Random thoughts thread

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Mndsm :

"I don't have abs, I have ab"

But you don't have to!

What if Horton actually did hear a Who?

Indy - Guy said:

What if Horton actually did hear a Who?

He did. The entirety of whoville is on the flower he had. The same whoville that contains the Grinch. It is possible the who he heard was in fact, the Grinch himself. 

An older Nissan Sentra weaving through traffic at high speed is being driven by a guy borrowing his girlfriend's car.

and

Does anyone actually register Dodge Chargers or do they all just all have permanent driveout tags now?

In reply to slefain :

Pretty sure girls can drive like shiny happy people too.

I still remember getting nearly clipped by someone in a white G6 "merging" across the merge strip at high speed to get around the rest of the traffic in lane.    Hauling ass swerving this way and that to get around traffic.  About three miles up the road, I see the steaming wreck of the Pontiac akilter to a crash barrier at an offramp divider, driver door open, and a young woman standing around holding an obviously broken arm and shouting... something at traffic. 

Random thought:  Food gets more bland the further northwest you go in Europe because spices came to Europe though the Middle East and the further it had to travel, the more expensive it got.

Fox body Mustangs aren't the terror of the road anymore.  Partially due to attrition, but also I suspect related to their value going up and more of them landing in the hands of collectors.

slefain said:

Does anyone actually register Dodge Chargers or do they all just all have permanent driveout tags now?

Huh?

maybe most of them are crashed before the owners get permanent plates.  

Made a comment about it in the classic motor sports forum, but it's a random thought, so I'll add here.  For cars that stopped being made in 2019, it seems like Ford Fiestas and Focuses are rapidly disappearing from the road around here.  I'm guessing after the powershift transmission fails out of warranty, they may not be worth fixing.

eastsideTim said:

Made a comment about it in the classic motor sports forum, but it's a random thought, so I'll add here.  For cars that stopped being made in 2019, it seems like Ford Fiestas and Focuses are rapidly disappearing from the road around here.  I'm guessing after the powershift transmission fails out of warranty, they may not be worth fixing.

I sent one Focus to the scrap yard because of the PowerShift trans but not for the reason you may think.

The TCM fails internally, causing either a no-crank (the starter gets its signal from the TCM) or a failure to be able to control one of the clutch motors, leaving the vehicle without half its gears.

The TCM is NLA.  Technically on intergalactic backorder, but there is no real rush to make more right now.

The transmissions themselves seem pretty stout as long as you don't have a lot of bad habits while driving.  Drive like you have a manual transmission and they are just fine.

The 1l turbo three came with the traditional 6 speed auto (6F35?) which outlasts the engine that starts heaving oil from the head gasket after about 80k miles.  So less than half the head gasket life of an EJ253 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Random thought:  Food gets more bland the further northwest you go in Europe because spices came to Europe though the Middle East and the further it had to travel, the more expensive it got.

Also because the growing/hunting season is increasingly short as you head North. There's only so much you're going to do to enliven salted Caribou and three-month old potatoes.  

Pizza, aside from specialty pizzas, have tomato sauce and cheese, and then some extra toppings.

A veggie pizza has various veggies on it.  And mushrooms, which are not vegetables (or even plants) and are not part of the base formula.

I've noticed a trend of Hyundai Velosters being fairly tastefully appearance modified.

My gut reaction is to be dismissive of appearance modified compact cars, but giving them a second look... flared fenders correctly color matched to the car and securely fastened, attractive wheels - frequently powder coated to match - set to properly fill the wheel arches, usually some color matching decals and such. I initially wanted to poo-poo this trend because they'll give them this more aggressive stance, but be using the standard width tire, just offset further out. But then I thought, "They're not trying to go faster, just look cool, and that's going to save on consumables."

It's like... they're modifying their cars to *actually* look like the way people who slap on unnecessary scoops and wings *think* their cars look.

I don't think I've noticed similar modification to other competing economy cars. This seems to be unique to Velosters.

TJL (Forum Supporter) said:

There should be a "candyland" themed cereal. Its just a box of candy. 

if you bend sheetmetal on the brake in the woods, and nobody is areound to see you do it, is it actually bent?

Would the future generation of race drivers that started with EVs from the beginning find it the more pure experience? There's no engine vibration and noise to filter what the chassis and tires are telling. Plus with the instant torque they wouldn't have to drive around the engine.

Thoughts that prompted that one:

When Audi switched to the quiet diesel LMP1s their drivers would pit during testing reporting the car was making weird noises but it was the tires and chassis they've never heard over the engine.

Johnny Herbert said the Mazda 787B didn't wear him out compared to other cars because the rotary didn't transmit as much vibration. One of his teammates got permanent hearing damage from that so it wasn't all roses.

In reply to j_tso :

I saw the Audi R10 run in St. Petersburg back when Allan McNish was driving. It was striking how much quieter they were than any of the other cars.  

In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :

Yep. All I heard were turbo noises. Same with the Mazda diesel in IMSA.

Deaf and impaired drivers do it all by feel. Always have. There's no bullE36 M3 noise to distract us.

In reply to j_tso :

There was an EV-swapped Camaro ZL1 that ran in Formula Drift for like two events, and drivers said that the Camaro was very hard to chase because of the lack of noise and instant power delivery. Against other cars, they would hear the lead driver apply more throttle and know that they needed to apply throttle to maintain proximity. But the Camaro made no noise, so the first inclination that you had that you needed to throttle up was when the Camaro started pulling a gap on you. I'm sad that that car never got any more development and was mothballed, because it was really cool.

In reply to NickD :

That's pretty cool, I've never heard of it. found this video interviewing the driver. Maybe if Elon Musk went drifting and got hooked he'd throw a billion dollars at that.

In reply to j_tso :

Travis Reeder is a pretty talented driver, and has continued drifting with an LS-powered E46, but the Camaro faded from view. I remember that it was supposed to make it's debut at the Long Beach round held during the Long Beach Grand Prix, and ultimately wasn't allowed to compete "for safety reasons", despite it having all the same safety features as a Formula E car, Formula E cars running at the Long Beach Grand Prix a couple days before, and the Napoleon Motorsports team offering to train the safety crews on all the safety features of the Camaro beforehand. So the first electric drift car wasn't allowed to run in California, ironically.