In reply to yupididit :
No that's an 8th of a day and night.
In reply to yupididit :
No that's an 8th of a day and night.
ProDarwin said:So so much of this falls under "shiny happy people"
Yeah I think this is the right answer. All the things that have been mentioned in here that actually do bother me about the automotive scene go back to this.
For me, access is huge. As recently as 15 years ago there were 3 popular autocross venues within 20 miles of me. Now it's a 1.5 hour drive minimum unless you belong to PCA who seems to be able to score venues when SCCA fails. And motorcycles? Forget about it. There used to be a half-dozen spots you could screw around on a dirt bike near me. Now it's a little over an hour to get to the reservation.
As for the sideshow scene, part of it is urban lawlessness, but part of it is the lack of places to get your jollies. In urban areas almost everything is relatively tame. Too tame. Dragstrips and such would help.
An example of this is the local park district. They've got thousands and thousands of acres, and they constantly complain about how mountain bikers cut illegal trails. Well how about taking some of that parkland and let them build trails legally? Limiting park use to hiking, horses and picnics is fundamentally arbitrary. It's a public resource. How come so many uses aren't allowed?
In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :
Bikes vs equestrians is as old as mountain biking itself, sadly.
And they don't pack their poop or fix the trails...
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
In some areas (Such as San Mateo County) equestrians do give more freely of their pocketbooks, which helps their cause. Dogs are the other group that really takes a hit. The wealthier the county the less likely that dogs are allowed on trails.
Some people are just 'too much.'
It happens.
I love cars but I'll never be a 'car guy.' Car guys are the guys who have one thing - cars. Just not me and a lot that Ive met like that are too much for me. Just over the top. Like, dont you like OTHER things too? Chill out, I dont need to know you sourced NOS lugnuts from 1986 or something.
Personally, right now the scene is pretty good. Part of that is the fact the internet can pull folks together easily.
I love the C&C trend that's begun. Just car folks chatting about cars. It's free, not paying to enter to look at cars, it's casual. I dig it.
Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:For me, access is huge. As recently as 15 years ago there were 3 popular autocross venues within 20 miles of me. Now it's a 1.5 hour drive minimum unless you belong to PCA who seems to be able to score venues when SCCA fails. And motorcycles? Forget about it. There used to be a half-dozen spots you could screw around on a dirt bike near me. Now it's a little over an hour to get to the reservation.
As for the sideshow scene, part of it is urban lawlessness, but part of it is the lack of places to get your jollies. In urban areas almost everything is relatively tame. Too tame. Dragstrips and such would help.
Eh, I think a bunch of those sideshow people want to be shiny happy people. They want to be loud, attract attention, melt tires, etc. They don't want to build a race car and compete. Even with the best autox sites in the world, they wont want to stand around and shag cones for half the day. That said, yeah it would be nice if there were more access.
Related to the C&C thing... I still haven't been. I should check it out one of these days, but whenever someone suggests it I immediately think, if I am going to stand around in a parking lot talking about cars, I might as well autox where I can at least race them as well.
In reply to ProDarwin :
If access were better, the sideshow show-off types would have a larger audience of other car people and spectators to show off to. Instead we're seeing drag strips shut down and other venues lost. There's a demand but no can supply in this environment.
It bugs me that folks take real performance mods/parts/etc and make them "more" on street cars until either the car sucks or its too nice to drive. Wings on Civics the size of a conference table, so much negative camber.....well, you saw the pic a few pages back, low riders with $10k in paint on the bottom of the car just to be able to say your car has more candy than mine. Obviously that my preference but nobody will look back on squatted trucks and miss them. Nobody.
In reply to Justjim75 :
I actually love low rider paint jobs; if I were to ever win the lotto (don't play) I'd have one in my collection.
In reply to Tom1200 :
For sure, me too, but I don't see the point in a custom painted exhaust. These aren't so bad, I'm just talking about people that take it too far just to one up the next guy, not because it works or looks good
Tom1200 said:In reply to Justjim75 :
I actually love low rider paint jobs; if I were to ever won the lotto (don't play) I'd have one in my collection.
I'd get the old school paint on a '64 Impala. (Shown end of video)
I'd change the abandonment of website forums for Facebook and Instagram.
There's years and years of existing knowledge on websites. They are easily searchable and they are much better at staying focused and reducing all of the noise that social media has
It would also be great to have the dozens of car magazines back. I missing opening the mailbox many times each month to find a new issue of something that I would read cover to cover and then put on the shelf as reference material.
Grm is obviously the exception to these trends.
jimbob_racing said:I'd change the abandonment of website forums for Facebook and Instagram.
There's years and years of existing knowledge on websites. They are easily searchable and they are much better at staying focused and reducing all of the noise that social media has
It would also be great to have the dozens of car magazines back. I missing opening the mailbox many times each month to find a new issue of something that I would read cover to cover and then put on the shelf as reference material.
Grm is obviously the exception to these trends.
This is absolutely the best answer Ive ever seen on this site
jimbob_racing said:I'd change the abandonment of website forums for Facebook and Instagram.
Agreed - for all things, not just cars.
The primary 'support group' for the DIY CNC router I have is a Facebook group... its awful compared to forums.
Mr_Asa said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to kb58 :
Engines that are worn out at 60k miles, which includes two valve jobs in the interim, also comes to mind.
Nothing increased engine longevity more than fine fuel control in both mixture and fuel distribution, and electronic spark control.
Who remembers Chevy six cylinder engines that had two cylinders that would foul the plugs from being rich and two cylinders that would burn up valves from being lean? And they made those engines for decades because, meh, if you want better buy a V8.
I disagree. The PCV system doubled engine longevity at a minimum.
After that, closely held tolerances and EFI did the rest, likely in equalish measures
Hopefully this isn't too far offtopic. Just wondering if you have any articles or know of any that explain how the PCV system doubled engine longevity? I am guessing with piston ring sealing specifically? I recall reading this before, but don't remember where I saw this. It feels like I am reading a bunch of misinformation out there that the PCV is just a pollution control device with almost everyone advocating to get rid of it on their new modern cars.
In reply to aw614 :
By circulating air through the crankcase, it kept the oil cleaner by actively pulling combustion byproduct gases out of the system. This helps engine life significantly compared to ye olde road draft tube.
jimbob_racing said:I'd change the abandonment of website forums for Facebook and Instagram.
There's years and years of existing knowledge on websites. They are easily searchable and they are much better at staying focused and reducing all of the noise that social media has
It would also be great to have the dozens of car magazines back. I missing opening the mailbox many times each month to find a new issue of something that I would read cover to cover and then put on the shelf as reference material.
Grm is obviously the exception to these trends.
I second this.
As I'm currently doing a fairly common engine swap that people were doing a lot about 10-15 years ago ('97 Magnum 360 into my '79 Dodge Power Wagon), I'm finding remnants of build threads and FAQ's on forums like RamchargerCentral.com but all the image links are broken or just missing. This makes things a lot harder when it comes to getting visual confirmation that things are right.
Same with stuff on my Trans Am; the forum I used to belong to on there has crashed 3-4 times, wiping out all of the data posted there. There was data going back to the dawn of the internet there, and it's all gone. There are other sources for info since it's a fairly popular platform, but the guys with the oddball stuff are out of luck when these niche forums go down.
jimbob_racing said:I'd change the abandonment of website forums for Facebook and Instagram.
There's years and years of existing knowledge on websites. They are easily searchable and they are much better at staying focused and reducing all of the noise that social media has
It would also be great to have the dozens of car magazines back. I missing opening the mailbox many times each month to find a new issue of something that I would read cover to cover and then put on the shelf as reference material.
Grm is obviously the exception to these trends.
Count me in on this one as well. Forums (like this one) are such great resources.
In reply to aw614 :
To expand a bit on what Pete said, combustion byproducts are fairly nasty. They can acidify the oil, break it down into sludge, and introduce moisture into the crankcase. The slight vacuum helps prevent forced induction (backfiring), and helps keep the rings and seals seated properly (pressure inside a crankcase will force oil out of your seals, causing leaks.) All of the above will work together to beat the crap out of an engine's internals, but the sludgy oil probably was the biggest factor. Its also where the 3,000 mile oil change came from.
Fun fact, PCV systems first showed up in WWII on tanks and other vehicles that might have to go underwater. The road draft tubes could let water into the engine causing Very Bad Things.
In reply to Mr_Asa :
There was an economy trick in the mid 70s where people realized that if they put the PCV valve on the inlet side of the system instead of the outlet, they would pull significant vacuum in the crankcase, reducing windage losses by a factor of "lots". The downside is that an engine with a lot of blowby had nowhere to blow it to but the intake manifold.
PCV systems as engineered don't pull hardly any vacuum, the system is open to the air cleaner after all. Under WOT the system goes into the air cleaner, not through the valve.
(Honorable mention goes to the Vortec 8100 engines. Their "PCV" system is a small hole in the intake exposed to the valley. No valve, no hoses, simplicity at its finest)
jimbob_racing said:There's years and years of existing knowledge on websites. They are easily searchable and they are much better at staying focused and reducing all of the noise that social media has
People don't like searching. I'm guessing it's because most use the internet through their phone. So they ask the same questions everyone already asked and want to be taught tuning in a couple of instagram comments.
ProDarwin said:jimbob_racing said:I'd change the abandonment of website forums for Facebook and Instagram.
Agreed - for all things, not just cars.
The primary 'support group' for the DIY CNC router I have is a Facebook group... its awful compared to forums.
I hate how information and technical details are disseminated on Facebook groups. It's like candy thrown from a parade float whereas forums are like libraries.
There are days when I take notice of all of the cars driving towards me only have one person in them. It really puzzled me until the 2008 event when I learned that motor vehicles make the economy work. We don't come up with safe cars that run on hydrogen or an item that is an improvement to gas. We just look the other way and put TVs, Touch Screens, radar, self driving gizmos and who knows what else jammed into automobiles. I though this latest event was going to change things with the laws on how we drive. I know this is GRM and I love driving my Miatas but I am just one person, not Earth catching "Covid" because it has a hole in the ozone
In reply to MyMiatas :
I'm the sole bread winner.....so yeah I'm the only one driving my car to work. LOL.
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