01-08-11 - Random Car Stuff

There's a whole industry of schadenfreude videos of winter car crashes (for example : Watch An Icy 20-Car Pileup As It Happens ). The thing that really strikes me when I watch this shit is that these are not "accidents". These are largely intentional crashes. That is, first of all the driver chose to drive on a day that his car is woefully unprepared for, then second of all (and worst) he saw a street where there is a huge pileup from other people crashing and he doesn't just stop and reconsider trying to go up/down that hill, he thinks "ha ha those guys all crashed, but I'll be fine". The car damage should not be covered by insurance, when you intentionally crash your car you should have to pay out of pocket. You morons.

Interesting bit in here about the GT3 RSR - they actually move the engine forward on the race car (compared to the street GT3) : JB tests drives the GT3 and interviews Patrick Long for Jay Leno's Garage JustinBell.com - Justin Bell's Official Website
Because of the extra-wide track of the wide body Porsches, they can actually get the engine between the wheels, it doesn't have to be behind the rear axle. Similarly in the M3 GT2 race car, they move the engine down and back. BMW M3 GT Race Car - Feature Test - Car and Driver
By regulation the cabin firewall has to be in the same place, so they get it as close to the driver as possible. In both cases I wonder why they don't do similar things for the road cars (things like the M3 GTS or the Porsche GT3 are not as close to the race cars as they want you to believe).

There are more "Corvette fail" videos on Youtube than any other car type; not sure if that more reflects the car or the average owner. Certainly if you see a Corvette car club coming down the road - take cover !
YouTube - Corvette oops
YouTube - Corvette Fail

This sarcastic Corvette review walks a fine line between funny and excessive douchery : YouTube - 200mph in Corvette ZO6. Fun or Fail ; it's hard to make fun of others' douchery when you yourself are a humongous douche

Sometimes I think a Lotus might be cool (though the Evora S seems to still not exist in America), but then I am reminded that it's not a real car. It's a British sports car, which means it's a few bits of plastic held together with paper clips. For example :
Warranty Work - LotusTalk - The Lotus Cars Community
3 days of raining waterlogged my Evora. - LotusTalk - The Lotus Cars Community
How hard is it really to buy a Toyota engine and some standard 3rd party brakes and suspension bits and tack them onto some aluminum bars? Seriously Lotus?

I think the E86 BMW M Coupe (2006-2008, Z4 based, 330 hp, 3200 pounds) is pretty sweet, though I guess a modern Cayman just beats in almost every way. The earlier weird-looking ones (though sort of adorable for their ugliness) had engine problems apparently. I test drove one a while ago and thought it felt a bit weird to be sitting so far back on the chassis, and also the amount of cargo space is too small.
BMW M Coupe M Roadster Resource Network - MCoupe.com - BMW M Coupe, M Roadster Z3 & Z4 Resource Network

Mazda RX8's have a lot of problems with their engine. Mazda stepped up and took the rare and amazing action of extending the engine warranty to 8 years / 100k miles. Nice one Mazda!
Mazda expects to recall RX-8s - RotaryNews.com
Mazda RX 8's Engine Failure Problem - Mazda Discussions at Automotive.com
Mazda extends rotary warranty on RX-8 to 100k miles � Autoblog

There are various reports around of coking/deposit problems on intake valves with the new DFI engines that are in lots of modern cars, for example : (very amazing pictures in this link :)
Journal N54 Total Engine Rebuild & Upgraded Internals - BMW 3-Series (E90 E92) Forum - E90Post.com

I love the BMW E30 M3, it's the greatest M3 IMO. (the good BMW design is all boxy angles, with forward slanting nose, ala the 2002, and a rectangular grill, not the dual-butt-chin bangled bullshit) (people are putting modern S54 engines them now). It's a chance to watch this video, one of my favorite rally clips of all time : Youtube - Patrick Snijers - E30 Rally

And some more crazy build/mod stuff :

Ran When Parked
JDM Legends - Vintage Japanese Car Sales and Restoration Vehicles for Sale
2001 porsche 996 ls1 conversion - LS1TECH

---

Aside : this is a real dumb addiction I've fallen into recently. I always seem to have some dumb thing that I think about way more than I should, but cars are particularly bad because 1. they're very expensive and 2. being a "car guy" is repellant to women (and good men). Car guys are either white trash (with cars up on blocks), nerds (who drive an imported JDM R33 GTR and can give you lectures on the correct racing line but promptly crash when they try to execute it), or insecure yuppies (small-penis midlife-crisis better-than-the-joneses).