I could not go back to sleep and instead I went to the kitchen and made myself a cup of coffee.

For you amateur shrinks who read this description of my dream I have a few other details about my conscious life to add to this story. I have had some love/hate issues with my hobby car recently. I have been under a lot of self-imposed stress to fix a string of minor but nagging and annoying problems with the car as I have been preparing it for its semiannual smog inspection. Just as I would find and fix one problem, another would appear. After much work and worry I had the car in condition to face the inspection. I sweated through the inspection procedure, sitting on pins and needles. It was a huge relief when the inspection tech gave me a big thumb up when the car passed.

As I write these words my car is running better right now than it has ever run before. Subconsciously I may have some issues about losing my hobby car after I have put so much time and attention into it. Losing the car would be devastating.

Hmmm ... the funny thing is that while I was working so hard on the car I had some moments of doubt about my relationship with my hobby car. I had dark thoughts about abandoning this project car if the trouble could not be resolved.

I invite all of my readers to express your interpretation of my dream and post them in the Comments section of this site. It would save me the consultation fee with a real psychologist and I could use the money on more car parts.

Posted by Scott at 1:17 PM | Comments (1)

August 18, 2005

A reader asks for an opinion

Regular reader Buck asked for my opinion on the new Mustang. I gave him my well reasoned argument that the new Mustang is all substance over style and that I could not endorse buying one. I feel that for the job of commuting or for racing, the new Mustang certainly looks good but fails to deliver either the performance or the connivance for either job.

Buck writes, "Thanks, Scott. I appreciate your in-depth review and honesty... The bottom line is that they built a beautiful commuter car, especially for a Southern Californian. I could buy a C6 or an AMG McLaren but how would that make more sense given my driving opportunities while commuting?"

Buck, you say that you want a commuter car for Southern California but there are far more fuel and space efficient commuter cars from which you could choose. But the key clue to your desires is your declaration that the new Mustang is "beautiful." While I will not deny that the lovely shape of the current Mustang does bring a nostalgic twang to my heart (I was an irrational fan of all things Ford in my childhood when the original Mustang was introduced)I find that the shape of the car is too large and non-aerodynamic in this fuel conscious age to be beautiful to my eyes. But to each his own, beauty lies in the beholder.

Buck, you speak of sense. Does it make any sense to buy a commuter car that gets less than 20 miles per gallon? Does it make sense to buy a car with a tiny and nearly inaccessible trunk? Does it make sense for you, a father for two, to buy a car that has a vestigial back seat? No, sense has nothing to do with your decision to buy or lease (I shutter at the thought of pissing your money away on leasing a 6 cylinder Mustang that will depreciate so rapidly) this car.

Lets face it. For the average American (and Buck you are very average with your two children and your suburban lifestyle) a car purchase is not about practical matters. It is all about emotion. Your emotional response to the shiny convertible on the dealer lot is all that Ford is counting on to sell you a car.

Ford and the other American manufacturers will not bother to engineer a decent car until Joe Average stops buying dumb, impractical automobiles. You see Buck, you are an "enabler." Just as the family of a drunk that refuses to confront him is allowing the destructive behavior to continue, consumers like you are holding the Detroit Three to a low standard. In effect by buying the Mustang you are declaring, "I really do not care how crappy this car is under the sheet metal, I will buy it because it will make me feel good about myself."

And by doing that, by encouraging Detroit to make lousy cars you are contributing to killing the American automobile industry. The Big Three have gotten fat and lazy selling style rather than delivering solid design engineering. And today with gas prices approaching $3 per gallon, Detroit does not have the products that Americans will need.

Sure there will be giant blinging SUV's, Corvettes, Vipers and the such to create show room traffic for American-made car dealers. But the rest of the product line is a hollow shell of crap.

So go ahead Buck, do as you wish. You may absolutely love your Mustang for its few virtues and its many flaws in my opinion. It appears to me that your interest in automobiles ends at the sheet metal.

Posted by Scott at 4:32 PM | Comments (2)

Old Cars... and what they mean to us

Call them Classic, call them Golden Oldies, or call them Old School we all get a warm and fuzzy feeling from cars that recall our youth. For the teenaged stunna crowd of today this may mean getting a chubby from a Subaru WRX STi. But for the rest of us it means the cars of our distant impressionable youth in the 50's, 60's or 70's.

This morning as I was making my daily three mile stroll around the local park I spotted a silver haired gentleman driving his immaculately restored 1954 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 convertible. My first impression was of the luster of the car's paint, the glint of the chrome and the obvious detail in the car's restoration.

My second impression was that this car, although lovingly restored to better than original condition was a handful to drive. The brakes are weak, the steering was vague and the clutch was heavy. Even the cheapest and most pedestrian modern automobile could be easier and more comfortable to drive.

But the most important feature of this car was the smile on face of the guy who was driving. Ear to ear. Without too much guessing it was obvious to see that this guy had lusted for this car in his youth. He may be a successful businessman, a loving father and husband, a pillar of the community. But just as Charles Foster Kane, the title character from the classic movie "Citizen Kane" had achieved wealth and power, a sled named "Rosebud," from his youth was the only materiel object to give him pleasure. From the look on this guy's face, he was driving his "Rosebud."

Objects of desire from our youth, in the case of most men arrested in adolescent development, is a car. Back then it was "neat-o," "cool," "groovy" or even "boss." They are icons and talismans of out long past salad days. Given the chance to have that car, whatever the car was for you, it gives us a second chance to be a kid again. As the advertising slogan goes, "It is never too late to have a happy childhood."

Today I am a 49-year-old car nut who is tapping into the memories of my youth by owning an old car that I wished I could have bought when it was new and I was young. My 1987 Honda CRX Si is faintly old enough to qualify as a "classic" car of a bygone era. I know this because it is one of the old Japanese cars that have been invited to participate in the "Japanese Classic Car Show" to be held on October 1st at Long Beach California's Queen Mary park. Admission to see the old cars is free to the public and to enter you car only costs $20 which will also reward you with a T-shirt for an early registration. Details can be found at www.japaneseclassiccarsshow.com

My car is far from a "show car." It is not detailed to perfection nor is it tricked out to the max; I am a firm believer in the axiom "Form Follows Function." But I am proud of my old car and the modifications I have made to it. If you go to the show, look for me. I will be one of the old guys with an ear to ear grin.

Posted by Scott at 4:15 PM | Comments (1)

August 15, 2005

Changing behavior patterns

At the risk of exercising poor taste let me ask a rhetorical question: Why are the hybrid cars from Toyota and Honda like the atomic bomb attack on Japan? Because the fuel sipping gasoline/electric hybrid cars and the massive destruction upon the civilian population of two cities serve as convenient excuses to ignore the accepted practice of the old wasteful ways and to accept radically different, yet intrinsically more sensible methodology. I know it is huge stretch of the imagination to see how some cars sold in America can be compared to the surrender of Japan, but I ask for your indulgence as I make my case.

The fighting in Europe had stopped by the summer of 1945 , but the war against Japan was still dragging on. The Imperial Japanese military forces had once commanded most of the Western Pacific, but by the middle of 1945 Japan's forces had retreated to the home islands. Surrender was not a culturally acceptable notion to the Japanese fighting forces, they were prepared to defend the Homeland to the last man. It was predicted that Allied Forces would suffer casualties in excess of a million men trying to seize the Home Islands. If the Japanese abided by their cultural notion of defending without possibility of surrender, Japanese civilian and military losses could be as much as ten times greater as the Allied losses. Right or wrong, the decision was made to drop two atomic bombs on largely civilian populations.

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the convenient excuse for the Emperor of Japan break the culturally accepted practice to wastefully fight to the last man. The concept of surrender was radical; generations of Japanese were raised to regard anything less that total effort to the end as shameful. But the very real possibility that the lives of so many citizens of Japan would be wasted in a losing effort was real enough for the Emperor of Japan to act in a previously unthinkable manner.

In America we have enjoyed the luxury of vast quantities of inexpensive fossil fuels. And as such, the worldwide image of the American Car is a giant gas guzzling road monster. Nothing is more typical of America than a freeway jammed with these Goliath's carrying a single occupant. And suburban America is defined by a petite mother ferrying her tiny children to soccer practice in an SUV designed to ford streams while towing a howitzer. We Americans love our cars big, the bigger the better. Nothing shouts success to another American like owning a car large enough to launch and retrieve helicopters from the trunk lid.

Just as the Japanese were willing to fight to the last man regardless of the consequence, Americans were more concerned about the appearance of wealth to drive cars that are less than Earth Crushers. But just as the use of the atomic bomb gave the Japanese an excuse to ignore decades of conditioning to embrace a more rational and practical way to end the war, the hybrid cars from Toyota and Honda have given Americans a culturally acceptable excuse to abandon their giant cars for the small but efficient sedans.

The hybrid cars most commonly available at this time are compact four door sedans. Outwardly they are no different that the common Civics and Corollas that are sold as inexpensive, "entry level" vehicles to lower and middle class consumers. A trendy fashionista or an upwardly professional would never previously considered such a plain and mundane vehicle. Even though there is no rational reason for someone to drive 4,000 lbs. of Yank Tank while he makes his solo commute, until recently the typical car of choice for Americans is a car vastly overqualified for its primary usage.

Until. Until Americans were given a new compelling reason to drive a more rationally sized vehicle. The novelty factor of owning that mundane four door sedan that sports a tiny badge that identifies it as a hybrid is enough to get the Soccer Mom out of her Mini-Van, the Cowboy out of his Pick-up and the Lawyer out of his Lexus. Americans who previously could never consider driving a rational sized car are now clamoring to get into a car that was previously beneath their perceived station in life. In essence, just as the Japanese were given the excuse to surrender (a previously unimaginable option) with the dropping of the Atomic Bomb, Americans are given a socially acceptable reason to drive a compact car that they may never have previously considered.

All it takes is a compelling reason to buck the accepted cultural behavior.

Posted by Scott at 7:14 AM | Comments (0)

August 11, 2005

The new Ford Mustang

Regular reader Buck asked for my opinion on the New Mustang . The word "Mustang" invokes so many thoughts and emotions that I am not sure I can be objective on the topic. After all, the original 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang ignited the fires of car devotion in me when I was eight years old. My family and I have owned five Mustangs (a '65 convertible, two '66's coupes, a '67 convertible and a '84 coupe) over the years and although I am a confirmed Honda fan today, I still have a soft spot in my heart (and probably my head) for all things Ford.

The Ford Mustang has always promised so much and delivered so very little. While the Mustang image is shaped by Shelby's hand-built racecars and the car's silhouette has been lent to various drag and road race versions, the street Mustang is style over substance. That is to say that the Mustang has always had pretty mundane underpinning covered by some sexy sheet metal that suggests speed and performance. In the great scope of performance cars, the stock Mustang of any era would rank somewhere near the rear of the field. Oh yes, it was and is possible to order a high horsepower Mustang from your local Ford dealer and that car may actually have some decent road manners on the twisities. But the overwhelming majority of Mustangs that roll off the dealer's lot are... dare I say it?... girl's cars. I know that is a sexist statement and I will rot in hell for all eternity for saying it. But the truth of the matter is that most Mustangs (about 75%) are automatic transmission-equipped, six cylinder commuter coupes that will never be driven with any kind of enthusiasm. Ford is counting on the image (and smoky burn outs at the local drive-in hamburger stand) of the V8 equipped Mustangs to carry the name plate's reputation.

The current version of the Mustang rides on the same platform as the S-type Jaguar and the soon to be extinct Thunderbird which is a huge improvement over the old Fox platform that been the basis of the Mustang for over twenty years. And the new car's styling is faithful to the image; the car looks like what we all expect a Mustang to look like. A long hood, a short rear deck, the fastback rood line, the various details in the front and rear end caps all scream MUSTANG from a mile away. The dash board features chrome rimmed bezels in a retro homage to days gone by. The rear seat is as cramped and unusable as any Mustang and the truck space is accessed through a mail slot.

The 200 horsepower V6 base engine powers the portly 3600 pound Mustang to a decent 18:1 power to weigh ratio which will make your Saturn's 24:1 power to weight ratio seem like a lead sled. The 300 horsepower V8 Mustang hustles the car's hulk to a snappy 12:1 power to weigh ratio which could lead the un-informed to believe that he is driving a performance car. When in fact he would discover at the first turn that the softly sprung Mustang is happiest in a straight line. Ford has wisely decided that comfort and quiet will be more prized to Mustang owners that being to squeeze another tenth of a second on the skid pad.

As such, Ford has given the new Mustang a solid rear axle which pleases the drag racing crowd who do not like to be challenged with technology newer that the anvil. The aerodynamic shape of the new Mustang has been compared to a brick. The fit and finish is adequate while the switch gear and interior panels are Ford Traditional: Cheap to the touch.

The Convertible Mustang is a huge seller, particularly to rental fleets in Florida and Hawaii where tourists enhance their tropical vacations with sunstroke and wind-blown hair. The new Mustang's platform receives extra bracing to compensate from loss of the hard roof, but the topless version is never going to make anyone forget German roadster rigidity.

For what is meant to be, a sporty commuter car/grocery getter, the new Mustang fills the bill admirably. And your neighbors will be impressed with its sharp styling. But do not challenge any C6 Corvettes to a race out to Dead Man's Curve, they will kick your butt.

Posted by Scott at 8:10 AM | Comments (1)

August 5, 2005

Bless you Bryce

When you begin to blog, you hope that someone will read your work and find it enjoyable. When I began this blog, I made a few modest postings on Web forums that I have regularly contributed to. In the first week the blog got some traffic and a few nice comments. Friends and family generally will give you some forms of support and claim to read your stuff everyday. But you always hope that new readers will find your stuff in the clutter that is the onslaught of information that streams like a fire hose to Internet. I am proud to say that at least one reader has found my blog in the mire of the Web and responds to what I write on a regular basis. Bless you Bryce.

Bryce, you are a mystery to me. I do not know who you are, where you are from or what your taste in cars is. Not that I want to tailor my blog to an audience of one, but if there is a particular topic you would like to read about let me know and I will whip something up. And that goes for all the rest of you who claim to read my blog. I know you are out there.

I am not above writing vanity articles about you and your favorite car. Drop me a comment or write directly to Scott@Harris.net with the details of your automotive obsession and I guarantee that you will be profiled on this blog.

Writing a blog is fun and a challenge at the same time. I devote entire moments of my busy day thinking up topics for this use of bandwidth. I usually start with a phrase or sentence and try to develop an entire piece from that shred. This article came from the joy of discovering that Bryce had responded once again. If any of the others out there responds to this piece, I can squeeze another couple of stories out. I am not proud, toss a drowning man a lifeline and I will be eternally grateful.

I try to come up with an original entry everyday, the hope is that readers will enjoy their daily fix and encourage others to come join the fun. Maybe the readers would click on a few of the links on the right side of the page so that we generate a bit of revenue for the cause. Hope springs eternal.

Posted by Scott at 9:11 AM | Comments (4)

August 3, 2005

Time and its use

Scientists who subscribe to the Big Bang Theory tell us that the Universe is about 14 billion years old and that Planet Earth is about 5 billion years old. Humans, as we know them, have walked upright on the Earth for about 100,000 years and the North American continent has been inhabited for about 15,000 years.

That means that the average life expectancy of about 77 years for Americans is just a blink of the eye when compared in the context of the great scope of all existence. We are only given a finite amount of time in the course of a lifetime; when our term is over we are gone for a very long time. The way we spend our time as conscious beings is very important; it seems a shame to waste even a single moment.

The philosophy of time use is important to both the professional mechanic and the At Home Mechanic. For the professional mechanic, and the repair shops that employ them, time use is a component of what they charge the customer. Every repair facility charges the customer on the basis of the parts required for the job, plus the amount of time it will take to complete the job as broken down in 15-minute increments. A job as simple as replacing a burned out tail light will take less than 5 minutes, but the shop will charge the minimum labor charge of 15 minutes plus the cost of the part being replaced. If the shop is charging you $75 per hour for labor, that fifty-cent bulb cost you $18.75 in labor to replace at a professional service facility. If there is a Great Karmic Ledger of Time Use, the time a professional mechanic trades for a paycheck goes down under the general heading of Business.

But for the At Home Mechanic time spent in the garage working on a car goes down on the Great Karmic Ledger of Time Use under the general heading of Pleasure. I say "general heading of Pleasure" because there are subsets of time spent in the garage that also can be classified as Frustration, Confusion, Pain, and ultimately, Education. Yet the time spent in the garage that may not seem like Pleasure at first still falls under that general heading because the ultimate conclusion of time spent with your car usually ends with a pleasurable conclusion.

Pros work much faster than amateurs; they have the advantage of the just the right tools, the right parts and the right training to get any job done in time efficient manner. The At Home Mechanic may not have the right tools, he may have forgotten to get that tiny but essential part that is required to complete the job, and he is learning as he goes. If a job like changing a timing belt takes a pro two hours you can figure that it will take the At Home Mechanic at least twice that time... the first time he does that job. Even with the best set of instructions from a Factory Service Manual, the rookie mechanic will have a learning curve to overcome.

My feeling is that rushing through a repair job needlessly is wasting an opportunity to spend quality time with my car. Time spent working out the cause and the repair of an automotive problem is an intellectual challenge that must be savored. If you are making good progress on your project there is no reason to hurry. If you finish quickly, it only means that you will have to move on to a job on the never-ending Honey Do list.

Posted by Scott at 6:08 AM | Comments (0)

August 1, 2005

Racing Tastes

Why do Americans prefer to go around in circles, except when they are going in a straight line? Why is it that the rest of the world prefers to wander aimlessly? And what does horse racing have to do with car racing? All these questions relate to the way Americans enjoy motor sports and how we are different in this country from the rest of the world.

America is the land of wide-open spaces, vast miles of prairie stretching beyond the horizon. As the country grew new highways were laid out in straight lines, unimpeded by mountain ranges. In the interest of efficiency, natural barriers like ravens or bodies of water were bridged or filled top keep the new roads as straight as possible. New cities were laid out in rectangular grids of straight boulevards. To Americans driving across the country or across town, roadways are mostly straight lines running off into the distance. Certainly, there are sections of winding twisty roads in America, but the vast majority of highways in the US are largely straight lines.

In Europe, roads were built along natural contours rather than across them. Highways are built upon ancient and traditional routes that meander across a landscape that is less than uniform. Although modern European and Asian roadways are world class and nearly as straight as American highways, the majority of driving is on winding roads that twist through the country side.

As we drive, so we race. Americans see mostly straight lines on their roads and so they prefer to race in straight lines. Racing illegally from stop light to stop light in the cities, it is not hard to understand how drag racing became a popular sport I the US. In Europe and Asia, crowded cities did not lend themselves to straight line racing in an urban setting so drag racing did not emerge as a popular choice. Instead, Europeans tended to race cars out in the countryside from town to town on public highways. The sport of rally racing has emerged in Europe and Asia as a popular choice because it more closely resembles the type of performance driving found in those countries.

To make a business of auto racing, it is necessary to enclose the grounds and charge admission. While purpose built race car tracks were rare in the early days of racing, there were plenty of horse racing tracks across the US laid out in an oval shape with a ready built grandstand. Nearly every county seat in the country has a fairground that lent itself to early auto racing in the US. From that tradition, it is not hard to understand why oval track racing like NASCAR has ascended in the US as the motor sport of choice.

Horse racing in Europe is very different from the US; over there a horse race is likely to be run on turf (grass) rather than plain dirt and include leaping over hedgerows which is not suitable to auto racing. As Europeans were used to driving on twisting highways, their purpose built auto racing tracks reflected this type of driving with seemingly random swings in direction from left and right plus elevation changes.

Racing is a reflection of the way in which the general population drives. If your reference as a driver is long straight roads, you are likely to be drawn to racing that mimics that type of driving. NASCAR's oval tracks are as close as possible to replicate the US driving experience within the confines of a racetrack. Formula 1's twisting tracks reflect the typical driving experience of Europeans and Asians and that is why it is so popular in those areas.

Posted by Scott at 9:29 AM | Comments (2)

July 29, 2005

Cars and Perception

In Malcolm Gladwell's best selling new book Blink he explains the human phenomenon of making a nearly instantaneous judgment about a person, a place or a situation. Even if we cannot articulate what causes us to form an opinion so quickly, we intuitively react to stimuli based upon small clues that we subconsciously perceive. If your eye does not get all the visual clues it expects from a car's design, your subconscious is inclined to dislike the car.

Gladwell sighted a marketing research investigation of a particular brand of inexpensive brandy that was losing market share to a rapidly rising competitor. Blind taste tests by consumers could not identify a significant difference in the two products. When the products were identified to the test subjects by their bottle, the competitor's brandy emerged as a clear favorite. But when the brandy within the bottles was switched so that the competitor's brandy was in put into the bottle of the slipping brand, the rising competitor's more impressive looking bottle tilted the test tastes to the brandy in the fancy bottle. The researchers found that consumers were making an instantaneous selection of the competitor's brandy strictly because of the more impressive and attractive packaging.

This should not be news to automobile designers. Supposedly they know that if the new car buying customer does not get an immediate positive response to the shape/style/look of a car, he just will not like it no matter how accomplished the mechanicals are under the body. But sometimes a design slips through that fails because of a simple omission.

One of the best examples of a very good car that did not sell well due to a cosmetic design fault was the original Infiniti Q45. The most expensive and luxurious model of Nissan's upscale Infiniti name plate, the Q45 got nothing but great reviews from the car magazines and it was poised to be a sales success in its upscale sedan market. There was nothing radically different about the Q45; it looked pretty much like all the other full sized luxury sedans in its class. It came with a powerful V8, leather seats and a wood paneled interior.

What it did not have was the deciding factor for the older, conservative consumers of expensive luxury sedans consumers to reject it. Rather than sporting a conventional radiator grill, it had a blunt front panel with no discernable opening. The car had no radiator grill. This lack of a single design element was enough to put off the Q45's target. Responding to dealer's demands, Infiniti added a "radiator grill" opening with the requisite chrome gilding the following model year and the car became a reasonably successful seller.

You can instantly identify a Rolls Royce by its Greek Revival radiator housing, you can tell it is a BMW by the twin kidney shaped openings and the Bentley is known by its wire mesh grill. Even if the make and model are not known for a particular radiator shape, a sedan as pedestrian as a Camry or an Accord has a ceremonial grill because consumers of sedans will reject a car that is missing an important design element such as a radiator grill.

How was it that Infiniti could sell a car without a radiator grill? Today's radiators draw the majority of the cooling air from below the front bumper; modern car designers have found that they can generate better airflow through the cooling system with this technique. That shiny "radiator grill" that you proudly polish on your modern cars is as functional as a set of tail fins on a 1958 Desoto.

The Infiniti Q45 was a conventional car targeted for a conventional market, its unconventional looks made it a flop with its intended market. But unconventional looks can be an advantage when manufacturers are looking to appeal to an unconventional market segment.

The original VW beetle was not a major success in America until VW recognized that they had a unique product that needed a unique consumer. They directed their advertising toward quirky individualists; generally better educated and younger than the broad car consumer market. The VW target market adopted the Beetle as a fashion statement as much as a mode of transportation. And this pioneering market segmentation paved the way for loveably odd-looking cars to find their niche in America.

Posted by Scott at 6:13 AM | Comments (2)

July 24, 2005

Orphans

My heart goes out to orphans. Foundlings, puppies and kittens all tug at my heartstrings but the orphans I am speaking about are orphans cars. An orphan car is one whose parent company has gone out of business, leaving a small but loyal group of car owners all alone in the world.

Car companies come and car companies go, but the products they leave behind often find a loving home that wishes to preserve and conserve them for years to come. Name plates like La Salle, De Soto and Studebaker are only distant memories and a few remaining survivors. Over the course of the last couple of years, once strong sellers like Plymouth and Oldsmobile have been dropped by their corporate parents for lack of consumer interest. In the former examples, loyalists blame Chrysler and General Motors for failing to sufficiently creating enough product distinction for sow sales. But the sad truth is that the abundance of manufacturing over capacity for North American car manufacturers made reducing nameplates a must.

Orphan cars are not totally alone in the world; stockpiles of spare parts are generally good for even the most obscure obsolete marques. Entire industries are dedicated to keep old cars in spare parts; a simple search on the Internet can help you find a Rambler radiator or a Hudson header.

But there is another type of orphan car, and for some reason these cars end in my collection. This other type of orphan car is the sports coupe that is no longer is or never was supported by the Aftermarket. The Aftermarket is the hundreds of companies that make the "go fast" parts for cars. Better flowing intake systems, higher compression pistons, stiffer suspension stuff, and much more does not come from the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) but from small to medium sized businesses who cater to the auto enthusiast market.

The Aftermarket is interested in making money so they tailor their products to what sells. Lots of people want to improve the performance of their Mustangs, so the Mustang Aftermarket is large and robust. Very few people want to improve the performance of their Mercury Marquis, so the Aftermarket for that car is nearly non-existent. That all makes perfect sense.

What does not make sense is the lack of Aftermarket support for some popular sport coupes. And I am not talking about product offerings from some obscure Serbo-Croatian cobbler; I am talking about reasonably good selling Honda products. Honda products have led the renaissance of interest in the automobile hobby that has blossomed in the last 15 years amongst young consumers. The Aftermarket for most of the Honda product line is deep and wide, meaning it is nearly possible to build a Honda Civic strictly from the parts available at your local import speed shop.

But I have had the misfortune to fall in love with maybe the only two Honda products that is not supported by the Aftermarket with any kind of enthusiasm. My 1987 Honda CRX was once at the cutting edge of the current Sport Compact Car phenomenon. At its introduction in the 1984 model year, the CRX became the prototypical Honda performance platform in America. The Aftermarket quickly embraced this car and a good supply of performance enhancing parts came to market. But when Honda fundamentally changed the design of the CRX and its sibling the Civic in the 1988 model year, the Aftermarket dropped the older CRX like a hot potato. Today, is I need or want a performance part my choices are slim. I have found that my best source for performance parts are garage sales, eBay auctions and my local junkyard. But at least the parts for my car were once available and can be found with a little scrounging.

The other enthusiast car in my stable is a 1990 Honda Prelude 2.0 Si. This car might just as well never have been born as long as the Aftermarket is concerned. Other than some sketchy Cold Air Intake kits from eBay and some dodgy looking body kits the Aftermarket ignores this car. This handsome sports coupe featuring a torquey 2 liter B-series Honda engine and a fully independent double wish bone suspension and four wheel disk brakes is an orphan at the performance parts counter.

That's the bad news. The good news is that the lack of things to buy for the Prelude is going to save me a lot of money in the long run. Rather than plotting how I will spend my next paycheck making the Prelude faster, I will be saving my money for the next "fun" car I will buy. Do you suppose the Ford Thunderbird has much Aftermarket support? If I buy one, you can count on any that exist to immediately dry up.

Posted by Scott at 5:32 PM | Comments (0)

July 21, 2005

Point of impact

What is the single most vulnerable spot on any car when driven by a new driver? I can say with absolute confidence that the one point on any automobile that is most likely to suffer from a new driver's over confidence is... the right front corner of the car. Even though it is within the line of sight of the driver, because it is slightly off center from where the driver is looking, it might as well be invisible to the new driver.

How do I know that this is the point of impact most commonly struck by the new driver? In my first week of driving my Mom's then-new 1971 Ford Pinto, I found a way to burry the right front corner of the Pinto into the fender of a parked truck while making a U-turn. I was concentrating so hard on the inside diameter of the turn I was making, I did not consider the consequence of my wide turn. The result was a crumpled right front fender, a sympathetic truck driver who never mentioned it to his boss (his damage was barely noticeable, but the Pinto took it hard) and my Dad made sure that I learned my first lesson in hands-on body and fender repair.

Thirty-three years later, my nearly 16-year-old son Andrew is learning to drive and he has found a way to smack the same point of our family sedan, a 2003 Honda Accord, into perfectly innocent cement wall while pulling into a parking spot at the local mall.

Andrew is driving as much as possible under the supervision of a licensed driver under California's Learner's Permit program. As I have written earlier, he is doing a good job operating the automatic transmission-equipped Accord and we have purchased a 1990 Honda Prelude with a 5-speed transmission, which will become his daily driver when he gets his Driver's License. Now that he has had some time behind the wheel of the manual transmission Prelude, he assures me that driving the auto-tranny Accord "is easy." Maybe too easy. While he must give his fullest concentration to driving the stick shift car, the automatic-equipped car allows a young mind to wander.

And wander it did, because he was watching the left front corner of the Accord as he pulled into the angled parking spot. The poor, defenseless right front corner got short shrift and a crunch into the wall.

Maybe I am at fault for Andrew's first contact with a solid object while driving. I was the licensed driver riding with him at the time, and legally I bear the burden of responsibility of his actions behind the wheel. As such my job is to instruct and critique as he navigated the local roads.

Under the very best of circumstances I am a very poor passenger, I prefer to be the master of my destiny and generally do not trust the driving skills of others. As a nervous parent with responsibility for my son's misadventures while motoring, I tend to keep a steady stream of instruction flowing while Andrew drives. "Not too close to that parked car. Traffic is slowing, use your brakes. That was not a complete stop." And so on.

I constantly have to withstand the withering sarcasm and exasperating eye rolling of the Modern American Teen when I am giving this lifesaving help. Nothing will deafen a teenager faster than the sound of his parent giving advice. As we approached the wall that was about to be struck, I went into protective-mode. Issuing warnings about the impending impact with the wall in rapid-fire succession only worked against the wall, the Accord's front bumper and me. The more I warned, the more he ignored. Andrew's full concentration was on the front left corner of the car in his direct line of sight and the right front corner's distance to danger was ignored.

The impact was at crawling speed, the wall will live to see another day. The impact resistant front bumper of the Accord resisted the impact with no structural damage although the paint was gouged from the plastic bumper cover. From a distance it is barely noticeable, but the anal retentive such as myself it is a mar that will live with the car infinitely. And Andrew's confidence got shaken just a bit from the impact and the righteous tongue-lashing I unleashed on the poor guy, "I told you to not hit the wall! But nooooo, you would not listen."

And thankfully the lesson learned from the first "crash" came at a pretty small price for Andrew. After I crumpled my Mom's Pinto I have never had another appreciable automobile accident. Hopefully Andrew's minor brush with the wall will be all the experience he needs to avoid any other incidents.

Posted by Scott at 8:40 AM | Comments (1)

July 20, 2005

No more American F1 Champions?

The United States is not likely to produce another native born Formula 1 world champion in the foreseeable future. The US can rightfully claim Phil Hill as our only native-born Formula 1 champion and we will also claim Italian-born, but US-raised, Mario Andretti as the last American champion of the world's premier auto race series. I can reliably make the prediction of a dearth of new road racing talent springing from American shores ever again based solely upon the emergence the dominance of one particular type of racing in America. It is a form of auto racing that is sucking the life blood out of every other form of American automotive competition by attracting all of the emerging driving talent into its dark hole. Once attracted like moths to light, these talent young drivers who otherwise could be representing the US on the major road racing courses of the world are enslaved into the grip of this uniquely American form of racing, never letting them escape.

I am speaking of NASCAR and its overwhelming popularity in the United States. Arising from the backwoods and sandy beaches of the American South, NASCAR has morphed from a regional curiosity of lightly prepped, "stock" cars driven by near-amateur drivers to a national attraction of spec-series cars, (All manufacturer marques represented in NASCAR are using a common body shell and largely similar suspensions. Only the engines differ amongst the brands and they are regulated to such a degree that the power difference is largely nil.) Driven by hugely compensated professional drivers on largely undemanding oval tracks, NASCAR is a huge money creating enterprise that absorbs the cast majority of sponsorship money (the Mother's Milk of professional auto racing) available in the United States. The only other auto-racing event that can compete for the hearts and wallets of the American consumer is the Indy 500. And that is barely surviving on the life support of long-standing tradition that has made the Memorial Day race a part of American heritage and the recent excitement of Danica Patrick becoming the most successful woman race car driver in the nearly 100 year history of the Indy 500.

As NASCAR grows and absorbs more of the racing limelight in America, the gravity of its attraction to young US drivers grows. The bright lights and big money that sustains the dreams of youngsters wishing to be a professional race car driver are glowing brightest on the NASCAR end of the American racing spectrum. The entry-level point onto the road to NASCAR stardom is relatively low; local oval track events are cheap and easy to get started with. The cost of equipment is relatively cheap and success in all forms of oval track racing is more dependent upon courage than skill. An American youngster can climb the racks of NASCAR stardom and develop his career in his figurative backyard of the US without having to prove his ability against the world's best drivers competing on road racing courses, primarily in Europe.

If an American youngster wishes to chase the dream of starring in any of the upper reaches of road racing, he must eventually leave the US to live and compete in Europe. While Asia is emerging as a growth market for road racing, Europe is the center of gravity for the international road racing community. As early as 14 years old is the time to be jockeying for a single seat, open wheeled ride that matters and it takes a truly special teen and his equally dedicated family to withstand the expense and separation that chasing the Formula 1 dream requires. The competition for a chance to rise in road racing is the most highly skilled imaginable. Rather than just turning left in a circle, these drivers are making decisive moves over tracks that can throw a dozen or more variations of left and right turns that must be driven as a complete set rather than a few barely connected bends in the same direction.

The money that comes with success in Formula 1 is astronomical, the worlds highest paid athlete is seven time F1 champion Michael Schumacher at about $60 million per year. But the majority of road racing professionals make nowhere the same kind of money that comes relatively easily to even a mid-field driver in NASCAR's lazier form of auto racing.

So as long as the money is easy, the entry points for youngsters remain relatively accessible, and you do not have to leave your home country for the unknown of a foreign culture it is highly unlikely that any home grown American will ever emerge as a world champion of road racing on the Formula 1 circuit.

Posted by Scott at 8:11 AM | Comments (1)

July 19, 2005

Read with caution

The automobile enthusiast magazines are not your friends. In fact, these magazines will publish deceptive or even flat out wrong information deliberately. And gullible readers will spend their money and waste their time making "improvements" to their car's performance that may not be needed or that actually reduce performance. Is every car magazines evil? Heck no, but a discriminating reader needs to be skeptical of claims and that same reader should know that there may be cheaper alternative ways of achieving the same performance.

The magazine business is interesting. Every magazine has a lifestyle personality and a target demographic. By carefully styling the contents, a magazine tries to attract that lifestyle demographic as readers or more importantly they are trying to attract people who aspire to that lifestyle. For example Yachting probably sells as many issues to people who wish they could afford a yacht as they sell to actual yacht owners.

With the exception of club newsletters that are home printed, bound with a stapler and distributed by hand, auto enthusiast magazines are businesses designed to make money. The cover price of a magazine is a small drop in the bucket in terms of magazine revenues; the cover price just about covers the cost of distributing the magazines to newsstand and home delivery.

The real money in the magazine business is selling advertising. Manufacturers make money by selling their products and they advertise in car magazines to help sell those products. It is quickly apparent that the cozy relationship between the magazines and their advertisers exist. The magazines are happy to feature manufacturers products on their pages and the advertisers are happy to buy paid advertising in the same issue that has feature stories about their products.

Reading the typical car magazine, the casual reader could easily be convinced that larger wheels and tires are the key to better performance. The concept of "Plus One" and "Plus Two" wheel and tire sizing (adding a set of wheels that is one or two inches larger than stock diameter and adding tires that are a correspondingly smaller in profile to create a wheel and tire combination that ahs the same outside diameter as the stock wheels and tires) is often featured in the enthusiast magazines. But what the magazine will not tell you is that larger, heavier wheels will reduce your acceleration and create more unsprung weight. Combined with changing the moment of inertia (Moving the weight of the wheels outward with large diameter wheels creates more inertia to overcome) and those flashy new wheels have made your car slower.

So read and enjoy the car enthusiast magazines, but keep a skeptical attitude when they tell you what parts and services you "need."

Posted by Scott at 7:24 AM | Comments (2)

July 15, 2005

Readers speak back to AHM

There is immediate feedback from working on a car, either it runs or it doesn't. And part of the joy of projects in the garage is the instant gratification. We don't get that same instant feedback here on the At Home Mechanic, so it is up to you the readers to make comments to what you read and provide the cheers or jeers for us on this end. Here is a sample of the comments we have been receiving.

On my rant about Targa topped cars Bryce wrote:
"There have been a few Targa topped cars in history that have been pretty good.

The Fiat X1/9 was engineered from the start to be that way, to have an open top while meet safety requirements that never actually materialized. My Lancia Beta Zagato uses a targa top over the front seats and convertible top over the rear seats to meet safety requirements. The targa bar is tied to the windscreen which gives framed windows and a stiffer body structure. The mk1 Zagatos did not have that and were considerably more flexible.

The original Porsche 911 Targas were similar in this regard, the rear window area zipped out and the targa top could be stowed. You ended up again, with a fully open car with a roll bar.

The Honda Del Sol is probably one of the best targa topped cars ever. With the targa top off (and secured in the brilliant pivoting rack in the trunk) and the rear window down, you are driving an open top car with a roll bar. It's quite safe and feels just about as open as my Fiat Spider did. And it feels quite similar to convertibles I've been in with roll bars.

Finally, the Lotus Elise is more or less a targa car, except it has a soft top (a hard top is available, but cannot be stowed in car). Standing next to one with the top off and windows down leads me to believe that the ratio of open to closed is basically that of a convertible. Seeing them driven and seeing the wind blow around the drivers confirms that belief."

ATM replies:

Cars that were originally engineered to be Targa topped vehicles are measurably better than cars that just had their roof sawed off by some guy in a figurative back alley. But the rigidity of an open top car will generally be less than a closed top car.

The other lesson I learned from Bryce is to never mess with the Italian car crowd, they are the most heartfelt car enthusiasts on the planet.

Regarding my mentioning Chyrsler's use of torsion bar suspensions starting in the 1950's Dave Darling writes:
"The torsion bar suspension was patented by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche back in the 30s. (See the earliest VW Bugs for examples.) ChryCo had to wait until the patents ran out to come out with their own versions"

ATM replies:

An interesting bit of trivia that I did not know before. I had always thought that Chrysler adopted the torsion bar suspension from the Sherman tank that they helped mass produce during World WarII.

ATM got two responses about my observation about retro inspired car designs.

Spira writes, "why not design cars with the flare and joy of the 50's and 60's (preserving your woodys...) and equipt them with the techno wizzardry of the 00's..."

And Scott (not me, I swear) responds, "Spira asks a good question. The answer is that the car manufacturers are turning out "retro" inspired cars like the Ford Thunderbird (Cancelled due to poor sales) and the Chrysler PT Cruiser and many others. But modern manufacturing practices (They have to make a profit and can not afford to be as lavish with sheetmetal and chrome as they once were) and modern safety regulations (Airbags, seatbelts, roll over standards, etc,) make it impractical to just build a '56 Chevy with a modern engine management system."

And finally I had to stick in a thumbs up from crxfisher, for my observation about the three phases of any car repair project.
"This is so true! I had to laugh while reading it. That's just exactly how it is."

Posted by Scott at 8:28 AM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2005

General Motors is in trouble

General Motors is in big trouble. They have a bloated product line with confusing duplicate models across their various brand names. And the recent steep rise in fuel costs have soured consumers on GM's profit-center, large fuel guzzling vehicles, to the point that they have been forced to offer steep discounts and rebates to reduce the giant inventory of unsold cars off the dealers' lots. Additionally, GM is hampered with a huge contractual commitment to provide health insurance coverage to their employees and their retirees (who now out number current employees) that combine to add $1600 per vehicle in costs not related to making or marketing cars. And if that was not bad enough, General Motors was forced to pay FIAT a $2 billion divorce settlement when it appeared that was a more cost effective move than invest several times that much to complete a corporate merger with the Italian automaker. In balance, all is not well for GM.

Say what you will about General Motors, they do try to sell cars. The above-mentioned discount program, the "You pay what we pay" Employees Price for most GM models has effectively moved a lot of excess inventory off the lots in the month of June 2005. In the 1930's General Motors stirred consumer interest with elaborate car shows called "Motorama" in major cities that offered an idealized World of Tomorrow. These shows touted the easy and luxury of modern living, featuring dream car versions of future car designs along side current models offered for sale right now.

In the years directly after World War II, GM took the show on the road in a direct marketing approach that was based upon a barnstorming circus of specially constructed truck/bus vehicles that brought the Motorama show into the US hinterlands. Rural consumers could see and touch the new cars and future models in their own home town rather than reading about them or seeing them in the newsreels. As TV made a greater penetration into the US market, the need to take the products directly to consumers diminished and by the mid-1950's the General Motors traveling Motorama was a memory.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and GM is desperate right now. From a market share of over 50% of the US market, GM has slipped to holding less than 20% of the American car market. Along with innovative marketing and brand positioning (Led Zeppelin's rock music anthem "Rock and Roll" used to sell Cadillacs is unthinkable to those of us who remember when that song was fresh on the music charts 30+ years ago) GM has reached far back into its marketing bag of tricks to revive the traveling Motorama... with a twist.

The General Motors traveling car show is now called Auto Show In Motion and rather than a static display of only General Motors current offerings, this show offers examples of the competition's cars for comparison. But wait! There's more! At this show, you the consumer, are invited to test drive the GM and competitor's cars in a side-by-side comparison right there at the show. Bring your driver's license and you get to flog everything GM has to offer from the smallest Cobalt to the most powerful Corvette and then jump into a comparative model from the other manufacturers.

I received an invitation to my local edition of this traveling car show to be held in the large parking lot of a local sports stadium in a direct mail solicitation. But it is possible for anyone to sign up for the event by going to www.autoshowinmotion.com and filling out the simple questionnaire.

I normally resist marketing come-ons like this; I am immune from time-share free gift offers, chances to win a dream cruise or similar huckster ploys. I am especially loath to give up any of my free time for a blatant marketing event such as this. But this event runs four days, Thursday to Sunday, and I can slip a little spare time into my schedule to check it out early on a Thursday morning. And in the interests of providing you, the At Home Mechanic faithful, with objective observation I am planning to attend and report my findings.

Posted by Scott at 9:22 AM | Comments (4)

July 12, 2005

Registering your car in California

I received at notice in the mail from the California Department of Motor Vehicles popularly know as the DMV. It is time to renew the registration of my oldest and most beloved of my three cars, the 1987 Honda CRX Si. The cost of registering an older car like my CRX is pretty benign; a total of $51 for the privilege to use all of the public roads, streets and highways in the state of California. And by extension, all the other states in the union will recognize my California registration as a visitor. So all I have to do is slip a check into the mail and my car will proudly display its shiny new registration sticker on the rear license plate. Oh wait. This year I need to have my car's emission system checked and approved before the state of California will accept my check.

California is the nation's most populous state and we own the greatest number of automobiles here. We also have lots of sunshine, large cities nearly entirely dependent upon private vehicles for mass transit and nearby mountain ranges. To add this up: Lots of cars, pouring out lots of emissions. The emissions get trapped by the mountains and heated by the sun. The result is California's world famous air pollution, called smog. In the bad old days, California got lots of smog.

Starting back in the late 1950's California had led the nation in requiring automobile engines to reduce their emissions. And with California being such an important market for cars, most of the world's manufacturers have spent billion of dollars searching for innovative ways to meet the ever more stringent California emission requirements. The stuff coming out of the tail pipe of a modern car that is legal for sale in California is nearly as clean as the air that goes in the engine in the first place. This technology has been shared with the rest of the world and we all enjoy cleaner air because California pioneered emission requirements. California is still perceived as the air pollution capitol of the Untied States, but thanks to our emission laws, we have surrendered that distinction to Texas and their concentration of oil refineries. Stationary sources like oil refineries are now the major source of air pollution in the US.

To insure that cars registered in California stay clean, California State Certified test stations must retest them periodically before the DMV will issue a new registration tag. Newer cars only need to be tested less frequently; older cars like my CRX get tested every two years. Really old cars, 25 years old and older, do not need to be tested at all.

The old car exemption is the result of clever and determined lobbying by the Hot Rod crowd and the companies that supply parts for their American Muscle Cars. The argument is that these are "hobby" cars that get only limited use; their contribution to air pollution is negligible when compared to the total fleet of cars in California. And this is great for the Muscle Car/Hot Rod crowd.

But for those of us whose hobby car is less than 25 years old, we have to meet the emission requirements set for the year of manufacture of our car. Simple enough if you have not modified your car's engine for greater efficiency and power. And if you use parts that are tested and approved by the California Air Resource Board (CARB), the DMV will allow them. But regardless of the purity of your tail pipe, if the emission tester sees a part that does not have the all-important CARB tag of approval, your car will be instantly failed and no registration will be issued.

In a sense, this policy creates two classes of automobile enthusiasts in California. The old car fans get the benefit of benevolence from the DMV; the newer car fans are the targets of suspicion and roadside inspections. And not that I am a conspiracy fan... But I find it curious that the old car crowd tends to be older, wealthier and whiter. And the newer car crowd is younger, poorer and ethnic. A coincidence? I think not.

In an ideal world, the state of California would recognize that auto enthusiasts and their cars span a broad range and that an emission exemption for hobby cars that are driven a restricted number of miles per year (Less than 2,000) would not make much impact on air quality. But alas, the collective we of the state of California are not so progressive and the newer hobby cars need to pass the emission and visual inspection test.

And that means my 1987 Honda CRX will need some tweaking to insure passing the emissions test. A tune up, a new O2 sensor and a fresh catalytic converter is generally all that is required. But I know some people who essentially rebuild their cars' engine every two years just to pass the visual test.

I am resigned to jumping through hoops to make sure my older hobby car conforms to California's strict emission laws. I guess it is the price we pay for cleaner air.

Posted by Scott at 7:17 AM | Comments (2)

July 8, 2005

Do you like sunroofs? Not me.

I hate sunroofs on cars and I have two words to support my position: Greenhouse Effect. The Greenhouse Effect is the property of physics regarding sunlight entering a glass-contained space. The sunlight enters the space through the glass and the reflected heat created by the sunlight is trapped within the glass-shrouded area. It is this principle that allows tropical plants to be grown within greenhouses in temperate climes and it is also the same principle at work turning your car, truck or mini-van into a death chamber for pets and small children locked inside a closed car on a warm day.

A sunroof has none of the appeal of a true convertible roof; you do not get the great view outside your car and spectators do not get any better look at you and your passengers. You are not fooling anyone; a car with a sunroof is not a true open-topped automobile. And I challenge anyone with a sunroof-equipped car to tell me the last time you turned off the Air Conditioning and opened the sunroof on a day that did not fall into the temperature range of 75-80 degrees Fahrenheit. Any cooler and it is uncomfortably cold. Any warmer and the burning rays of the sun fry you in your seat.

It could be argued that I could just ignore a sunroof and keep it closed 100% of the time. But a sunroof comes with two costs that I am not willing to pay. A sunroof and its complicated mechanism for opening, closing and sealing the opening panel(s) is bulky and heavy. The bulk translates into 2-3 inches of lost headroom that tall people or those who wish to wear hats will miss instantly upon climbing into a sunroof-equipped car. And the weight of all that stuff riding above your head raises the car's center of gravity by an appreciable amount. In effect, a sunroof and its tracks, motors and the such make your car top heavy. Your car is more inclined to swaying in a turn and possibly overturning in an extreme situation.

Sadly for those of us who do not like sunroofs, we seem to be stuck with them. Most manufacturers will include a sunroof as part of a greater option package for their cars that require you take sunroof in order to get a nicer interior, a more powerful motor or other features. I wish that it were possible to pick and choose freely from the dealer's option menu, but today most cars come in a only a couple of "flavors" and that is it.

But at least a sunroof does not compromise the structural integrity and rigidity of the car it is built into. That square hole in the roof is rimmed by extra metal to support the weight of the sunroof and its associated bits and pieces. The sunroof-equipped car can claim some extra strength through the roof that a sheet of thin metal can not. Far worse that that single square hole in the center of the roof is the horrible abomination of the Targa-Top and its cousin the T-Top.

The Targa-Top and T-Top are the result of manufacturer's response in the 1970's to declining sales of convertible cars and the possibility that the US Federal government was going to impose standards for roof strength to protect car occupants in the event of a roll over. Rather than continue to engineer expensive convertible top mechanisms for the then-disappearing drop top market and include roll bar-type structure in the windshield frame, it was discovered that cutting out the middle section of the roof from left to right would result in a open topped structure that consumers would accept. The section of remaining bulkhead and roof behind the front seats would be strong enough for rollover protection and the windshield frame was sufficiently strong enough to not need special reinforcement. The open section was usually covered by clear or opaque plastic sections, but some shade tree Targa installers would stretch a piece of canvas attached by hooks. The T-top variation on this theme would be a thin section of roof metal running for and aft connecting the rear bulkhead with the windshield frame.

Why are the Targa and the T-Top, those fashion disasters from the 1980's even worse than a sunroof? Because the removal of all that sheet metal required for a Targa or T-top robs the car frame of vital bracing. Literally, the front and rear of the car would lose most of their connection to one another with this hack surgery. At the very worst, the Targa and T-Tops would leak in the rain (and car wash) and rattle on even the smoothest roads. At very worst, the car's structure would shake apart with extended usage. Unless great care was made by the manufacturer to add structural strength (and extra weight) to a car that was destined to have a Targa or T-Top, the unfortunate automotive victim was sure to end up on the scrap heap in less than a full service lifetime. Thankfully, Targa and T-Tops seems to have fallen out of fashion with the consuming public and you do not see any manufacturers eager to revive that trend.

Posted by Scott at 10:32 AM | Comments (2)

June 28, 2005

New USGP Development- Michelin tires

Tire maker Michelin has fallen on its sword and has admitted that the tires they brought to the United States Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this year were less than adequate for the job. Perhaps the largest and most expensive mea culpa in corporate sports history, Michelin has promised to buy back the tickets of fans and give away 20,000 tickets for nest year's race. Fans this year and were disappointed that 14 out of 20 cars chose to withdraw from the race just before it began rather than risk disastrous failure of their Michelin tires.

Michelin took a gamble with the tires that they provided to the seven teams who regularly use their tires. But to understand the gamble, you have to understand the current rules of Formula 1. This season F1 teams are severely limited in the number of tire sets they can use during a race weekend and changing tires during a race is harshly penalized. Additionally, teams are allowed only one warm up lap and one qualification lap to determine race grid position at the start of the race.

The one lap of qualification rule puts an emphasis on tires that warm up quickly for optimum grip during the single timed lap. But the qualification tires are also the race tires so they must be able to endure an entire race.

Tire maker Michelin is locked in a very competitive battle with the other F1 tire supplier, Bridgestone and both manufacturers look for every tiny advantage over their rival. Michelin made the gamble that tires with a relatively thin side wall would heat up quickly for qualification, but would be sturdy enough to withstand the unique stress that Indy puts on F1 cars with its high speed, banked final corner.

The gamble worked in one sense, because the Michelin-equipped Toyota team managed to win their first ever pole position for the start of the race. But they also lost the gamble because the Toyota team suffered a pair of scary tire failures in that high speed turn during practice. Investigation led the Michelin equipped teams to conclude that their tires may not be safe under the current rules and they asked for a waver of the tire rules or a change in the track configuration to reduce speeds.

The FIA told the Michelin-equipped teams that no changes will be made and that they should just drive slower if they felt the tires could not endure high speeds. In a show of solidarity, the Michelin teams unanimously shoes to withdraw before the race began. That left only six Bridgestone-equipped cars, two each from Ferrari and also-ran teams Jordan and Minardi to "contest" the event.

Michelin has admitted their error in and has offered to refund all tickets for those in attendance at the Indy race and they have pledged to buy 20,000 tickets for fans at next year's USGP.

While this is a nice gesture on Michelin's part, the jury is still out on whether Formula 1 can recover from the disastrous non-race that this year's United State Grand Prix turned out to be.

Posted by Scott at 7:28 PM | Comments (0)

Thoughts on Fords

I am a Ford man. I have not owned a Ford automobile in nearly 20 years and I currently own three Hondas cars, but deep down inside I am a Ford man. I am a Ford man because my automotive consciousness was first aroused by Fords and I was imprinted for life. Frankly, there is only one or two current Ford products that I would even begin to consider to purchase for myself, the majority of the Ford product offering leaves me cold at best. But there is a lingering bit of car DNA within me that still cares about all things Ford.

I get the Ford thing genetically. My grandfather was never a handy guy; he never worked on his own cars. But he bought a very sharp 1947 Ford convertible as soon as they hit the market. This was one of the first cars my Dad drove as an impressionable teenager at the dawn of the Hot Rod era of the late '40s and early 50's. Dad was the original Rebel Without A Cause; white t-shirt with a pack of Pall Malls rolled up in his shirtsleeve, duck tailed haircut, greasy hands, the whole image of a street racer. He messed around with various street rods and helped a neighbor prepare a drop tank lakester. But a stint in the Navy, marriage and a young family straightened him out and put him back on the straight and narrow. During the 50's he drove a '55 Chevy Bel Aire, but by the time I was four or five years old at the dawn of the 1960's the family was driving a Ford Falcon and a Ford Galaxy. Grandfather had gone through a few cars but the one I remember from that era was a '62 Ford Galaxy convertible with a 390, four-barrel carburetor, and dual exhaust. That was one hot number and it eventually got passed down to your family for Mom (!) to drive.

In the spring of 1964 I was just turning eight years old and Ford unleashed the Mustang as a birthday present to me. Like the Beatle's invasion of America the year before, the Ford Mustang was an immediate success and swept the country in Mustang-mania. I was not immune from the Ford fever and I fell instantly in love with a small sporty car that promised high performance (but in actuality was a pretty mundane grocery getter in all but the highest level of tune). At the same time, Ford contracted with England's Lola to build the GT 40, which eventually went on to dominate the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Carol Shelby was turned away by General Motors when he asked for their small block V8 to stick into English roadsters but Ford tossed him a hand full and the Cobra was born. The small block Ford V8 was the engine of choice for Indianapolis at the time. Cosworth adopted the Ford V8 bore spacing to create the DFV engine that ruled Formula until the mid-1970's. As I grew from a boy into a teenager, Ford had positioned itself as the American performance car company.

But reality is harsh. By the time I started to drive, Mom was driving a Pinto and Dad had moved on to a Cadillac Coupe de Ville. An entire herd of '65-'66 Mustangs passed through the family garage as second third and fourth cars. But what had once seemed like a muscle-bound road machine revealed itself to be a glorified Ford Falcon with slightly more attractively creased sheet metal.

Familiarity breeds contempt and as I became more familiar with Ford philosophy, the more contempt I had for their products. Designed for quick, cheap and easy construction and not necessarily to be repaired or improved, Fords of the era left a great deal to be desired. Combined with the rise of emission standards in the late 1960's that choked the life out of engines that did not have the benefit of today's technology for lean and clean engines that could also deliver performance, I lost that blind love for all things Ford.

During the 1970's and 1980's the country and I entered into a dark automotive period. Gas shortages, ever increasing emission standards, restrictive vehicle codes all combined to take the fun out of the car crowd and I turned away from active participation in the automobile hobby.

It took the influence of my wife to show me the way of the Honda automobile in the early 1990's. She and her family (not car people by any stretch of the imagination, but people who recognized quality and value) were all Honda drivers and they revealed the joy of a well-engineered car that can also deliver performance and economy. My three current Honda cars represent the fourth, fifth and sixth Hondas I have owned and I would be hard-pressed to name another manufacturer I would consider buying from today.

But I still stop to stare at the new Mustang, I dream of owning a Ford GT and I am waiting for the current Ford Thunderbird to become cheap enough as a used car to allow me the opportunity to modify it into the performance roadster I think it could be. I root for the Cosworth powered Formula teams and I get a small amount of satisfaction when a Ford powered car wins any other kind of race. But there are no Ford products that I would purchase brand new right now.

Posted by Scott at 9:32 AM | Comments (1)

June 27, 2005

Motorsports for everyone

I love motor sports and if you are reading this posting the chances are that you are a motor sports fan also. As much fun as it is to watch our favorite professional motor sport in person or on TV, we all have a longing to get out on the track and show those guys that we have the right stuff to drive at their level. But to get out on the professional track takes time and money that most of us do not have to dedicate to a full time racing career. Rich people can buy a ride from the depth of their own pocket, but more often aspiring professional race drivers need to spend the majority of their time beating the bushes looking for sponsors.

For us enthusiastic amateurs there is a wide variety of motor sports opportunities that welcome beginners through talented wannabes. Everything from "run what ya brung" events at the local drag strip, to Autocross events in a large parking lot, to "open track" events at road course tracks scattered around the country. There is no reason that anyone with a valid driver's license, an approved helmet and a car in sound mechanical condition can not find a reasonable safe and well organized amateur auto sports event within a day's drive of most towns. Check the Internet and ask at your local speed shop for details about an event near you.

My level of comfort extends to Autocross and Open Track events. Autocross (racing one car at a time around a course marked by traffic cones) is very accessible to everyone, These are strictly amateur events and there are classes for everyone from beginners in completely stock cars to experienced drivers in trailer transported race cars. Racing speeds rarely exceed 30-40 mph and the emphasis is upon precision driving rather than raw speed. Beyond some squealing tires it is nearly impossible to do any serious damage to your car or yourself.

The next step up is the Open Track events available at most road courses. This requires a slightly higher level of driver skill and contains an equally heightened level of danger to the car and its driver because track speeds can easily exceed 100 mph if your car is capable of it. Organizers often welcome beginners with some level of instruction and run groups divided by driver experience.

But there are two events that are not offered as far as I know and I would love to see them available as a way for enthusiasts to test and ultimately improve their cars. The first event that should be offered to amateurs is a skid pad test. Using a standard 100-foot circle, competitors would determine exactly how much corning power their cars generate by computing speed and vehicle weight. The space required would be far less than the minimum of 10 acres smooth pavement most autocross events require and the hard information of a standard sized skid pad would allow people to compare their numbers with anyone else competing on a similar skid pad.

The other event that would interest me would be a zero to sixty-mph and then back to zero contest. A competitors would line up on a standard drag trip, but rather than run all out for a quarter mile the cars would get up to 60 mph as quickly as possible and then stop quickly as possible. This would be real world indication of your car's ability to perform within street legal conditions and would emphasis stopping as much as going.

This type of event should be particularly attractive to drag strips looking for new events to interest local competition and allow half sized 1/8th mile drag strips to offer an event that could be compared any other drag strip.

Posted by Scott at 6:40 AM | Comments (1)

June 24, 2005

Car alarms are a waste

Car alarms are a rip off. They are a colossal waste of time and money because the damn things do not anything. Well, unless you count annoying your neighbors when your car alarm goes off, then yeah, they do one thing well.

The theory is that if a thief tries to break into, or steal your car, a piercing loud alarm will alert the good citizens in the area of the crime. Thus alerted, these good citizens will take up arms to thwart or apprehend the culprit until the proper authorities can arrive. Yeah and I believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Come on, honestly when was the last time you grabbed the 12 gauge to protect and defend your neighbor's car when his car alarm as gone off? The only time thing I want to use a shotgun on is the idiot whose car alarm is disturbing my beauty sleep.

If a professional thief wants your car, he will take it. An alarm, a steering wheel locking device like The Club or even a pit bull will not stop someone who is determined to steal your car. It only takes a few seconds to lift your car and drag it away with a modern tow truck. A thief with a screwdriver and a vice grips can start your car and drive away in less time.

A friend of mine had his car, a 2000 Acura Integra Type-R, "protected" by Lojak, which is a car-tracking radio device. Hidden deep within the innards of the car, Lojak alerts the authorities automatically if the car is stolen and they advertise this feature heavily. Well apparently the same people who install Lojak on your car are not above stealing Lojak-equipped cars because my friend's Integra was stolen, stripped for parts and never recovered even though he paid a lot of money for Lojak "protection."

Junkies need to eat also. If you leave your CD collection scattered over the seats even a drug addled thief knows that he can get a buck a CD at the local pawnshop, no questions asked. If he heaves a brick through your window, he can scoop up a windfall. And if your car alarm should scare him off without the loot, you still have a smashed window.

There are only a couple of truly effective ways to protect your car and its contents. First, do not park you car in a questionable spot. A dark alley, behind a beer bar is not a good place to park your car. If your neighborhood is questionable, it is time to move to a better neighborhood.

Second, keep your valuables out of sight. This seems logical enough but if you have your CD collection stored in one of those sun visor holders, you are asking for someone to make your collection their collection.

And maybe the best theft deterrent of all, a hidden kill switch. This is a simple on/off switch in line with the fuel pump's power supply that can be hidden so that only you know how to turn on. Without power to your fuel pump, modern cars will not have enough fuel pressure to allow the car to run. Even if the ignition is forced or "hot wired" the engine will not run without adequate fuel pressure.

So do not waste your money on car alarms, save your money to move to a safer neighborhood.

Posted by Scott at 8:35 AM | Comments (2)

June 22, 2005

Is F1 dead in the US?

Is Formula 1 auto racing dead in the United States? If it is not dead it certainly is in critical condition following the fiasco of this past weekend's United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. To recap briefly, 14 of the 20 cars entered in this year's USGP withdrew from the race before the race began in protest of conditions they felt to be too dangerous. The Michelin tires on the 14 cars that withdrew were not considered capable of withstanding the strain of racing on the high speed track without a mid-race tire change which is prohibited by current Formula 1 rules. Consequently only 6 cars with Bridgestone tires remained to compete which angered and dismayed 150,000 race fans at the track and racing fans around the world.

Formula 1 is hugely popular around the world and each race is watched by a TV audience of nearly one billion viewers. Just as Soccer is a world favorite in every country except the United States, Formula 1 remains viewed as being foreign and somewhat mysterious to American fans. Even though the United States has hosted a Formula 1 race nearly every year since the modern era of F1 began in 1950, it has failed to find a broad audience over here.

The last six years, Formula 1 has visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a mid-season event. And for the last six years Ferrari has run away from the field without providing much drama or suspense. Lead changes, passes and or dramatic crashes have all been absent from the USGP (and most other Formula 1 races) along with Ferrari's absolute domination of the rest of the field have led to boring racing that is rich in nuance but light in spectacle. For American race fans it is hard to grasp the fervor that the rest of the world attaches to Formula 1.

America loves a race that runs in a straight line or in a neat circle as opposed to the irregularly shaped Formula 1 tracks. It is far more accessible for the average American to grasp that cars shaped similarly to their road machines running on tracks similar to a broad American highway. America's favorite form of auto racing, NASCAR, is designed to provide lots of lead changes, dramatic passing and the possibility of spectacular crashes.

Formula 1 is on probationary status with American auto racing fans. But it may be impossible to win the hearts and minds of fans used to accessible racing and drivers who show up on the track for the big events. Young American drivers wishing to make a career in auto racing will probably avoid Formula 1 careers just as young American athletes avoid soccer because there is a lack of support of the sport in their native country. And if there are no young American drivers climbing the ranks of Formula 1, it will even more difficult for Formula 1 to find a substantial audience in the US.

Posted by Scott at 7:14 AM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2005

Can you afford your car?

Are you in over your head with your car and its expenses? How much of your monthly income is going to support that four wheel money pit in your driveway? Do your car payments resemble a mortgage payment? And does the insurance bill look like a past due tax statement from the IRS?

Why are spending so much on your car? Do you think the neighbors are impressed? Does it make you feel good about yourself to drive a flashy car? Is it important what other people think?

What if you had bought a cheap used car? But if the costs of repairs on a cheap used car are driving you to the poor house, was that cheap used car so cheap after all? Maybe it would have been a better off to have bought a slightly more expensive used car that would not come back to haunt you later with repair costs.

I am a firm believer in not spending more than you can afford on a car. A car is NOT AN INVESTMENT. A car is a depreciating asset, which means it loses value as you own it. We all know that brand new car loses about 20% of its value as you drive off the dealer's lot. Even true "collector" cars are only worth what the market will bear. Prices will fluctuate with demand and the whims of the general economy.

Do not get me wrong, I love cars. If money were no object, then the object of my desires would a rich variety of car for me to lavish my time and attention upon. But there is also a practical limit to how much of my income can go to a discretionary expense like a car other than a basic transportation source. In my case, I need reliable wheels to get to work and shuttle the kids so I bought a new 2003 Honda Accord LX back in 2002. Boringly practical, it suits my need for size and utility. No sunroof, no leather, no four wheel disk brakes, but it carries five people and plenty of luggage while delivering over 20 mph in the city.

Boring is the operative word when describing the 2003 Accord. But I have an ace in the hole... my hobby car. My 1987 CRX Si is my secret automotive weapon. Basically a stripped down Honda Civic with just two seats, it is the car that I have poured my time and attention into. Bought used from a suburban Mom who no longer wanted it for $900, I have improved the car's performance to the point that it now delivers the same power to weight ratio of a new BMW costing 50 times as much. So I have performance and low cost all in my second car. And I can afford both of them.

Posted by Scott at 8:26 PM | Comments (1)

June 18, 2005

2005 US Grand Prix of Formula 1

The controversy about tires and tire wear at this week's Formula 1 United States Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway caused seven of the ten trace teams to withdraw their cars from the starting grid before the race started in protest of what they felt were unsafe rules that limit the number of tire sets that can be used on a race weekend to three. And the rules specifically prohibit tire changes during a race. Seven Michelin tire-using teams felt that particularly high speed of the Indianapolis track made the limit on tire changes a dangerous situation and refused to race. Consequently only the teams supplied by Bridgestone tires felt comfortable enough to race. Instead of 20 cars on the track, there were only 6 featuring the premiere Ferrari team who dominated the remaining field, leaving perennial Formula 1 also-rans Minardi and Jordan to race for all places behind first and second.

The Michelin tire equipped teams (Renault, BMW Williams, BAR Honda, Mercedes Mclaren, Red Bull, Toyota and Sauber) all refused to race. During the Friday practice session both of the Toyota team's cars, suffered massive failure of their Michelin tires.

These teams demanded that a chicane (an extra turn in the race track) be added to the track to reduce speed along the final high-speed straight that passes over the fame yard of bricks at the Speedways' start/finish line. The Michelin teams were told in no uncertain terms that no last minute changes would be made to the track configuration and if the Michelin teams felt that the racing speed was too high, they could just "drive slower. Rather than drive slower or endanger their drivers, the Michelin teams gridded for the race and then withdrew before the race began.

Race fans were shocked and dismayed that the race they had paid for was not to be. Boos and debris were hurdled from the stands. Improvised signs held up by fans chided all parties concerned for failing to provide the entertainment they had been promised. A sign was hung from the entrance to the Red Bull team's garage saying, "Sorry Fans." After the race Michelin issued a statement apologizing for the unsuitable tires.

The increased tire wear of the Formula 1 cars at Indy is not unique to that racing series. Prior to this year's Indy 500, the entire track was resurfaced; the Indy car teams roundly criticized the resulting track surface and the surface had to be ground down with diamond tipped grinders. Apparently, the new surface provided too much traction, which accelerated tire wear. Even after the track was "fixed," this year's Indy 500 was run at record speeds. But the Indy cars are allowed to freely replace their tires during the race. Interestingly, Bridgestone's subsidiary Firestone is the sole supplier of tires to the Indy 500 so it is possible that the Bridgestone engineers had the benefit of their corporate cousin's experience of creating tires that could endure the Indy track.

Posted by Scott at 2:57 PM | Comments (0)

June 17, 2005

Driver's Training

I am in the process of surviving my son's adventure of becoming a new automobile driver. Back in the days of fully funded public education, the school taught kids how to drive a car. We got a two month course driving simulators (a double wide trailer parked on the school grounds where students would practice "driving" a desk with a steering wheel and pedals while a movie was projected at the front of the room. When we had enough simulator time, five students at a time would cram into donated Chrysler land yachts of the early 1970's while an instructor rode shotgun with and auxiliary brake pedal to bring the massive
vehicle to a semblance of a quick stop if the young trainee was in danger of hitting something.

But today the schools do not have the time or money to train drivers and no manufacturer wants to be exposed to liability problems associated with allowing 16 year olds to drive their donated cars. So it is up to the parents to train their kids to drive with the state mandating that the young driver take a prescribed education course and behind the wheel training with an approved driving school.

The behind the wheel portion of driving school is only 6 hours, the state of California wants the new driver to also get six months of practical driving experience with a licensed driver in the front passenger seat.

My son Andrew has never been much interested in cars previously, but as he sees his friends get behind the wheel, his interest has been sparked. Knowing that the inevitable was unavoidable, I have started the mandated driving lessons combined with some good old fashioned Father-Son bonding behind the wheel of the family car, an automatic transmission equipped '03 Honda Accord. But once his feet were wet with the automatic it soon became time to transition to driving a manual transmission '90 Honda Prelude. It is a time of building experience and burning clutches.

The most dangerous period in a young driver's career is once the novelty and fear have worn off and the noob thinks he or she has it "down." Right now my son Andrew, after twenty hours of behind the wheel, has gravely informed me that driving an automatic is "easy." And oh yes, driving is nothing likeGTA, or Simpson's Road Rage.

Knowing that he is in the danger zone of too much comfort with the
automatic, I have upped the ante by giving him time with a clutch and five forward gears which will focus a young person's mind.

It is a whole new ball game for Andrew. An uphill start with traffic on your tail and your dad aughing his @ss off at your expense will teach a little humility. But he is learning quickly and is working on his heal-toe down shifting technique. Maybe one day I will let him drive the race prepared '87 CRX that I have in my garage.

So when it comes time teach a young person to drive I suggest you start them on an automatic and then get them on a stick to keep them focused.

On the horizon for Andrew- Vehicle dynamics school (accident avoidance and skid pad time) and Autocross school.

Posted by Scott at 6:21 AM | Comments (0)

June 13, 2005

I am waiting

I am waiting for the UPS guy to come. I am waiting for the FedEx guy to come. I am waiting for the Mailman to come (my Mailman's name is Lillian). I am waiting for my packages to arrive and I am not waiting patiently.

The Internet is the best thing or the worst thing to happen to shoppers, depending upon your point of view. In a moment of boredom I can turn to my faithful computer and do some shopping online. I can spend my hard earned money as quick as I make it and some months I spend it faster than I can earn it.

Before the Internet, an auto enthusiast was limited to the local auto parts store to get his parts. If the local shop did not have what you wanted, maybe a part could be ordered from a catalog. But today everything the At Home Mechanic could hope for (and a few things you never knew existed) are available online. All it takes is a credit card or a Paypal account and you can start ordering.

But there is a lag, a delay, a wait for your order to arrive. Some online sellers are particularly quick; Summit Racing has a warehouse in Reno, Nevada, which allows quick shipment to the important California market. But some sellers online do not hold any stock inventory so they do not order your part from the manufacturer until you make your purchase online. And some eBay sellers can be as slow as a weekend spent with your in-laws.

And so the wait begins. If you are lucky the seller will give you a tracking number and you can follow the progress of your package online. "It left Evanston Illinois on the 3rd, it reached Denver on the 4th, it made it to Los Angles late on the 6th and it went out on delivery to me on the 7th. Too bad I needed that part on the 3rd."

And sometimes orders are so slow you have forgotten what you ordered. A mysterious package arrives on your doorstep and you have no idea what it could contain. It is like celebrating Christmas in July!

But whenever you parts arrive and whether or not you were expecting them, it is always fun to receive a package with something just for you (and your car) inside.

Posted by Scott at 7:17 AM | Comments (0)

June 9, 2005

I rule!

I am the king of my domain. I am the undisputed ruler of all I survey within the boundaries on my kingdom. No other opinion matters but mine for I am the great and powerful lord of my manor. My Kingdom is small but my authority is absolute. Where is this kingdom of mine? Within the four walls of my garage.

In our modern life we make a series of compromises in our daily life. We defer and confer on nearly aspect of daily life both at home and in the office. Greater society can not exist if we collectively do not agree to a social contract that keeps neighborhood, city, county, state, nation and world bound together by a thread of cooperation. But in my garage I make no compromises. My opinion is the only opinion that matters and I bear the responsibility of success or failure solely.

What color should we paint the guest bathroom? What restaurant do the kids want to go to? What are the boss' goal for our work unit? Do I get the final word in any of these questions? No. Heck, I am lucky if I get consulted at all.

But in the garage all matters are mine to adjudicate. I get to arrange the boxes of old clothes in just the manner that I want them to be in. I make the decorating decisions in the garage, that girlie calendar looks fine by the window. I stock the garage refrigerator with the beverages I want to consume. No off name diet cola in there by golly. Yeah that's right, I got the National Brand in there.

But most important of all is that I chart the course of repair and improvement on my hobby car. Change the exhaust system to sound like the hounds of hell are breathing out of my tail pipe? Yes I can. Change the suspension to a brain rattling stiff ride to maximize cornering potential? Yes I can. Toss out the radio and air conditioning to save precious ounces. Yes I can.

No conferences, no consultations. No begging for permission or begging forgiveness. I am The Boss. The final authority, Captain of the ship, El Numero Uno, the Lead Dog.

And I stay in command for as long as I like. Or until I get called into the house to finish my chores.

Posted by Scott at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)