Is the winter over yet???

Owning a sports car that you can't drive in the winter really has a way of making winter feel like it's lasting way too long, each and every year.
I haven't driven my Mustang in about 3 months, and I'm really itching to drive that thing again, make the Whipple sing and the rear tires beg for mercy!

SO, is the winter over yet?
I need clean dry roads with no huge potholes.

Ughh ... thinking of moving south again ..... hahaha ...

Marriage

OK, this isn't about cars.
I got married last week, to my awesome Lisa.
She's no longer my girlfriend, no longer my fiancee.
She's now my WIFE.
My kind of crazy, I look forward to making her happy for the rest of our lives and beyond :)

Happy Birthday to me!

That's right, it's my birthday.
Where did the time go? A few days ago I was a young kid playing in the streets with my friends, and now I'm quickly getting to my mid-40's, with pains in all kinds of places.
But.
I have a beautiful fiancee, a beautiful house, a 700-horsepower Mustang in the garage, and I just finished a Web Design certificate program at the local college, so now I'm back in the job market.
So, today is the first day of the rest of my life.
Bring it on!

Washed away the rust

Nothing like driving through a puddle and having the water wash away whatever rust was holding your exhaust together.
That's exactly what happened to my fiancee and I a few days ago, as we were driving our '03 Subaru Forested, 186,000 miles on it and counting, original exhaust apparently waiting for the right puddle to wash it off the car!
Car's quiet, go through the puddle, car's loud. We both look at each other with the most awesome "WTF?" looks on our faces. When it's safe to do so, we pull over, look under the car, nothing hanging low, so we can at least get it home and check it out the next morning.
That time comes, I start it cold, THREE leaks make their existence known.
Pretty much every connection point from the catalytic converter back, plus an extra hole in the side of a pipe, just for good measure.
Good thing I'm crafty and don't mind turning wrenches!
A quick search on craigslist and I find someone selling a brand-new Subaru exhaust for $150, and it was even the RIGHT ONE for the car!
A little more hardware from the local auto parts store, a few hours of battling 14-year-old rusted hardware under the car, and the car's quiet again, and for a fraction of the cost that would've been if we had gone to a muffler shop or the dealer (we had gotten quotes before and the lowest one was about $700, parts/labor total).
Woo-hoo!

Make it whine!

Supercharger whine at full throttle. It can be an intoxicating sound, something you just want to keep making happen, especially when it's accompanied by fierce acceleration, tires scrambling for traction, and that awesome sensation of being pushed into the seat.
Got to enjoy all of this yesterday morning on the way back from school, in my Whipple-supercharged '13 Mustang GT:

And I'm now here looking at the video, wishing that I was doing that again instead of looking out the window at the snow coming down. Oh well, there'll be another dry day again soon, and for sure there will be some more Whipple whine going on :)

Little bit of rust

I recently did a little bit of maintenance on my fiancee's 2003 Subaru Forester.
The front and rear stabilizer bar bushings had seen some better days, but after 13 tough New England winters they were loose, worn, and dry-rotted, which all combined for some nice clunks over bumps.
Decision was made to put in some new ones.
Easy job in the back of the car, where one bolt per side gets removed to remove/replace each bushing.
In the front ..... well ..... Subaru had a different idea.
Apparently, blocking access to the bolts/nuts that hold the front bushing brackets in place with some long subframe connectors that each is secured with EIGHT long bolts, apparently that was the winning idea of how to arrange that area under the car.
So yeah ... lots of penetrating oil, lots of swears, lots of time backing out each bolt a little, screwing it back in, cleaning up rust off threads, spraying more penetrating oil, and more out/in with each bolt.
Couple of hours later the new bushings were in and I was ready to do the rears.
The rear bushing replacement was not originally part of the plan, but thanks to the "awesome" computer system that the local auto parts store has, we ended up with rear bushings when we asked for fronts. So, in the middle of working on the front, I had to take a quick run over to the local Subaru dealer for actual FRONT bushings.
A blessing in disguise, as it turns out, since upon removal I found that the rear bushings had basically become petrified rubber, that had rust caked into it by this point.
A picture's always worth a gazillion words, so here's an old and a new front bushings, clearly showing how worn the old one had become, compared to the tight new piece:

And my favorite ... one of the rears shortly after removal, next to its bracket, with some of the rust that I brushed off from inside the bracket and off the old bushing:

So, new bushings installed, the car rides beautiful, nice and quiet again, with newfound cornering prowess, totally fooling anyone that just looks at it as just a 14-year old wagon.
And after the engine rebuild I did on it a year ago, it seems ready for another 180,000 miles.

Do YOU have an older car you keep wrenching on?

Winter storage

 The time is here for us in the snow belt, when we have to put our fun cars away for the winter.
Driving a supercharged 600+ horsepower Mustang that's equipped with drag-radial tires is fun on dry roads, but when the white stuff starts flying, that's the last kind of car you want to be piloting.


 So in storage it goes. We put them away, hug them one last time and wave bye-bye to them until the spring thaw

  At least that's what WE did before buying the current house, which has a perfect storage feature, a garage. A major feature it had to have when we were looking, a 2-Mustang garage.
  Batteries get hooked up to battery tenders, gas tanks get filled up, gas gets treated with some stabilizer so it doesn't go bad over the winter, and they sit.
  Winter time, as it turns out, is a great time to perform maintenance, modifications, repairs, or whatever else might need to be done.
  Do you have a car you store?

Luxury pick-up trucks?

Mercedes recently announced that they'll be building a pick-up truck soon.
Does the world really need a $100,000 pick-up truck?
Who's gonna buy it? Rich folks that want to look even fancier on the way to Home Depot to pick up a can of paint that they could use a small car for?
Pick-up trucks are already $70,000-80,000 when loaded out with all the options currently being offered.
And those numbers are already insane when you consider that it's a pick-em-up truck, for Pete's sake ... it's meant to carry dirty stuff in the bed, and maybe handle some rough terrain.
But trucks these days have heated steering wheels, cameras all over to help the driver see outside their huge truck, navigation systems, entertainment systems that sound better than some home units, air-conditioned seats, and a whole bunch of other doo-dads to make the rich part with their cash.
What are your thoughts? Comment below!

- Gabe

Road rage

Road rage.
It happens to all of us, in more or less-severe forms.
Maybe we'll just get upset over the way another driver cuts us off and slams on the brakes to make a sudden turn.
Maybe we'll get stuck behind the guy or gal that feels like driving 4 under the limit is perfect, and ignores the growing line of angry drivers behind them, keeping the pace for what feels like endless miles.
That last scenario happened to me just this morning.
I get stuck behind a small SUV for the last 3 miles or so of my commute, growing line of cars behind me, small SUV in front traveling at what feels like a snail's pace.
What makes these people do this?
Is it the need to "police" the world and keep other drivers from speeding?
Is it simply that they're in no rush to get anywhere and they are absolutely oblivious to the line of cars they're holding back?
Whatever it is, it is one of the many driver behaviors that incite road rage in others.
I simply wish that there were more considerate people in the world.
If you see a line of cars behind you, or even one car, pull over for 2 seconds, let them go by, and all your lives will be better for it.
No road rage, no feeling of "I'm running late because of this idiot!", no wishing them bodily harm.
Just everybody going on with their own life, doing their own thing, living happily ever after.
What are your thoughts?

- Gabe.