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Neon update

The Neon work continues. Bought all of my oem parts yesterday...ouch. This is apparently what $650 worth of parts should cost. Not nearly as cool and shiny as I'd like for that kind of money.

Looking at that picture, I'm thinking they sold me the wrong motor mount...that might be a lower mount, and I need the upper mount. That one looks too big. The other parts:
- head gasket kit (all the top end gaskets)
- timing belt
- water pump
- timing belt tensioner
- idler pulley
- head bolts
- water pump and throttle body gaskets
- sealant

I still have to buy the new a/c compressor, because I went to Autozone last night, and all the guy could find was an expensive one that wasn't in stock anywere. :-P I knew I had seen one cheaper online, it was just in an odd place - it seems that a compressor and clutch cost way less than a compressor alone!

The head is at a shop getting checked out and fixed right now. The person that recommended it said "don't be fooled by the exterior", and now I know why - it's a store that sells generators and chainsaws! A guy from the back of the store came out when I said what I needed to have done, and he seemed completely unrelated to the rest of the store. :-P He immediately noticed that the head had already been worked on at least once, and it had overheated at some point. At any rate, he should be able to fix the hole, then tell me what else is wrong with it. Won't be ready until Monday, unfortunately. :-(

More Neon work

Work on the Neon continued last night. Took off the a/c compressor, all of the timing stuff, and finally, the head. In addition to the parts I already planned to replace, it looks like I need a new motor mount as well.

Enough already - picture time (click for larger)!

Table of parts to be cleaned or replaced.

A lonely dipstick.

Mmm...blocky.

The cause of all these problems:

And his associates:

I tried taking two pictures of the plug that's being a problem, and neither came out well. I think I was just too close.

So that's it for now, halfway there. Now it's time to figure out how the head will be fixed/replaced, then everything goes back together. Fun! :-P

Neon work begins

My uncle agreed to help out with fixing the Neon's oil leak, so we got started on that the other day. He has plenty of extra garage space and lots of light, exactly what I lack. ;-)

The car is a huge pain to work on. Nothing is convenient. Of the maybe 30 nuts and bolts I removed last night, about 3 of them are what I would call "easily accessible". The rest require some odd combination of extensions and swivels, then once you finally get a socket on the head, you only get one or two clicks of the ratchet at a time. Most things are tight enough that you couldn't get an air ratchet in their, either. It's like the car was designed in such a way that it would be put together, driven until death, and nothing would ever need replacement. Oh, and it uses the Evil™-style hose clamps, the ones that require pliers to open. I think those will be replaced.

I'm thinking it might have been easier to just pull the whole engine. :-P

Next we need to remove the crank pulley, then the timing belt and associated parts, then it'll finally be time to start getting the head off. I really hope we can get all of this back together. ;-)

Onward, with pics! I didn't bring a regular camera with me, but I'll probably bring one today when I go over there. Excuse the blurriness.

Cleaning frenzy

More car cleaning...I just don't get it. Why am I starting to do this stuff now? Anyway, I bought some Armor All Oxi Magic the other day hoping to attack my headliner and center armrest, both of which are thoroughly disgusting.

This is the point at which I deserve severe ridicule for not taking before and after pics. You really have to have seen them to see how terrible they were. Carrying on...

It took some scrubbing, but both the headliner and armrest turned out really well. Before, the armrest was actually somewhat sticky to the tough, kind of a gummy consistency. So much dirt and sweat had been on that armrest over the years, it just all built up. Now you can actually see the original pattern, it's fairly soft, and looks nearly good as new (just a little worn, given the frequent use). The headliner was equally bad, with a measureable buildup of gummy stuff right above where my head was. A lot of this came from the days of (a) using hair gel in combination with (b) being fatter. (b) made me sit up higher, and (a) ended up getting on the headliner. :-P Numerous applications of the oxi magic removed almost all of the dirt and stain, but I don't think it'll ever be 100% gone. The area that was dirty is a bit wrinkled now, and I'm sure that won't go away. :-\ Still, it looks a million times better than it did before. I'm liking this product a lot so far.

That was about all I had time to clean before it got too dark in my garage to continue, but I'll continue on another day.

Cleanliness is next to sleepiness

Or something. Second night in a row now that I've gone to bed after 1am thanks in part to halo 2.

I also spent a couple hours last night cleaning up my wheels. You heard me, cleaning. It's that thing I don't do very often. I bought a bottle of Castrol wheel cleaner and a cheap plastic wheel brush, packed up my stuff, and went over to my parent's house, as they have a hose. ;-) Cleaned up the race wheels first, as they were pretty easy, and I wanted to give them time to dry before putting them back in the car. They're all shiny again, so that's good.

Next was the real challenge, the street wheels. I took them off the car, as I (a) didn't want to get the rest of the car wet since I just washed it, and (b) I wanted to clean the back side of the wheels as well. The front side went ok, they get fairly clean when the car gets washed, it's just a matter of getting into the smaller areas. The back side was amazing. There was no evidence that these wheels were ever any color but dark brown. Just cleaning the outer portion of the inside, I had to rinse out my wheel brush after getting halfway around because it was full of dirt. As I was cleaning the back side of the spokes, the dirt was mixing with the foam from the wheel cleaner, and forming some kind of disgusting paste. They now look pretty clean though...at least as clean as they'll get. ;-) The finish is gone, but at least they're fairly shiny as well. In the end, I think I just about destroyed the cheap wheel brush, and I used almost an entire bottle of wheel cleaner (a large bottle, at that).

Great weekend

So...where to start. Friday night I went to the Guinness event again, same one I went to a couple weeks ago. It was fun, but a bit shorter than the other one I think. People were definitely lining up earlier for it, as Evan and I got there at 6:30 and there were maybe 40 people in line in front of us (last time we were maybe 10th or so in line). Still, plenty of beer, meatballs, and tortilla chips were had.

Saturday was my birthday, the big 2-5, and a good day at that. Any day that starts with a bowl of peanut butter captain crunch can't be all bad. ;-) Watched Goldfinger during breakfast - the best 007 movie to date, IMO. Went to Sub Culture Cafe for lunch (I've mentioned it before), also great. Stop by if you're in the area. They're never busy when I've been there, so I hope they stay around a while.

Teresa gave me a great bday present, the Audio Authority 1154A. It's a four-port component video and digital audio auto-sensing switch. It will accept coax or optical audio, and output the audio over coax, or optical, or both. In my particular case, I have three devices using optical audio inputs, and the 1154A sends it to the receiver through the coax audio output. It also let me buy component cables for my PS2 and Xbox - I couldn't do it before, as our tv only has one set of component inputs, and my receiver doesn't have component switching built in (it didn't even have s-video switching!). I'm only using three of the four available inputs, so when we finally upgrade to an HDTV with an HD cable box, I'll be able to plug that in as well. It's advertized as having enough bandwidth for HD content as well, rather than just 480p. Finally, the auto-switching aspect is nice. Say I want to play some GT4 on my PS2. I just turn the PS2 on, and the 1154A switches to PS2 input. Then maybe I want to start up an endurance race, and watch a movie while my B-spec driver completes the race? I just turn on the dvd player, and it switches to dvd input. I finish the movie, turn off the dvd player, and it switches back to PS2 input, with no intervention from me. Nice. Oh, and I finally was able to get rid of my S-video switch. :-D

More softball Saturday night, and we played a lot better than last week. I hit fairly well, and got some time to play the outfield during the second game, which I've been interested in trying. I've pretty much been an infielder for all of my years playing baseball and softball, but it's nice to try something new. During the second game, an interesting thing happened. We have a 2 home run rule, meaning that (in this case) you can only have 2 home runs more than the other team. We got 2 in the first inning, thanks to a slightly shorter fence than we usually play on. Next inning the other team got one, then we got another in the third. So I'm up in maybe the 4th or 5th inning, with two runners on. As the pitcher is getting ready to throw, I decide I'm going to see if I can hit one out. I'm not a home-run hitter, as I usually try for a well-placed line drive or ground ball rather than swinging for the fence. Well, I made a solid hit, and the ball went out, just as I planned. Doh! I totally forgot that we had made another home run a couple innings prior, so mine counted as an out. Perhaps some other time. Softball was followed by a late dinner at NYPD Pizza, complete with several Fat Tires and a free dessert. :-)

More greatness on Sunday. A Costco lunch is always a good start. After lunch, Evan and I did some brake work on his Camaro. Replaced the front rotors under warranty, replaced the rear pads, and bled the brakes. The rear brake caliper tool from Autozone is fantastic. It turned out that his car had a press-in piston, rather than those terrible screw-in pistons, but it worked well for that too (as we didn't have a c-clamp around). I'm definitely going to pick that up any time I do rear brakes, as it's much better than the stupid little $2 tool they sold me before. Everything went pretty smooth, and the car hasn't crashed due to brake failure yet, so I think we did ok.

Finally, I got some Halo 2 time in this weekend, and that has been fun. At least I'm occasionally making use of that Live subscription. :-P A big update comes out today, so maybe I'll try playing again tonight.

Failed golf attempt

This week I've really been wanting to go play some golf after work, and yesterday I thought I had the chance. I got to work early, and left a bit late the day before, so I took off early, grabbed my bag, and headed to Ken McDonald. Bad news when I got there though - apparently U-Haul had a league going, and they had all of the times from 3:45 to 4:30. :-( I had something else to do at 6:30, so that wasn't going to work. I ended up hitting a bucket of balls, with moderate success. I had a number of perfect shots, which was encouraging. On the whole though, I was all over the place. Maybe it was better that I wasn't out there on the course. ;-) Still, it was good to be back with the familiar sights, sounds, and smells. Perhaps I'll be able to get out there one day next week.

I had some extra time now, so I decided to clean up my car a bit.
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You read that right. I actually washed my car, scrubbed off all of the cone marks (of which there were many), and took a fresh swiffer to the interior. Now I just have to find my touch-up paint to hit a few areas that need some attention.

Evo-itis runs deep

Played a little more GT4 last night. Decided to buy myself an Evo VIII MR for the Evo race, and won fairly easily with nothing but sticky street tires. Stock suspension and all, it was fun to drive, and it did everything "right". Here are pics from a lap around El Capitan (click for larger).

I did a few other races, but nothing too notable. I won Subaru's "Race of Pleiades" or whatever, to get the STi touring car, and that actually looks pretty cool. I tried rally a few times, but gave up out of frustration. I started the B license tests, and I think I got gold on everything through test 9 or so, including the coffee break. The next test was one lap following the pace car around laguna seca, and I just didn't feel like doing it. :-P

GM Autoshow in Motion

Went the GM Autoshow in Motion with Teresa and Evan on Saturday, meeting Brian there as well. A moderately good time was had by all. I didn't get to drive anything in the luxury car area, as we simply ran out of time. There weren't even that many great pictures actually. :-P I'm still glad I went, I just wish I could have gone on a Thursday or Friday when the lines were shorter.

Pics ahoy! (here's the open directory if you just want to browse pics without commentary)

The excited group carpools to the event, cursing ADOT for the closure if I-10 and my usual onramp.

In a Buick Lacrosse, looking at possibly the smallest car there, the Aveo.

Ah yes, that's Evan in the Aveo. Big man, tiny car. A match made in...somewhere strange and unfamiliar.

Me driving the old-man-mobile.

The Lacrosse's dash, quite boring.

Teresa behind the wheel of the 400hp Pontiac GTO, 6-speed manual and all. It made nice sounds.

Teresa again, same car. I didn't really like the temperature controls, but other than that, the interior was livable. I liked the instantaneous fuel usage in gal/hr though. :-D

Me in the GTO, probably saying something lame like "why is the volume knob on the right?", then realizing that the driver would use the steering wheel controls, and the passenger would use the knob. :-P

Evan waiting for the C6 drive around PIR's infield. I think this was taken after someone said "there's free blue cheese in the passenger seat." Alas, the rumor was false.

Brian in the same line. That smirk says "my Miata could take this Corvette any day."

Me in the same line, sporting the not-often-seen black cap. The smile says "look at me, I have a hat."

Feet aplenty. Apparently the photographer is a pegleg. Yarrr!

Evan shoehorning into a red C6.

Evan driving away, either waving to his groupies or airing out his pits. I'm inclined to say the latter.

Me getting into the C6. I think that guy had a grease gun in case I didn't quite fit.

Finally, me driving away. That was really just as exciting as actually driving it, as the passenger had us shifting really early. :-\

Free Guinness

Yes, thanks to the fine people at Guinness, I got to drink a bunch of their beer for free. :-D It was part of their "Believer" tour, touting the goodness of Guinness Draught. The draught isn't exactly my favorite, but I heard they would have extra stout available as well, plus being free and all, it would be a shame not to go. As it turns out, they only had draught on tap, and the extra stout was in bottles. Worse, the extra stout was a bit skunked. :-( Had plenty of the draught though, maybe 3 or 4. Pretty decent appetizers as well, including meatballs, a vegetable tray, boneless breaded buffalo chicken, small fried shrimp, chips & salsa, and some kind of spinach dip. The staff on hand was pretty good about bringing out fresh beer when you were getting low, as well. There are still one or two events left in Phoenix, so if possible, I suggest you go (unless you hate Guinness, of course). Click the link above, and when asked how often you drink Guinness, choose one of the top answers. :-P

I took some pictures at the event, which was held at Jillian's. The room we were in was pretty nice, but dark. As such, the pictures are a bit lacking.

Peanut butter off the port bow!

Peanut butter Captain Crunch is awesome. That is all.

Ok, so that's not all. The Cap'n's first name is Horatio.

Really, that's all now.

Evo-itis

I have it, but I can't afford the cure. :-(

After a few autox runs in an STi last weekend, and hearing that the Evo is the superior autox car, the seed has been planted. I want one. Currently considered one of the "cars to have" in ESP and STU, plus a contender in AS and SM. Last night I read through the most recent 10 pages of the motorsports forum at evolutionm.net, looking at how people had been setting theirs up for various classes. What did I learn?
- You want a 2005 model for the front diff.
- Kosei makes a light & cheap wheel for AS ($239, 15.5lbs for the K11 TS).
- 5Zigen makes a good 17x9 wheel for non-stock classes (FN01R, FN01R-C).
- 285/30-18's on 18x10 wheels can fit for ESP/SM.
- Be sure to get an adjustable rear sway bar.
- Koni doesn't make anything for it yet, so buy coilovers. :-\
- Camber plates > *
- Several companies provide ECU reflashes that don't change boost.
- Both the turbo manifold and downpipe can be replaced in STU and higher classes (leaving a cat in place for STU).
- Oil starvation can be an issue in long high-speed turns.

So not only is it competitive in Stock ($), STU ($$), ESP ($$$), and SM ($^infinity), but it has 4 doors and a trunk. To a slightly lesser extent, there's only one Evo autocrossing locally vs. about a dozen STi's, and it would be kinda fun to go up against them. ;-)

Of course, this whole discussion is really meaningless when I recognize that I can't afford $550-800/month for 3-4 years, plus the inevitably higher insurance rates. Oh well. :-(

GT4 is back!

Had some time to play it again last night, so I did some manufacturer. Short, easy, and they give you cars. :-)

I started out driving my Civic Type R in the Civic race, which gave me this cool old Civic race car:

Next, I got in my RX-8 Concept:

And won the RX-8 LM race car, which is actually kind of cool:

Even in LM form with just over 500hp, the car just has no torque. :-( Anyway, I used the LM car to win the RE Club race for rotary-powered cars, which gave me this funky old Mazda:

Finally, I entered the Subaru 360 race, which required me to buy this 360:

I left it stock, and won the race on my second try. With a ground-pounding 16hp and a 3-speed tranny, the top speed on a slight downhill was 50mph. I don't think I lifted for any of the turns. The prize? Another 360, but in a really cool blue color. In retrospect, I should have taken the picture of that one. :-P

I was done with racing at that point, but I thought I'd get a picture of the Chaparrel 2D I won a couple weeks ago:

It's an interesting car. Only 3 gears, but first is good for about 115mph. Didn't hit top speed on Laguna Seca, so I have no idea how fast it should be able to go. Supposed to be the car to have for one of the American races though.

I stayed up way too late playing the game last night, but at least I feel like I accomplished something. :-P I think I'm now at 39.7% complete.

Google maps...with satellite!

Google added satellite imagery to maps.google.com the other day, and I'm enjoying it. From what I've heard, the images are anywhere from "fairly recent" to about 2 years old.

Some points of interest:
PIR, AMP, FIR.
My home away from home, the local Costco (it's actually on the southeast corner).
Ken McDonald golf course, where I've probably put in more time than all other golf courses combined.
The ASU main campus, including A Mountain near the top of the page.

Who doesn't like a few pictures?

Last week I uploaded some of the better pics I've taken on my camera phone (well, better is awfully subjective). Pics > text, right? Onward!

1. A fine old car, taken on the freeway to...somewhere. It may have been coming back from a Sierra Vista event I went to several months back. I think the picture came out surprisingly well, given the low light level.

2. Viper in a parking lot. Not so unusual...except it's the parking lot at Costco, and unless you're a regular, you're probably going to walk out with more stuff than will fit in a viper trunk. God help him if he needs to buy toilet paper.

3. Same parking lot! This person might have similar problems. How he drove this to a Costco, I have no idea.

4. LAN tournament at an Athlon 64 launch event. The game was Far Cry, which I had never played before. I made it through several rounds though, and was just a couple kills out of making it into the final four people.

5. These were taken from the balcony outside the main conference room in the new building on Mill Ave., "the brickyard". Good views, and the room was full of about 40 Aeron chairs.

6. Beer pong, sport of kings. Unfortunately this game was played on a smaller-than-regulation table.

7. Soft pretzel? check. Que Bueno? check. Beer? check. :-D

8. The pinnacle of 80's wagondom.

9. Just a little cooler, even though it's not a wagon. ;-)

10. Cone decapitation. So sad.

11. "It's a flavor explosion!!" says the cat.

12. The pummelo. Large grapefruit? Martian spider egg sac? You decide.

13. Shiny race wheels, followed by tire stack comparison. From left to right: 205/50-15 Victoracer V700 on 15x6.5 wheels, 235/45-13 Ecsta V700 on 13x8 wheels, 225/50-14 Ecsta V700 on 14x6 (?) stock Neon wheels.

14. Said race wheels on two different cars. Lots of positive comments on them. There's no doubt that the awesomeness level is high.

15. Finally, what proved to be an meaningless threat. The Wagovan is a good car, and it was lots of fun to drive, but it couldn't quite keep up with the Miata (ok, so 3 seconds off on a 60-second course). Again though, fun to drive, and it looked GREAT on those wheels.

Dead tires

At least, they're mostly dead. After this weekend's autocrossing, I think they're about done. Here's an approximate breakdown of the runs that have been put on the tires:

- November 2-day event in Tucson: 38 runs
- December Phoenix event: 6 runs
- January Tucson event: 8 runs
- January Phoenix event: 6 runs
- February Phoenix event: 12 runs
- El Paso tour event: 15 runs
- March Phoenix event: 8 runs
- April driver's school: 24 runs
- April Phoenix event: 12 runs
Total: 129 runs :-O

A majority of those were obviously from just two events, but I figure it's better to wear the tires out before they heat-cycle out, like I did with my last set. Co-driving really takes its toll on a tire's life expectancy. ;-)

AZsolo2.com ideas

Someone mentioned to me that azsolo2.com could stand to look a little better. I'm not the webmaster, but I threw a basic style together, with a couple different color schemes.

1. Blue theme. This blue is somewhat close to the forum's colors.

2. Home Depot theme. Basic color scheme adapted from Home Depot's website.

3. DP Review theme. Basic color scheme from dpreview.com. Perhaps too dark. ;-)

I've just been modifying stylesheets and taking screenshots once I got a basic layout. No images or anything have been created to make those, so it would look a little better with some real graphics. You can see the HTML here, and here are the stylesheets:
Blue
Home Depot
dpreview

Know of another site with a good color scheme that you'd like to see my try? Let me know.

Comments

Ok, so with the new version of the software, I'm going to try opening up comments again. If you'd like to leave comments, please sign up for a TypeKey account. They don't ask for much information, and it just makes things generally easier (I hope). If I start getting a lot of comment spam again, I might have to go to a setup where only people with typekey accounts can post. :-( The format of everything comment-related is still kinda weird, but I'm working on that.

Laziness abounds

GT4 time has been non-existant lately - I just don't know where the time for it has gone, but I really need to sit down and play it more, as there is plenty left for me to do. I'm sure some of the wackier cars could stand to have some pictures taken of them as well.

I've also meant to get some pics I took off a memory card to upload here, but it just hasn't happened. Again, the laziness.

Last night I started playing Shot Online, a golf game I heard about that's supposed to be like online golf, but with RPG elements to it. Really, it's not that strange an idea. Games like Tiger Woods Golf have been doing this for a while, but it doesn't have the nerdy feel to it that this game does. It's an open beta right now, so you can get it for free and start playing. The learning curve is steep, even if you've played other golf games. Clubs don't have exact yardages assigned to them, which makes things difficult at first. Front to back slope on a green is tough to read as well, so putting distances are tough to gauge at first. I played a couple rounds though, and generally had a good time. Fortunately it can be played in a window, so I don't have to give up all of the other internet goodness while playing (which is nice when playing against other people, where you have to wait a bit for your turn sometimes).

There are definitely some bugs in the game, however, as well as a number of missing features. For example, when playing a match, Alt-T doesn't always bring up the chat box like it's supposed to, and when it does, it doesn't place the focus in the box, so you have to then click the box to actually type anything. Makes the keyboard shortcut thing kind of useless. Also, there's no actual button anywhere to go back to the "world", you just have to know to press Alt-X. Documentation of the controls isn't very good, there's just a bit about it on the website linked above.

Finally, I upgraded the software that I use to publish this site, MovableType. I'm surprised that I didn't run into any problems, though I guess I shouldn't be.