Car Enthusiast Club [Now Motorcycle friendly!] - First thread to 150k! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Bitter]

8 hours ago, vetali said:

Book says it has an EQ. Either way not a huge deal because I can control that in spotify.

Bass and treble isn't an eq. Does it even have fade and balance?

[vetali]

On 12/31/2020 at 5:52 AM, Bitter said:

Bass and treble isn't an eq. Does it even have fade and balance?

 

Looks like an EQ to me

[Bitter]

7 minutes ago, vetali said:

 

Looks like an EQ to me

That's much better than most Tablet based head units and much better than the Amazon reviewers stated, must have been updated since then.

[3 Lions]

 

[bcredeur97]

8 hours ago, Bitter said:

That's much better than most Tablet based head units and much better than the Amazon reviewers stated, must have been updated since then.

That’s the Spotify app itself. Not the head unit. 

 

im not sure if EQ’ing at the app accomplishes the same thing? I mean it’s all a digital signal until it gets converted so I guess I don’t see why not 

[Bitter]

Oh, I'm not familiar with that app I guess. I know they do make eq apps for android I think that might work too for other audio sources.

 

Ice storm, brakes froze up lol.

 

 

[jagdtigger]

10 hours ago, Bitter said:

Ice storm, brakes froze up lol.

Time to ignite the pig scorcher.... I dont think deicer will do any good in this case.

[bcredeur97]

Current status: in franklin, NC in the Miata waiting for fog to clear so I can drive the tail of the dragon 60 miles away lol

 

idk what I’m doing I woke up yesterday and decided to do this randomly. Surprised I actually left my house and didn’t stop anywhere along the 750 mile route and changed my mind 

[Bitter]

3 hours ago, bcredeur97 said:

Current status: in franklin, NC in the Miata waiting for fog to clear so I can drive the tail of the dragon 60 miles away lol

 

idk what I’m doing I woke up yesterday and decided to do this randomly. Surprised I actually left my house and didn’t stop anywhere along the 750 mile route and changed my mind 

It's a BLAST of a drive, just mind the wet if it's been raining or a heavy fog and this one corner has a nasty dip on the inside near the apex that'll upset your car.

[bcredeur97]

3 hours ago, Bitter said:

It's a BLAST of a drive, just mind the wet if it's been raining or a heavy fog and this one corner has a nasty dip on the inside near the apex that'll upset your car.

Dan’s dip? Lol someone wrote “Dan” on the sign right before you get to it. Actually one of my favorite corners 

 

ended up driving the thing 6 times and also drove up foothills pkwy nearby. The view on top was epic 

 

so many other fun cars there. Up till then I hadn’t seen a single Miata on the road on my way in. Full of them over there, also golfs, fiesta/focus’es, a mclaren 720s (just 1 lol), bunch of Porsche’s, a guy had an old 80’s Rx-7 which was in amazing shape, BMW’s of all sorts too, also TONS of motorcycles. Was surprised to see so much out of season, seemed like a lot of them were locals.
 

So you have those ppl who drive it quickly. Then every now and then you come across a typical civilian just puttering through. The change in pace is astonishingly annoying and there’s no where you can pass anyone lol, so if they don’t pull off, you might as well and wait it out for a bit. 
 

I have about 10 mins of footage(edit: its sooo bad tho... recorded from my phone)  from the Miata’s windshield (which was up till the point it ran out of memory). Had to pull off once to make way for someone faster. But otherwise it was fun I’ll see if I can post it and link it here 

 

didn’t expect to spend all day there but I pretty much did that lol

[Bitter]

1 hour ago, bcredeur97 said:

Dan’s dip? Lol someone wrote “Dan” on the sign right before you get to it. Actually one of my favorite corners 

 

ended up driving the thing 6 times and also drove up foothills pkwy nearby. The view on top was epic 

 

so many other fun cars there. Up till then I hadn’t seen a single Miata on the road on my way in. Full of them over there, also golfs, fiesta/focus’es, a mclaren 720s (just 1 lol), bunch of Porsche’s, a guy had an old 80’s Rx-7 which was in amazing shape, BMW’s of all sorts too, also TONS of motorcycles. Was surprised to see so much out of season, seemed like a lot of them were locals.
 

So you have those ppl who drive it quickly. Then every now and then you come across a typical civilian just puttering through. The change in pace is astonishingly annoying and there’s no where you can pass anyone lol, so if they don’t pull off, you might as well and wait it out for a bit. 
 

I have about 10 mins of footage(edit: its sooo bad tho... recorded from my phone)  from the Miata’s windshield (which was up till the point it ran out of memory). Had to pull off once to make way for someone faster. But otherwise it was fun I’ll see if I can post it and link it here 

 

didn’t expect to spend all day there but I pretty much did that lol

That might the corner and the dip, it caught me by surprise when I was pushing hard to keep up with a couple bikes way way faster than myself, just to see if I could. And I did until the dip because there weren't any straights and in corners I wasn't much if any slower than they were. It's a REALLY tight highly banked corner that you're on the inside of going uphill to the peak on the Tennessee side of it. I think one side is sloping woods and the other side is a rock face. The dip is about 1/3 of the lane and a pretty good but short drop that's obviously been filled with hot patch a bunch of times. There's enough visibility that you can go into the oncoming just a little bit to avoid it or just slow down. That and some bear cubs were my only startles. Yes, people SUCK. Some tourists do not understand to move over! Blasting horn at them for several minutes seemed to clue them in a bit but I felt like a real jerk doing it.

[bcredeur97]

34 minutes ago, Bitter said:

That might the corner and the dip, it caught me by surprise when I was pushing hard to keep up with a couple bikes way way faster than myself, just to see if I could. And I did until the dip because there weren't any straights and in corners I wasn't much if any slower than they were. It's a REALLY tight highly banked corner that you're on the inside of going uphill to the peak on the Tennessee side of it. I think one side is sloping woods and the other side is a rock face. The dip is about 1/3 of the lane and a pretty good but short drop that's obviously been filled with hot patch a bunch of times. There's enough visibility that you can go into the oncoming just a little bit to avoid it or just slow down. That and some bear cubs were my only startles. Yes, people SUCK. Some tourists do not understand to move over! Blasting horn at them for several minutes seemed to clue them in a bit but I felt like a real jerk doing it.

I think that is the spot but I’m not 100% certain. Either way I’m still alive and the car is fine so that’s good. Lol

 

I’m not outspoken enough to be blowing my horn at people lol (+ I literally had all day to play so w/e) 

 

I talked with some of the locals. Apparently there is a guy called “the King” who can run the whole thing in 10 mins. 
 

11 miles, 318 Turns in 10 mins. That’s absolutely bonkers fast lol. Like how do you even average more than 60 mph on that road? It’s mind blowing.

 

i actually drove here on my RE-71R’s because one of my all seasons was a bit too worn on the inside for me to be comfortable driving out here on them. I prob could of kept up with everyone.... just you know being so far from home and all and not wanting to break the car lol. That + the new suspension means I had a lot of grip... don’t think I ever really got to the full limit really. I know they let go quick when you get there so didn’t want to find it tbh 
 

The one time I did kinda push it was when I let some bikers by and then caught back up to them lol

 

My wheels have a nice coating of brake dust now lol

[bcredeur97]

Also NC Hwy 28 is fun too. Used it to get there and back to my hotel 

 

anything I should do or check out on my way home? NC -> GA -> AL -> MS -> LA 

[Bitter]

For sure cruise whatever of the blue ridge parkway that you can, if it's open. I think there's another parkway that runs into georgia too.

 

I mean I've averaged a 60mph pace before and can do it with clear traffic on a stretch about an 1.5 hour west of me that they've now dubbed 'the eagle', but the key is that I know the road really well so I know what I'm doing at the different parts. It's short, only about 3 miles so it's not hard to memorize but the flat hairpins are difficult. My very first time up (when I overheated my trans so I had slowed the last couple miles) I had super clear traffic because it was the morning still. I went from the start to the store at the top in like 20 minutes, like a 30-35mph pace which is not terrible for a first timer in a slow car. I was expecting it to be WAY more challenging than it was, the heavy banking made it a fairly easy drive to go fast on, I'm used to here in the midwest the curves being really flat so you have to REALLY REALLY modulate your steering, throttle, and brake inputs to get the car around fast. I did get a lot better at trail braking into corners to go faster on that trip up, it's something I've been trying to work on over the years since I first learned about it and came to understand it. I got my wheels so so so dirty but it was 100% worth it for the experience that I gained. My car was A LOT faster than I thought it would be, even with it's power handicap. Also, I was jamming to this so that really helped to focus me.

 

Later in the day I was stuck with the group I was with who were running a substantially more leisurely pace. Seeing the scenery was nice, but I really wish some of them had gone a little faster or I could have been up front more. One guy had a 1st gen Celica with period correct suspension and that thing looks WILD in the pictures from the road side, like it's going to jump off the road. Mine looks like it's just parked, barely any indication that I'm hard into a corner except maybe my body lean or the slight lean of the car.

[Oskar94a]

Today I changed my rear springs on my saab 900, 29 years and about 310 000km they look surprisingly good but they were so very spongey.

 

 

With the new springs it changed the car, it's obviously to be expected but the change was so great it surprised me. 

 

 

 

If you have an older car or higher mileage and have the original suspension, change it, it dose not have to be fancy aftermarket things just new stock parts, it makes the car feel so much better.

[Bitter]

Might need to adjust rear camber and toe once the springs settle.

[TVwazhere]

Teaching the girlfriend how to drive manual last week has been going very good. The beetle having (possibly?) 125k mikes on the clutch (I say possibly because the previous owner said it was the original clutch to the best of his knowledge) which still has grip to it left but will probably need to be replaced within the next 25k miles. But regardless, it's easy to learn on and I've been teaching here in a non-technical matter. Substituting things such as "Shift at # rpm's for maximum fuel efficiency" for things she understands like "Shift when the car sounds angry". 

 

Day 1 was just parking lot, getting into first from a stop and a bit of practice shifting to 2nd. 

Day 2 was driving along a school campus to simulate a road without having to worry about traffic nearly as much or going very fast. More of this will be needed before she is comfortable on open roads but she has made significant progress. 

[bcredeur97]

35 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Teaching the girlfriend how to drive manual last week has been going very good. The beetle having (possibly?) 125k mikes on the clutch (I say possibly because the previous owner said it was the original clutch to the best of his knowledge) which still has grip to it left but will probably need to be replaced within the next 25k miles. But regardless, it's easy to learn on and I've been teaching here in a non-technical matter. Substituting things such as "Shift at # rpm's for maximum fuel efficiency" for things she understands like "Shift when the car sounds angry". 

 

Day 1 was just parking lot, getting into first from a stop and a bit of practice shifting to 2nd. 

Day 2 was driving along a school campus to simulate a road without having to worry about traffic nearly as much or going very fast. More of this will be needed before she is comfortable on open roads but she has made significant progress. 

when people ask me when to shift, i tell them "in the neighborhood of about 1/2 of what redline is, situation dependent -- little less if im just putt-putting around and want good fuel economy, little more if I'm trying to accelerate quickly"

So for a car with a 7000 rpm redline, im generally shifting around 3500 rpm. 5000 rpm? 2500. 9000? 4500. Seems to work well since it scales with many engine types and sizes.

[Bitter]

That beetle trans is a super easy one, as good as a Toyota C series 5 speed.

[vetali]

8 hours ago, bcredeur97 said:

when people ask me when to shift, i tell them "in the neighborhood of about 1/2 of what redline is, situation dependent -- little less if im just putt-putting around and want good fuel economy, little more if I'm trying to accelerate quickly"

So for a car with a 7000 rpm redline, im generally shifting around 3500 rpm. 5000 rpm? 2500. 9000? 4500. Seems to work well since it scales with many engine types and sizes.

Depends on the gearing. I used to rev the piss out of my mazda in first because second was so tall. After that I could short shift.

[bcredeur97]

5 minutes ago, vetali said:

Depends on the gearing. I used to rev the piss out of my mazda in first because second was so tall. After that I could short shift.

That’s true. I dont take odd spacing into account 

[Bitter]

I had to have that conversation with my auntie when she asked me why her 91 Capri Turbo shudders so bad when she's shifting into 2nd and third. It's because she was shifting up into 2nd and third at like 2000 rpm. No no, shift around 2500-3000 and it'll be smooth as glass, if you need to go fast mash the gas and wind it out to 5000-5500. That thing with it's tiny tires will easily roast them from a stand still if you drop the clutch and chirps them into 2nd like nothing.

[atxcyclist]

On 1/4/2021 at 12:46 PM, Bitter said:

That beetle trans is a super easy one, as good as a Toyota C series 5 speed.

I can attest. My little 2005 Scion xA has 135k miles, clutch is still good and the trans works great. I guess it's a C50 if I remember correctly from my shop manual.

 

On a related note, I was sad to hear Toyota has killed-off the Yaris, so I guess the 1NZ-FE is now officially put out to pasture at least here in the United States. Such a great little lump, sad to see it go. 

[Oskar94a]

I took my saab to the mountain, my family's  cabin, a 200km drive, it was so fun to drive. 

It's quite a bit of snow here but usually its more. 

 

 

It looks right at home in the snow.

[jagdtigger]

Finally got the new head unit in:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/894lfj2g34ajw1f/IMG_20201228_164537.jpg?dl=0

 

Its not bad for a pure chinesium but it has an interesting quirk with the 128 GB sdcard i use with it. When i turn on the ignition it wakes up as intended but it doesnt see the sdcard..... Did anyone met something like this? Is it the sd card or the HU itself?