Sailors and their toys

[kimbottles]

I picked up a nice basic longbow this weekend. Ever since reading a book by Saxton Temple Pope written in the 1920's I wanted to try a longbow. When I saw a used one in nice shape I made it mine.

I need to man up a bit to hold a draw with it but a dang good fun. 68" and around 65# at my draw.

Cheaper than cars!

ml10.gif

Oh that is funny, I have been thinking about getting one too! I used to shoot arrows way back when I was a young lad with my Dad. Have not held a bow for many years.

[Ish]

I picked up a nice basic longbow this weekend. Ever since reading a book by Saxton Temple Pope written in the 1920's I wanted to try a longbow. When I saw a used one in nice shape I made it mine.

I need to man up a bit to hold a draw with it but a dang good fun. 68" and around 65# at my draw.

Cheaper than cars!

ml10.gif

Oh that is funny, I have been thinking about getting one too! I used to shoot arrows way back when I was a young lad with my Dad. Have not held a bow for many years.

It must be something in the air. Yesterday I had a sudden urge to buy a bow. I used to have a cheap fiberglass bow way back when and loved shooting.

[derekb]

Bows - Dad, I am shooting Grandma's bow all the time - I had to get a string but her custom Fred Perry bow is still going strong. I think it is 35# Never felt I needed an arm guard with that one. After two shots at the shop it was clear I need a guard with the longbow. Both are joys to hit the target with.

Quick Driving on the Street - At some point after learning to drive rather well (rally school and winning several rallys) I figured out that to get any charge or reach anything close to my limits I needed to drive WAY too fast for the open road. So now I drive a Diesel Mercedes SUV and go basically the speed limit in this slow lumbering monster.

[LarryHoward]

Bows - Dad, I am shooting Grandma's bow all the time - I had to get a string but her custom Fred Perry bow is still going strong. I think it is 35# Never felt I needed an arm guard with that one. After two shots at the shop it was clear I need a guard with the longbow. Both are joys to hit the target with.

Quick Driving on the Street - At some point after learning to drive rather well (rally school and winning several rallys) I figured out that to get any charge or reach anything close to my limits I needed to drive WAY too fast for the open road. So now I drive a Diesel Mercedes SUV and go basically the speed limit in this slow lumbering monster.

I pretend on the street by putting Michelin Pilots on my Lexus SUV and pumping up the pressure a bit. I can can be a legend in my own mind, not bother anyone and the body roll keeps me from doing anything too stupid.

[BeauV]

Bows - Dad, I am shooting Grandma's bow all the time - I had to get a string but her custom Fred Perry bow is still going strong. I think it is 35# Never felt I needed an arm guard with that one. After two shots at the shop it was clear I need a guard with the longbow. Both are joys to hit the target with.

Quick Driving on the Street - At some point after learning to drive rather well (rally school and winning several rallys) I figured out that to get any charge or reach anything close to my limits I needed to drive WAY too fast for the open road. So now I drive a Diesel Mercedes SUV and go basically the speed limit in this slow lumbering monster.

Derek & Kim, I've got a great old pulley bow in storage that used to use to hunt jack rabbits - no deer in So. Cal. that you'd want, only Mule Ear. We've got a bow range near here in Pacifica. It's like playing golf or Frisbee golf but with arrows. Good fun.

Derek, you've articulated why I now drive a Mini and not a 996 Turbo. I have the Morgan totally tricked out for auto-cross and short track, and at 50mph it's FAR more terrifying than the 996 Turbo was at 150mph. Moreover, the entire Morgan costs about what replacing the turbocharger on the 996 cost. Good fun for dollar.

[Cherie320]

While killing time waiting for an oil change, I found this pair of S800s in the used car show room. You don't see many. They were never imported and only a few were brought into the states by returning members of our armed forces. There was a write up in the racer that explained Honda made several changes to design of the car so it would appeal to the US market. Unfortunately, they were never able to pass the Smog regs.

[cap10ed]

While killing time waiting for an oil change, I found this pair of S800s in the used car show room. You don't see many. They were never imported and only a few were brought into the states by returning members of our armed forces. There was a write up in the racer that explained Honda made several changes to design of the car so it would appeal to the US market. Unfortunately, they were never able to pass the Smog regs.

Nice find Cherie. Who owned the cars? Rare as hen’s teeth.

[Cherie320]

While killing time waiting for an oil change, I found this pair of S800s in the used car show room. You don't see many. They were never imported and only a few were brought into the states by returning members of our armed forces. There was a write up in the racer that explained Honda made several changes to design of the car so it would appeal to the US market. Unfortunately, they were never able to pass the Smog regs.

Nice find Cherie. Who owned the cars? Rare as hen’s teeth.

Clarification on the owner is still part of my mystery investigation. I thought they might belong to the dealer. His son has a later model S800 that he showed me when I caught him at a local strip mall about 5 years back. But the sales guy said no. As you say, there are not many around.

[Jamie]

My toy just broke....




Not a biggie...but this is what happens when you leave one remaining stock bushing and change out the others. Gee I'm smart.

[LarryHoward]

My toy just broke....




Not a biggie...but this is what happens when you leave one remaining stock bushing and change out the others. Gee I'm smart.

Live and Learn?

Looks like my son will be back on the road the week before Christmas. A two month time out after totaling his Civic on wet leaves. Found an adult owned replacement that hasn't been abused but required some paint repairs (Honda hoods, front fenders and roofs are now covered for 7 years due to some bad things). That repaint starts today and I should have it on hand for state inspection and a deep mechanical look on the 13th. It does need tires and rear shocks. For some reason, my autocrossing son thought that was a plus since the price of those came off the asking and he gets to pick the new shoes.

All up, my insurance company was very good, both in settling a contentious claim with the other driver (lawyered up and wanted a significant settlement) and in evaluating Chris' car value so that we are getting one 2 years newer with 10,000 less miles for right about what they valued his car at. It need significant detailing but sweat equity from Chris is a good thing. I'm out the deductible and a few weekends of car chasing with my son, which is not all bad.

The enforced break from having a car and things like the tragic Walker accident last weekend have hopefully reminded him a bit that 9/10 can quickly become 10.1/10 and that he narrowly avoided a significant tragedy.

I've said it before. If you can obtain USAA insurance, they are there when you need them.

[Jamie]

My toy just broke....




Not a biggie...but this is what happens when you leave one remaining stock bushing and change out the others. Gee I'm smart.

Live and Learn?

Looks like my son will be back on the road the week before Christmas. A two month time out after totaling his Civic on wet leaves. Found an adult owned replacement that hasn't been abused but required some paint repairs (Honda hoods, front fenders and roofs are now covered for 7 years due to some bad things). That repaint starts today and I should have it on hand for state inspection and a deep mechanical look on the 13th. It does need tires and rear shocks. For some reason, my autocrossing son thought that was a plus since the price of those came off the asking and he gets to pick the new shoes.

All up, my insurance company was very good, both in settling a contentious claim with the other driver (lawyered up and wanted a significant settlement) and in evaluating Chris' car value so that we are getting one 2 years newer with 10,000 less miles for right about what they valued his car at. It need significant detailing but sweat equity from Chris is a good thing. I'm out the deductible and a few weekends of car chasing with my son, which is not all bad.

The enforced break from having a car and things like the tragic Walker accident last weekend have hopefully reminded him a bit that 9/10 can quickly become 10.1/10 and that he narrowly avoided a significant tragedy.

I've said it before. If you can obtain USAA insurance, they are there when you need them.

Sounds like that came out pretty well. I use USAA for as much as possible. I've never been treated so well

[derekb]

On the rally car we fixed the control arm problem with these

[cap10ed]

On the rally car we fixed the control arm problem with these

Derek who manufactures that part ? Looks indestructible.

[Jamie]

On the rally car we fixed the control arm problem with these

Oh! That looks tough. It's possibly a step too far. I'll replace stock with a Hardrace rubber bushings; even poly bushings are a bit too stiff.

The object of the project is to make a poorman's sleeper AMG Sportwagon. AMG's list at about 200% of the US cost here and no one knows how to maintain them properly. Anyway, there's no way I'd ever spend that kind of money on a car that could be spent on a boat.

So we want a smooth controlled ride, high power and good reliability. The exterior must be kept as stock and as unobtrusive as possible; no red brakes or puppy launcher exhausts. The stock turbo is really good up to about 4.5k rpm and then runs out of breath as it goes to the edges of its efficiency curve. The next install will be an TDO5 18g or 20g turbo to increase flow and high rpms. Once we have better flow I'll swap out the cams for STi cams to get the full lift on the exhaust cam (Legacy cams lift 1mm less than the STi. Our theory is that this is limiting the gains from the turbo upgrade) and shorten the final drive from 3.0 something to 3.9/4.0 something. This will allow us to take advantage of the better flow and improved top end. The next roadblock we have is intercooler capacity. Even though I've already upgraded it to something much larger and more efficient, it is still top mounted. Without going to a front mounted intercooler which would involve cutting the frame and possibly impacting crash safety, we'll add water/meths injection to control knock better. http://www.snowperformance.net/subaru-g ... her-models. If we find that the stock exhaust is a restriction, we might upgrade, but weld the stock tips back on.

By then we should have something that really kick ass that hopefully will still be a daily driver.

[derekb]

The rally car was not a daily driver... For VW's Burmeister Engineering. A very custom bit not sure if they are easy to find on the market these days but when the car is 4' in the air one does not like to wonder about how the landing is going to work out, they also made top mounts.

Jamie - we used water sprayers onto the intercooler rather than water injection as a starting point. Easy to do and very effective. I am trying to remember how we triggered the spray - boost pressure switch I think. Just a basic wiper wash pump and a few spray heads, I think a 1 or 2 gal water jug lasted most of a rally. Water evaporating off the fins of the intercooler produced a huge temperature drop.

[SloopJonB]

Sounds a bit like something drag racers used to do - pack ice on the intake manifold to cool the incoming charge. Maybe some cubes in the bottle you spray from?

[kdh]

Bows - Dad, I am shooting Grandma's bow all the time - I had to get a string but her custom Fred Perry bow is still going strong. I think it is 35# Never felt I needed an arm guard with that one. After two shots at the shop it was clear I need a guard with the longbow. Both are joys to hit the target with.

Quick Driving on the Street - At some point after learning to drive rather well (rally school and winning several rallys) I figured out that to get any charge or reach anything close to my limits I needed to drive WAY too fast for the open road. So now I drive a Diesel Mercedes SUV and go basically the speed limit in this slow lumbering monster.

I pretend on the street by putting Michelin Pilots on my Lexus SUV and pumping up the pressure a bit. I can can be a legend in my own mind, not bother anyone and the body roll keeps me from doing anything too stupid.

Here's a new toy that I drive around at the speed limit. It's still fun. My first automatic transmission car.

[SloopJonB]

Niiiice - my first Porsche was that colour with a red & black interior. They are a lot of fun at the "speed limit".

[kimbottles]

Geeze, I might belong here, my daily driver is a 2500 Sprinter Van Diesel!

[Ish]

Geeze, I might belong here, my daily driver is a 2500 Sprinter Van Diesel!

Vin Diesel? What kind of mileage does he get?

[LarryHoward]

Bows - Dad, I am shooting Grandma's bow all the time - I had to get a string but her custom Fred Perry bow is still going strong. I think it is 35# Never felt I needed an arm guard with that one. After two shots at the shop it was clear I need a guard with the longbow. Both are joys to hit the target with.

Quick Driving on the Street - At some point after learning to drive rather well (rally school and winning several rallys) I figured out that to get any charge or reach anything close to my limits I needed to drive WAY too fast for the open road. So now I drive a Diesel Mercedes SUV and go basically the speed limit in this slow lumbering monster.

I pretend on the street by putting Michelin Pilots on my Lexus SUV and pumping up the pressure a bit. I can can be a legend in my own mind, not bother anyone and the body roll keeps me from doing anything too stupid.

Here's a new toy that I drive around at the speed limit. It's still fun. My first automatic transmission car.

Let's trade.

[kimbottles]

Geeze, I might belong here, my daily driver is a 2500 Sprinter Van Diesel!

Vin Diesel? What kind of mileage does he get?

Van Ish, Van!

Not vin........

[Jamie]

The rally car was not a daily driver... For VW's Burmeister Engineering. A very custom bit not sure if they are easy to find on the market these days but when the car is 4' in the air one does not like to wonder about how the landing is going to work out, they also made top mounts.

Jamie - we used water sprayers onto the intercooler rather than water injection as a starting point. Easy to do and very effective. I am trying to remember how we triggered the spray - boost pressure switch I think. Just a basic wiper wash pump and a few spray heads, I think a 1 or 2 gal water jug lasted most of a rally. Water evaporating off the fins of the intercooler produced a huge temperature drop.

Oh, these are just street cars...nothing so fancy as a full on race car. Maybe a track day here or there...We looked at water spray but ran into two issues: we had trouble finding a reliable controller and if we built our tune based on the water spray, what fail safe did we have? We're thinking about the water/meths because we can integrate it with the ECU so we can automatically pull back the tune if something goes wrong or we run out of washer fluid.

[cap10ed]

The rally car was not a daily driver... For VW's Burmeister Engineering. A very custom bit not sure if they are easy to find on the market these days but when the car is 4' in the air one does not like to wonder about how the landing is going to work out, they also made top mounts.

Jamie - we used water sprayers onto the intercooler rather than water injection as a starting point. Easy to do and very effective. I am trying to remember how we triggered the spray - boost pressure switch I think. Just a basic wiper wash pump and a few spray heads, I think a 1 or 2 gal water jug lasted most of a rally. Water evaporating off the fins of the intercooler produced a huge temperature drop.

Derek an air time shot courtesy of a 1995 Ford. I see why the over build when you pull shit like this off.

[cap10ed]

Bows - Dad, I am shooting Grandma's bow all the time - I had to get a string but her custom Fred Perry bow is still going strong. I think it is 35# Never felt I needed an arm guard with that one. After two shots at the shop it was clear I need a guard with the longbow. Both are joys to hit the target with.

Quick Driving on the Street - At some point after learning to drive rather well (rally school and winning several rallys) I figured out that to get any charge or reach anything close to my limits I needed to drive WAY too fast for the open road. So now I drive a Diesel Mercedes SUV and go basically the speed limit in this slow lumbering monster.

I pretend on the street by putting Michelin Pilots on my Lexus SUV and pumping up the pressure a bit. I can can be a legend in my own mind, not bother anyone and the body roll keeps me from doing anything too stupid.

Here's a new toy that I drive around at the speed limit. It's still fun. My first automatic transmission car.

KDH it use to be that a manual transmission was the way to fuel economy. Looks like those days are behind us with the sophistication of the modern automatics. If you want a manual in a Porsche they are relegated to the Boxsters and Caymans now. Nice ride you have.

[kimbottles]

The rally car was not a daily driver... For VW's Burmeister Engineering. A very custom bit not sure if they are easy to find on the market these days but when the car is 4' in the air one does not like to wonder about how the landing is going to work out, they also made top mounts.

Jamie - we used water sprayers onto the intercooler rather than water injection as a starting point. Easy to do and very effective. I am trying to remember how we triggered the spray - boost pressure switch I think. Just a basic wiper wash pump and a few spray heads, I think a 1 or 2 gal water jug lasted most of a rally. Water evaporating off the fins of the intercooler produced a huge temperature drop.

Derek an air time shot courtesy of a 1995 Ford. I see why the over build when you pull shit like this off.

Do you get the "Bring a Trailer" emails, that shot was in today's offering.

[SloopJonB]

The rally car was not a daily driver... For VW's Burmeister Engineering. A very custom bit not sure if they are easy to find on the market these days but when the car is 4' in the air one does not like to wonder about how the landing is going to work out, they also made top mounts.

Jamie - we used water sprayers onto the intercooler rather than water injection as a starting point. Easy to do and very effective. I am trying to remember how we triggered the spray - boost pressure switch I think. Just a basic wiper wash pump and a few spray heads, I think a 1 or 2 gal water jug lasted most of a rally. Water evaporating off the fins of the intercooler produced a huge temperature drop.

Derek an air time shot courtesy of a 1995 Ford. I see why the over build when you pull shit like this off.

I recently watched a documentary on the Group B cars & drivers from the 80's - Gawd they were insane back then. It's amazing there were so few deaths. To my mind top level rally drivers are the best drivers of all. The control they have at insane speeds is something to behold - way faster on ice than I can drive on good pavement.

[cap10ed]

The rally car was not a daily driver... For VW's Burmeister Engineering. A very custom bit not sure if they are easy to find on the market these days but when the car is 4' in the air one does not like to wonder about how the landing is going to work out, they also made top mounts.

Jamie - we used water sprayers onto the intercooler rather than water injection as a starting point. Easy to do and very effective. I am trying to remember how we triggered the spray - boost pressure switch I think. Just a basic wiper wash pump and a few spray heads, I think a 1 or 2 gal water jug lasted most of a rally. Water evaporating off the fins of the intercooler produced a huge temperature drop.

Derek an air time shot courtesy of a 1995 Ford. I see why the over build when you pull shit like this off.

Do you get the "Bring a Trailer" emails, that shot was in today's offering.

Kim I have been reading that site every morning for some time. The comments section is as good as Scantlings with some really great information. Love it.

[kimbottles]

Well, Sebastian Loeb is clearly the best driver in the world right now.

Argue any other driver against him all you want, but you will be wrong.

Loeb is simply head and shoulders above any other driver.

Kind of an understated guy too.

[cap10ed]

A nice tee shirt to say you care. Who says Porsche fans don’t have a good sense of humour.