[Toshi]

latest cool-ish new car i´ve come across.
Mazda 5
Good car for the price, and surprisingly roomy, specially considering the fact minivans are a very rare beast this side of the world.

Yeah, the 5 is sort of a mini-minivan. The only other vehicle in its segment was the Kia Rondo, which no one bought for whatever reason. I dig that you can get it in a manual, too, but you can't get the top trim (with navi, etc.) and the manual together. Bah.

 

[Toshi]

visit the family
i have this week off (between job switches); had plans to spend my week riding my bike, visiting bike shops while drooling about my next purchase; spending the afternoons at a sauna + steak and malbec for lunch + massage (the decent kind) + nap.... but i had to pickup my nephew from school today, feed him and baysit him for the day.

kids are frighteningly fragile. yours is probably not heavy duty enough to be taken on trips yet.

That is indeed what we decided on doing. A few days with undergrad friends (married, 3 kids now, the youngest of whom is just about a year old) in Virginia, then a few days with my aunt and uncle in DC (3 grown/college aged kids). Makes the most sense, especially since we aren't long for this coast.

 

[Toshi]

Baby-kins at 2 months (or 1 month after she was supposed to pop out):

 

[Toshi]

I felt uncomfortable enough driving that NV around that I may have finally soured myself on the perennial giant-vehicle on "the list", the LC/LX twins. (No, it wasn't enough that Fool's neighbor paraded his around his subdivision. I could deal with that. )

Anyway, here are some saner, smaller thoughts on vehicles for me. The goals are visibility/non-ginormous size, AWD in a form factor that wouldn't be out of place at a trailhead (so no sedans), and a general lack of ridiculousness/ostentation:

XV Crosstrek

I'd pick the low end Premium trim so that I could get the 5 speed manual unless the to-be-detailed-tomorrow Hybrid just knocks my socks off. Would add aftermarket navi (or a 7" tablet rigged up with a mount! that could be fun and more functional), and an aftermarket stereo that might just be as simple as an aux in from said tablet to a fine, "stupid" amp/speaker setup. I would definitely not pick that orange, though.

Newly redone Forester

Also would be a low-but-not-lowest end version (2.5i Premium for those following along) with the 6 speed manual. The same aftermarket navi/stereo caveat/opportunity above would apply. I'd pass on the EyeSight frippery about which I was geeking about a few months back, as that requires the high end trims with slushboxes (or CVTs!) and the headroom-sapping moonroof.

Between these two the Forester probably has more glass area (CR loves it for this reason) and would be more useful for road trips and the like. Hmm.

 

[Toshi]

RAV4 EV cutaway, or "that's only 2,599.5 they need to sell now"

That's a nice looking motor, mounted about as low as possible.

 

[Toshi]

Here are some saner, smaller thoughts on vehicles for me. The goals are visibility/non-ginormous size, AWD in a form factor that wouldn't be out of place at a trailhead (so no sedans), and a general lack of ridiculousness/ostentation:

Newly redone Forester

Directly relevant to the above, I test drove a 2014 Subaru Forester this afternoon, and thought it was just fabulous. (Cue LGBT joke.) Rather than being the most outlandish vehicle that ostensibly would meet my needs/wants (a title of dubious distinction still held by the LX 570), the Forester may well be the most sane and compact vehicle that accomplishes the same.

The model I drove was a 2.5i Premium, with the 6 speed stick shift and Cold Weather Package but no GPS or moonroof: exactly as I'd spec one, in other words. It was equipped well enough with a high resolution-albeit-tiny backup camera, a easily-swappable double-DIN head unit, seat heaters, and that all-important third pedal. Sitting in it and peering into the hatch revealed that it's about the size of a Prius V and just a hair smaller than the RAV4. (I also took a look at the XV Crosstrek and found it too small and cramped feeling.)

Driving it was where it shined, in large part because the visibility is amazing. The A pillars are thin, there are two large pieces of front window glass on each side, the cowl and beltline are low, and the windshield is oversized in a wonderfully unfashionable fashion. Combine this great visibility with an intermediate height h point seating position and you have the recipe for an immediate feeling of familiarity. The clutch and gearbox worked well enough (including the 1st gear synchro! heh), and there was sufficient kick in the first couple of gears. Interior noise was Outback-level low with no tire rumble, and the potholes I encountered were summarily dismissed without any crashing about.

(As a side note, I don't think I'd have enjoyed driving the 2.0XT variant nearly as much. I anticipate that version would have the dreaded CVT engine note drone and a firmer ride courtesy of suspension tuning and a smaller-sidewall wheel and tire package. A daily driven tall wagon should be comfortable above all else, in my opinion. Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming.)

The only reservations I have about the vehicle are one minor quibble (the driver's seat belt buckle annoyed me in its location when parked but not while driving) and its size.

Its size? Didn't you write above that it's basically a number for number clone for the Prius V and a near ringer for the RAV 4's interior numbers? Well, yes. The question is whether such a vehicle is big enough when a second kid pops into the equation…

 

[Toshi]

The crappy double DIN stereo setup sans navi in the Forester-of-low-enough-trim-to-still-have-the-stick-shift actually would present an opportunity to build up a system of my own choosing, again.

Three options, with speaker choice within the broad categories below to be entirely dictated by auditioning said speakers in the demo room at a local shop (I used to like Speakerlab in Seattle and will probably give them another visit):

 

[Toshi]

I ordered the parts just now to finish off the Turner 6 Pack/RFX build, namely a X-Fusion Vengeance HLR …

I also ordered a bunch of other ****:

- GS1000 dashcam so that I can pretend I'm Russian ($90, not too bad, noting that it's an "authentic" version with the GPS and G-sensor, as opposed to eBay knockoffs/clones that lack these distinguishing features)
- license plate bolt-mounted backup camera, a little 3.5" LCD, and an RCA cable so that I can theoretically add backup camera functionality to the Acura (less than $50 all in!)
- Mobil 1 "Advanced Fuel Economy" 0W-30 and PureOne filters for both cars, plus a Fumoto valve for the Acura to match the one I already popped on the Prius

Updates on the above:

The Vengeance is backordered/out of stock everywhere so the Turner's still sitting on the workstand, incomplete. The dashcam hasn't arrived yet from the 3rd party amazon seller, either, so I can't report on its quality/fakeness.

I did get around to changing the oil on both cars with the fancy-pants Mobil 1 AFE stuff above, though. I even think I torqued the oil filters enough this time. (Had a leakage issue around the oil filter last time around with the Prius, whoops.) Popping the Fumoto on the Acura will ease my life next time, as getting its recessed, pointing-towards-the-center-of-the-car drain pan bolt undone without getting drenched with oil was a royal pain in the ass.

I also installed the license plate cam and spliced it into the electrical sytem. I used the left-rear driving light, which should be effectively always on since I run the headlights 100% of the time. The true test was that both the driving light and the camera's power lead have +12V after my monkeying about.

The license plate cam's power leads are made of about the ****tiest, thinnest gauge wire I've ever come across. They were so thin indeed that it was a challenge to strip the insulation without cutting through (or simply breaking by tension!) the wires themselves. This was the use of an automatic wire stripper whose "automatic" part requires significant manual intervention with small gauge wire.

Still have work to do yet on the camera setup, namely running my 15 ft RCA cable up from the trunk to around the dashboard +/- keeping it hidden under trim panels, and then figuring out both mounting and power for the tiny LCD. I'd call the affair $100 of labor/pain, over matching the $50 spent on the parts themselves…

 

[Toshi]

Thoughts from the NY International Auto Show

Hybrids and EVs:

- The EV Pavilion, where test-rides were offered, was very difficult to find, and the test-ride course was tiny and sad
- The Fit EV and Fusion Energi are similarly compromised in their utility by the battery's packaging
- New black leather interior on the LEAF SL is nice

Minivans:

- Toyota's 3rd row folding mechanism was preferred by all 3 of us attending adults (the baby had no preference), with Honda's frankly painful jerking-back strap the least favored
- The Quest's non-folding-into-floor seats were the easiest to use but then you give up probably a solid 24" of floor space at the far back and maybe a foot throughout
- The Sienna also seemed to have the edge in terms of second row range of motion, with awesome legroom when slid all the way back

SUVs and other brick shaped objects:

- The Infiniti JX QX 60 and Nissan Pathfinder have the best 3rd row access of the lot, but that's decidedly faint praise
- The Mitsubishi Outlander's 3rd row is an outright farce, a ~1" thin pair of padded boards akin to the jump seat in the back of Mercedes station wagons
- I still like the Lexus LX, but have to admit that it does seem rather big, and it's 2nd and 3rd row packaging efficiency is pretty horrid on account of its wheel travel and body on frame construction
- The Jeep ride-along deal wasn't worth the hour and a half wait, but in a sense did prove worthwhile in that I have no desire for a Wrangler now: not enough headroom, to name but one of its many shortcomings

Luxury vehicles:

- The Infiniti Q50 and the Lexus GS share an oddly similar rear door window/door cutout profile
- BMW leather is not pleasing to touch, at least on the 3 series
- It's too bad the A7 has such a useless rear seat, as it sure is pretty, outclassing even the Aston Martin Rapide IMO

Hmm, I think that's most of the stuff bouncing around my head. Ask away if there are particular models about which you may have been interested, as we probably saw it during the 7 or so hours we were there.

 

[Toshi]

Project Backup Camera is now complete.

$56.76 in parts from amazon: cable, camera, LCD. I suppose I also used a few cents worth of solder, wire nuts, and spare wire lying about my electronics bag, and I will have to beef up the double sided tape mounting method of the monitor. Still under $57.

As I wrote last night I spliced the camera's power into the left-rear driving light. As the second photo above shows I decided to piggyback on the existing cigarette lighter USB charger for the monitor's leads. (It fit after a bit of filing down of the negative solder-ball.)

Best part: said driving light still works, the USB charger/iPhone charger still works despite being a bit misshapen now from heat transferred to the plastic shell during soldering, and the camera setup itself works, too, as seen in the third photo. Win. I shall find out soon enough whether having it on all the time is distracting. If so then I'll rewire it to the reverse lights, which is probably what I should have done in the first place…

 

[Toshi]

The crappy double DIN stereo setup sans navi in the Forester-of-low-enough-trim-to-still-have-the-stick-shift actually would present an opportunity to build up a system of my own choosing, again.

Riffing off the above/for later perusal/obsession, here are the stock specs on the JBL system in the Prius: http://www.tom-morrow-land.com/tests/priusaudio/ .

There's at least one outright blown speaker, the left front tweeter, iirc. I'll look into to it more to see if it's feasible, but I'd ideally like to pull the front door (woofer) and A-pillar (tweeter) plastics on both sides and replace just those possibly-blown, definitely-paper-cone items with low end but "real" speakers, leaving the funky JBL amp/crossover/volume control system intact.

(How funky is it? The head unit sends a constant level full range signal to the amp along with separate digital channels of communication for muting, fade, balance, and volume. Yes, volume is controlled at the amp level, not the head unit. Then there's all sorts of internal crossover and equalization weirdness within the JBL amp, weirdness that varies with volume.)

 

[Toshi]

Project Backup Camera is now complete.

I shall find out soon enough whether having it on all the time is distracting. If so then I'll rewire it to the reverse lights, which is probably what I should have done in the first place…

So I'll definitely have to rewire it so that it's on only when reversing.

As it is, on all the time, it's not too distracting during the day, but at night it's highly distracting. This is exacerbated by headlight glare and the general ****ty quality of the image once the light levels go down. Even with its limitations it's functional, though, and given my cheap self-install and its sub-$20-shipped price I'm happy with it nevertheless.

 

[Toshi]

Here are the stock specs on the JBL system in the Prius: http://www.tom-morrow-land.com/tests/priusaudio/ .

I'd ideally like to replace just [the] possibly-blown, definitely-paper-cone [front door tweeters and woofers] with low end but "real" speakers, leaving the funky JBL amp/crossover/volume control system intact.

I'm very close to pulling the trigger on some MB Quart PVL 216 6.5" component speakers from amazon. Good price ($115, Prime shipping), and good reviews.

What's giving me pause is that the stock speakers, per the quoted link atop this post, are 6 ohm resistance for the tweeters and 2 ohm for the woofers. The MB Quart units are nominally 4 ohm for each

Update the latest: They sounded awful in the Prius. I pulled them and returned them to amazon.

 

[HardtailHack]

OK I would imagine those speakers suck balls but that is just because of who now owns MB Quart(but if the review says they are good go off that), if you want speakers closer to the old German quality MB's they are now German Maestro. I have MB Quart three ways in my car and they are OK for an old old speaker but as usual the metal tweeter in mine has the slightly harsh sound they are known to have. They still sound nice but I normally prefer a soft dome tweeter so my tweeters are set at -3dB on the crossover but I should have done that via EQ but I am lazy.

A good install will have much more effect on the overall sound quality than the speakers used. Using the factory speaker locations is easy but usually gives pretty poor imaging and will need a bit of time alignment and EQ to get the sound stage nice and centered.

I am hoping to for my next install to go 8" 4" 1" drivers all in the door, it probably won't sound as nice but thieves won't see it as easily whereas my current car with dash pods is quite a concern when parked in shady areas. Don't really care about the stereo, just don't wanna replace the glass.

 

[Toshi]

I did see that MB Quart was bought out by a Chinese outfit a few years back, so I'm not expecting the moon. This is especially true since it'll be run off the stock head unit (2V, constant output, no time alignment or good EQ as per the above long winded post) and amp (handles volume, balance, fading, crossover inside its black box, outputs 7 discrete, low power channels).

Also, good point about not having flashy dash or A pillar pods to discourage thieves. Our 2006 Prius is already an unattractive target to thieves (no, seriously, Prii are amongst the least stolen vehicles) and the A pillar tweeter pods are OEM and well integrated with the trim.

With regard to "good install", extra sound deadening? Aiming the tweeters? Otherwise it's just a matter of screwing things in and hooking up some wire, no?

 

[Toshi]

I'll definitely have to rewire [the backup camera] so that it's on only when reversing.

Done. Much better. Mounting is still super-sketchy even with stronger double sided tape. Might have to figure out something with my RAM mount hardware if this continues to suck.

I'm very close to pulling the trigger on some MB Quart PVL 216 6.5" component speakers from amazon.

What's giving me pause is that the stock speakers are 6 ohm resistance for the tweeters and 2 ohm for the woofers. The MB Quart units are nominally 4 ohm for each

Trigger pulled. If they sound like **** due to the impedance issues as above even after playing around with EQ settings and the like then I'll just return them to Amazon.




Update: They indeed did sound like **** due to the impedance issues, and indeed were returned back to Amazon post-haste.

 

[Toshi]

Photo credit: Ford.

I earned $50 today by test driving a Ford Focus Electric. I also realized that I definitely do not want one despite the dealer's palpable desperation to unload their inventory.

First off, the desperation: MSRP on a Focus Electric with leather is just shy of $41k, no doubt a large part of why Ford sold all of 180 of them nationwide last month. Anyway, the dealer in question–Syosset Ford-Lincoln, for those in the market–has one black 2012 leather-laden model in their showroom on which they've been paying floorplan for more than a year. After my test drive, the salesman presented me with a screaming deal on this particular 2012 car: Invoice of $38.1k - $8,200 more, or $29.9k, pre $7,500 Federal tax credit!

If I had liked the Focus Electric that'd be a deal and a half, but Ford won't be getting my money any time soon. The Focus is simply too small to begin with for anyone with kids, IMO, and the severely compromised rear cargo room in the Electric due to its battery is the final nail in the coffin. (See the second photo below to see what I mean about the cargo room. Half of the room is flat out gone!) The rear seat is tight, right knee room is tight for the driver, and car feels short and narrow in general.

Photo credit: Autoblog.

It's too bad about the room, because everything else is actually pretty decent. Surface textures and dashboard quality are good, if a little busy for the latter, and the driving position isn't bad for someone looking for a bit of a lower, sportier feel than the LEAF. The powertrain is smooth and even a little bit punchy, albeit more in the 20-40 mph range than off the line. The visibility didn't even bug me, despite the relative paucity of glass area.

(I also took a peek inside a C-Max non-Energi on the showroom floor, while the sales guy was coming up with the deal above. Room and driving position, in my odd, long-torsoed opinion, are far superior on the C-Max but material quality throughout is Honda Fit-level crap. No thanks on this one, too.)

((Still with me, and curious about the $50? Ford was running a promotion at the NY auto show: test ride in a Fusion or C-Max Energi at the EV Pavilion and then test drive any Ford before June 1 and they'll give you me $50 for your trouble.))

 

[Toshi]

Latest Prius modification:

 

[Toshi]

Updates on the above:

The Vengeance is backordered/out of stock everywhere so the Turner's still sitting on the workstand, incomplete.

I got tired of waiting for X-Fusion to restock retailers, yet I didn't want to cough up $500-600 for a several-year old Fox 36. Instead I coughed up $340 via eBay's Buy It Now for a Fox 36 Float RC2 (non- or pre-FIT era) that was priced reasonably due to having a few scratches on the stanchions. Being sold by a bike shop/bike shop employee, rebuilt last year, and claims no leaks. We shall see.

Here are the crappy photos from the auction page, preserved here for posterity:

If this purchase turns out to be a complete dud, here's the post you all can quote to say "I told you so."

By saving a few (hundred) bucks on the fork part of the deal, the complete build cost will end up being right around $2,700. Bikes aren't cheap, but this one should last me a while with this new-fangled Shadow+ XT business, the basic Turner design, and sane choices all around.

 

[HardtailHack]

Ohh I took your info from the other thread, I thought you were going a bit crazier on the stereo. Wouldn't want to add too much weight to the Prius or your little cloud of smug will start to disappear as fuel usage goes up.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

toshi, today marked the end of my first week working for the local mazda distributor (who represents chevrolet, suzuki and 6 chinese brands).

10 years ago, china wasnt even a significant player in the car-manufacturing business.
last year, china built almost as much cars as the US and japan combined, leap frogging the US, japan and germany in less than 5 years.

i´ve been asked to develop and after-sales business for the pick ups of one chinese brands.

i´ve never really seen a chinese car from up close.... test drove said pickup (great wall wingle 5, with a 2.0 variable turbo), took it to some hills for some light offroading.
never had tried a car with more turbo-lag, or a stiffer suspension that wasnt a big turbo, 400hp sti.

its unbelievable cheap (40% less than a hilux). will take one apart next week.... am very curious at this vehicle.

some interesting bits of informations. this cars are sold without any repair manual whatsoever.
lead times for parts (air freight) are 40 days... and 100 days for sea freight.
and they all require an extensive pre-delivery inspection (which includes the replacement of all the fluids and a major inspection) as they sometimes do not come with enough oil from the factory.
coming from toyota... this is awe-inspiring.


we´ll see how this evolves in the next few years.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

toshi, today marked the end of my first week working for the local mazda distributor (who represents chevrolet, suzuki and 6 chinese brands).

10 years ago, china wasnt even a significant player in the car-manufacturing business.
last year, china built almost as much cars as the US and japan combined, leap frogging the US, japan and germany in less than 5 years.

i´ve been asked to develop and after-sales business for the pick ups of one chinese brands.

i´ve never really seen a chinese car from up close.... test drove said pickup (great wall wingle 5, with a 2.0 variable turbo), took it to some hills for some light offroading.
never had tried a car with more turbo-lag, or a stiffer suspension that wasnt a big turbo, 400hp sti.

its unbelievable cheap (40% less than a hilux). will take one apart next week.... am very curious at this vehicle.

some interesting bits of informations. this cars are sold without any repair manual whatsoever.
lead times for parts (air freight) are 40 days... and 100 days for sea freight.
and they all require an extensive pre-delivery inspection (which includes the replacement of all the fluids and a major inspection) as they sometimes do not come with enough oil from the factory.
coming from toyota... this is awe-inspiring.


we´ll see how this evolves in the next few years.

 

[Toshi]

Ohh I took your info from the other thread, I thought you were going a bit crazier on the stereo. Wouldn't want to add too much weight to the Prius or your little cloud of smug will start to disappear as fuel usage goes up.

Heh. Our smug is well stocked, thank you. You saw my "the futility of the prius and the end of the world as we know it" thread, right?

http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/f2/futility-prius-end-world-we-know-240305/

The three setups in the other thread were for a hypothetical future Forester.

Can't go pulling stuff in the Prius because a) we're selling it or giving it to my parents in a year or a year and a half, b) it'd add weight , and c) the factory head unit is both not a standard double-DIN and is inextricably tied to the factory, weird JBL amp setup. See a few posts above regarding how the amp handles volume, balance, fading, and muting-during-calls-and-navi-prompt functions.

i´ve never really seen a chinese car from up close.... test drove said pickup (great wall wingle 5, with a 2.0 variable turbo), took it to some hills for some light offroading.
never had tried a car with more turbo-lag, or a stiffer suspension that wasnt a big turbo, 400hp sti.

its unbelievable cheap (40% less than a hilux). will take one apart next week.... am very curious at this vehicle.

some interesting bits of informations. this cars are sold without any repair manual whatsoever.
lead times for parts (air freight) are 40 days... and 100 days for sea freight.
and they all require an extensive pre-delivery inspection (which includes the replacement of all the fluids and a major inspection) as they sometimes do not come with enough oil from the factory.
coming from toyota... this is awe-inspiring.

Would you drive one if sold to you at that low-but-same-order-of-magnitude MSRP? That's the real question.

Time to go try my hand at wrangling some UST Continental Trail Kings on my Stan's Flow EX wheelset. Never mounted tubeless before, and I've heard it can be a pain in the ass.

 

[Toshi]

Never mounted tubeless before, and I've heard it can be a pain in the ass.

It wasn't that bad after all.

I had been dreading this process a bit after hearing horror stories about how difficult it can be to seat tubeless tires on their respective rims using a hand pump, but it "only" took about 20 as-vigorous-as-I-could-make-them strokes with my floor pump set to high volume mode before I heard that reassuring "ping" of the bead setting into its recess. So far they seem to be holding pressure with no huge soap bubbles where I lathered up the bead/rim interface.

Specifics of this wheel/tire combo, to be mounted on my still in progress Turner 6 Pack build:

- Shimano XT: Centerlock, 10-degree-ratchet hubs and 203 mm Ice Tech rotors
- Wheelsmith: double butted spokes and brass nipples, laced up by Universal Cycles out in Portland
- Stan's: Flow EX rims, 25 mm rim tape x 2 layers, and 60 ml of sealant injected via their syringe-injector deal
- Continental Trail King/Rubber Queen 2.4" UST tires

 

[Toshi]

Coolness:

There's at least one other person out there who shares my interests: RAV4 EV with both a dual sport and a dirt bike proper on that trailer. He wrote up his hitch installation, too, which was completely unexciting since it's just like installing a hitch on any other vehicle: bolt it to the frame, voilà.

 

[HardtailHack]

No sorry, really can't be bothered reading about a Prius, really don't care.

The Great Wall vehicles have had a pretty poor view here in Aus, a couple of mines were stupid enough to to try them and chassis rails folded as employees(who don't give a ****) jumped them in work time. A friend is also doing full re chassis on them at the 3-4yr mark as the paint on the inside of the rails is rubbish and they rust out.

I would give Chinese cars a couple of years to get their quality up to scratch, I think Volvo are manufacturing there now so that may push things along as other producers can copy them.

 

[Toshi]

Trigger pulled. If [the 4 ohm MB Quart PVL 216 speakers] sound like **** due to the impedance issues as above even after playing around with EQ settings and the like then I'll just return them to Amazon.

Uh, so I'll be returning those speakers to amazon, as my driver's door-only initial installation showed the tweeter to be incredibly bright and loud and the woofer basically inaudible. I think it was the impedance mismatch issue, after all. Gah.

Lesson learned: Crap with the right impedance is better than decent stuff with the wrong impedance, at least when the head unit's EQ can't even come close to compensating for said mismatch.

The other lessons learned today were that I hate fragile plastic interior panel clips and they hate me in return, and that I should definitely pay a real car audio shop to do the installation should I go for one of the "real" stereo options that I detailed above in the future, lest I go postal.

I'll wrangle with the door panels again when I install the cheap-via-eBay ex-Cadillac STS 2 ohm woofer and 6 ohm tweeter to replace the now-in-the-trash stock stuff that was either blown or I mangled during the installation, but never again after that…



Update: Photos from the failed installation

What the inside of a Gen II Prius door panel looks like

The flip side, the inside of the door. Note the push-in connectors for the speakers (non-standard!). The tweeter shroud had already been removed ham-fistedly by me at this point.

Closeup of the tweeter. This is the one that was blown to begin with, I think.

Closeup of the woofer. Note all the crap on it from 8 years of service. Also note that it's riveted in place. Finally note the very non-standard shape of the plastic surrounding the speaker. :facepalm:

This above point is where I should have cut my losses, replaced the tweeter, and sewed everything back up. Instead I pried off the woofer + surround from the door by breaking the rivets, and then dismembered the woofer in order to use its surround as a spacer of sorts for the MB Quart woofer.

Woofer carnage. Note JBL woofer now crumpled in a heap and MB Quart woofer screwed down into the OEM plastic surround.

Since I couldn't reuse the rivets, clearly, I drilled 1/8" holes adjacent to them through both the surround and the door's inner sheetmetal, and screwed the whole assembly back in. This part wasn't the disaster but rather the resulting sound was, as described above.

Like I said, never again (once I get a woofer and tweeter back in the door, quality be damned).

 

[dan-o]

Brakes, exhaust and audio: 3 things I will always pay to have done on my vehicles.

 

[Toshi]

Thoughts from the NY International Auto Show

Hybrids and EVs:

I forgot to mention one other EV that had previously been the focus of my attention, albeit briefly: the smart electric drive.

I hopped in one on the auto show floor, after standing in line with a bunch of pre-teens (! wtf) who all wanted to sit in the cute clown car. Room was more than adequate but materials and construction positively reeked of bottom of the barrel cheapness. With its low mass, palpable cheapness, and lack of baby-shuttling-in-a-pinch capability it's now firmly off the radar.

I still keep on mulling over scenarios wherein both I and Jessica find ourselves in EVs, with bigger/long range vehicles rented or Zipcar-ed when necessary. If said scenario comes to fruition it'll be via a RAV4 EV or LEAF for her and the same for me. No medium speed (electric) vehicles, clown cars, gyroscopically balancing 2-wheelers, or electric motorcycles, in all likelihood…

 

[Toshi]

I finally remembered, after my memory was jogged by this page, which head unit I had on my old, wrecked WRX: a Pioneer DEH-P9.

P9 in the middle. Modern counterparts flank it.

In addition to taking me down memory lane to a much more volatile time in my life in 2005 or so, the linked page is cool because it has data on reproduction quality for both the CD and iDevice circuitry on the latest hot-**** Pioneer deck, the P99RS from "option 3", as well as comparisons to both the "option 2" deck and my old P9.

The long and short of it are that the two current decks are great, the P9 was pretty damn good but has been outclassed, and the P99RS iDevice sound quality is identical to that from the CD player, as the iPhone's DAC is bypassed in favor of the deck's own DACs.

Booyah. Thus with enough sound deadening and proper speakers such a deck might be exercised fully even "just" using the iPhone as the data source. I knew the equivalence to be true intellectually (after reading a post from Pioneer on Facebook detailing how the data are maintained digitally in the transfer) yet it's still good to see this illustrated "in the flesh", or via the oscilloscope, as it were.

 

[Toshi]

[DVD-Audio rambling redacted]

 

[Toshi]

After all my virtual teeth gnashing about DACs and sampling rates, I was mildly appalled to find out tonight that the pre-2012 Lexus LS didn't have a proper OEM USB iPod/iPhone interface. By de facto mandating the 2012 model (not going to have a fancy stereo and then still be using aux-in with its extra DA-AD conversions) the LS is ruled out: Edmunds puts five year total cost of iwnership at an eye watering $95k.

Back to the 2014 Forester plus nice stereo and dynamat idea, I suppose. $42k five year TCO leaves a lot of headroom to upgrade the thing, or buy a house, or feed the baby or whatever. Other ideas would be to move to a new topic to think about , live with the 2013 LEAF's Bose setup, or hack up a RAV4 EV's stereo via a JL CleanSweep or the like.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

so, i´ll get to play tug of war with a rental top of the line hilux and the newly launched 5-cyl Mazda BT-50. (and i´ll get paid for that!); among other top gear-esque tests (braking distance, 400ft drag race on dirt, 20mph-40mph drag, estability/traction control and downhill assistance.... any suggestions for something that could make it viral?

this will be professionally recorded in order to make a 3 minute short for the internet, and a 8 minute clip for corporate (mining) clients.

on the other hand... my first headache at my new job, is trying to figure out how to install a 6-point(un-braced) roll cage on a car with side-airbags (2 in the seats, 2 in the b pillars).

 

[Toshi]

From what I've gathered thus far, mining clients like to see their trucks jumped. At least down under. Think "Raptor idiot videos" and you have the idea.

 

[Toshi]

My journey back from Summit, NJ to Long Island was just a shade over 65 miles per Google Maps. Driving that distance this afternoon/evening took me over 3.5 hrs, including an interminable hour and a half spent in the last 10 miles before the Lincoln Tunnel.

Gah.

It was unpleasant, both for the traffic and the general experience of being around NJ drivers. I've rarely been thankful to return to Long Island, yet the LIE was a veritable paradise in comparison to US-495 in NJ.

 

[Toshi]

Today I installed my eBay-ed ex-Caddy woofer in the Prius's driver's door, and managed to not **** everything up this time. It works.

I also had success in my other hobby electronics projects: hardwiring my dashcam (to the overhead console's unfortunately non-switched power: pic 1, pic 2), and more securely mounting the monitor for my backup camera (two screws right into the plastic trim–it is a 115k mile old, 2001 model year car, after all: pic 1, pic 2).

I then listened to my audition track list* in the Acura. See below for said list. I found out in the process that the Acura's Bose system sounded better/had more linear response across the frequency range than the Prius's JBL system even pre-mangling, except that the Acura's left front tweeter is [apparently] blown…

* The above-mentioned "audition track list" is beyond the jump, as it were:

NSFW

-0 dB sine waves at 30, 60, 200, 1k, 2k, 5k, 8k, 10k, 12k, then 15-20kHz at 1k increments
Orchestral music, sonorous: NY Phil playing Wagner: Vorspiel Zum 1. Aufzug, for the curious
Solo piano: Glenn Gould playing Bach: Variatio 25 a 2 clav from the Goldberg Variations
More solo piano: Glenn Gould and Bach again, this time BWV 891.2 from the Well-tempered Clavier book 2
String quartet: Melos Quartet, opening of the first movement of Schubert's 14th quartet
Orchestral music, percussive/low register test: Opening of Mahler 2 first movement, Berlin Philharmonic
Jazz: Samba de Haps from Kenton '76
Pop: Theme from Avatar, from the OST
Bass test: Humpty Dance by Digital Underground

I'd be happy to post these tracks if anyone's curious as to what they sound like/why I picked 'em.

Update: I replaced the Acura's tweeter with the extra one from the eBayed set I bought for the Prius. I even soldered in an appropriate capacitor (4.7 µF, just as on the stock setup) to act as a high-pass filter. I can't say that things were improved, though, although they weren't worsened.

Perhaps the distortion is inherent in the 13-year old Bose system or, more likely, in the tape deck adapter I'm using. The problem is that FM is of really poor quality (plus ads, plus track choice) and the CD changer has been broken for years… I have no more inputs that I can use besides the tape, for now.

 

[Toshi]

2013 wedding anniversary photo:

In other developments today I successfully shortened without bleeding my front brakes on the Turner build but ****ed it up on the rear ones. Somehow the olive got all off-kilter and crushed asymmetrically, and besides that I forgot to pump out the rear pads before starting so would have had to bleed afterwards anyway.

Suck. Time to wait for new olives + oil to arrive from amazon.

 

[Toshi]

Sweet jeebus, the Turner looks huge when built up. No formal pics of it until I get the proper handlebar and stem on it and shoot it out properly, out in the sunlight with the big camera.

Crotch clearance, from my pedal-less living room "test ride", is more than a slight issue, although I knew that going into this from its specs vs. mine, as it were. As noted earlier I wouldn't have gotten more than a fraction of an inch more standover even with other Turner sizes, and dan-o had but one sized frame offered for sale.

(I must say that it does look pretty bad-ass, at the very least, sitting on the workstand with the 160 mm travel Fox 36 on it and big 2.4" meats… )



Update: Forgot about this one last night. Why again did I get a US made frame? For the build quality, right?

Well, there was a huge misplaced weld glob blocking a quarter of one of the front-most cable stops. Took me a solid 20 minutes hacking away at it with an awl (sorry, now-broken awl) and hammer to open it up such that the cable ferrule would fit in at all.

 

[Toshi]

A few weeks back I ordered a GS1000 dashcam from Amazon (beware of inferior clones!), inspired by the Russian dashcam users who captured the meteroite strike inadvertently. My initial verdict is that this was a worthwhile purchase.

If you click on the already-resized-smaller video framegrab you can see that the license plate on the (slowly moving) VW GTI ahead of me is readable. That was my main metric, and it passed.



I'm also reasonably happy with my hard-wiring setup described a few posts above. Since the power is always hot I need to remember to hit "stop" when I finish my drive, but then the unit will shut off automatically from idleness afterwards. When I hop back in the car just hitting power will boot it up and get it to start recording anew. It records in selectable 1/2/5/15 minute chunks, writing over the oldest files once the card is full.

 

[HardtailHack]

I don't read much and you write lots, what is wrong with just running a HDD instead of an iPod? You still use the HU's onboard DAC and you just leav it plugged in and some awesome HU's will play WAV over USB. I have a 120GB SSD which is currently in my poter but it is useless when adding HD video files so it might find it's way in to the car I think. I have a Blaupunkt Bremen MP78 and it is showing it's age in the connectivity front but I only really bought it for it's EQ which is still pretty well class leading and it was released years ago.