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.

Manual transmissions ...

Manual transmissions used to be the norm.
These days they're almost impossible to find in most cars, and even trucks.
When my fiancee went shopping for a car back in 2002-2003 she wanted AWD, she wanted a small crossover/wagon-type vehicle, and she wanted one more thing which turned out to be the hardest part of the whole purchase: a manual transmission.
She decided on a 2003 Subaru Forester, a car the was checking off every box on her must-have list.
Her transmission choice ... well, that made it so the dealer had to locate a 5-speed car and have it transferred in, since all their inventory was automatic.
Thirteen years and over 180,000 miles later, she still owns the car, and still loves the fact it's a manual.
Meanwhile, manual transmissions have become even harder to find.
Myself, I blame all the manufacturers for the manual transmission's demise.
They have constantly been offering them only in models meant for fuel economy, taking out or not offering high-end options in the models with the third pedal.
Want navigation system? Sorry, you'll have to step up to the blah-blah-blah model which is auto-only.
Want a fancy stereo? Same thing.
Personally, I want all the toys, but I also want that all-important and fun-inducing third pedal.
Thoughts?
Comments?

- Gabe.

Miles or smiles?

Miles per gallon?
Yes, I care about that, somewhat.
After all, it can get expensive to run a car that is horribly inefficient.
But combining efficiency with excellent performance can be quite a balancing act.
My '13 Mustang, in its current state, gets 20 mpg when cruising on the highway, even more if I could keep myself from going faster than I should, and 20mpg is actually efficient when considering that the car's now producing approximately 700 horsepower.
Conversely, introducing the gas pedal to the floor under it produces rapid forward propulsion, leaving me with a huge smile on my face.
And that bring me to the "smiles per gallon" part.
A car's ability to produce lots of smiles per gallon ... now that's a rating that should be on every window sticker.

More Powah!

When is 650 horsepower not all that impressive?
When you can have 700+
And that's exactly what I did to my Mustang last week.
Wednesday morning I installed a new slightly smaller pulley on the supercharger.

I then went to a shop in Loudon NH to get the computer re-tuned:

 And re-tune they did!
I went from approximately 570 rear-wheel horsepower (about 655 crankshaft-horsepower) to over 600 at the wheels!
608 to be exact.
Which translates to 700-715 crank horsepower (the power the engine is producing at its crankshaft before driveline loss is taken into account)
And the car is now putting down over 500 ft-lbs of torque to the tires from 3800-5800 RPM.
That's quite a FLAT torque curve:

And that's some serious power increase, power that can be easily felt, especially in the off-the-line torque.
Torque increase over the previous set-up?
47 ft-lbs.
Yup, almost 50 ft-lbs more than the prior pulley/tune combo.
I'd say I'm happy with that!
Oh, and a video of the dyno run:

Brake fluid flushing

Most of us don't ever think about our car's brake fluid.
Even when we have a brake job done or if we happen to be handy enough to do it ourselves.
Replace pads and resurface or replace rotors, clean & lube caliper slides, slap it together and move on.
Meanwhile, the blood of the braking system gets ignored.
I just got done flushing 4-year old fluid in my '13 Mustang, and I was surprised how dark and cloudy it was.
The thought to flush it came after a recent autocross event where I overheated the fluid, and had smoke coming from the brakes.
During the course of those 4 years that the fluid has been working, it got hot, it got cold, it carried away dirt and other contaminants that might have entered the system, and it got water in it from the moisture in the air.
So over time it loses its efficiency, it gets dirt- and water-contaminated, and when pressed hard to perform, it fails.
So, out it went, a simple procedure.
New fluid going in, Motul RBF600:

Jacked up the car, removed the wheels, pumped out as much of the old fluid as I could out of the underhood reservoir, topped it off with the new fluid, and asked my lovely fiancee to be the pedal pusher inside the car while I was handling the bleeder screws at the calipers.
Roughly 1 hour including jacking up the car, and the brake fluid was fresh, nice and firm brake pedal, ready for a year of whatever I might throw at it.
This is some of the old fluid, cloudy and dark:

In the master cylinder, old then new fluids:

Also, a few months ago I installed a separate reservoir for the clutch fluid, and at the time I topped off that fluid using new Amsoil DOT4 fluid.
Yesterday I was shocked how dark that fluid looked, and since there's no easy way to flush that system, I sucked out the fluid out of the reservoir and topped it off with the same fresh Motul RBF600 fluid that I used for the brakes.
This is a picture of the clutch fluid reservoir showing the difference between the old dark fluid and the fresh stuff:

So next time you're having brake work done or scheduling some work for the car, remember your brake fluid, and if it's been more than 3 years since the last flush, or if you don't remember ever having it done, schedule it!

- Gabe.