Re: [more car-trivia] Re: To Steve Schear, re Rome, Architects, Shuttles, Congress
On Fri, Feb 21, 2003 at 07:39:03PM +, Adam Back wrote: As far as evolutionary pressures, aggressive and fast driving is far more dangerous, however adrenaline inducingly fun that may be. (ke =1/2.m.v^2). Also exposed or unduly light vehicles -- motorbikes, light built cars like citroen 2cv or such. motorbikes have very bad accident statistics. True, of course. I used to own a Honda CBR600F2, a black-pink-purple sportbike (that was the color scheme during the year I bought it, 1992, at least). I was younger and more prone to taking risks than I am now, and had a knee- shredding crash once (I was wearing a very good leather jacket but with jeans). But at the same time, a motorcycle is in some ways safer than a car: You can stop from 30 mph to 0 mph in something like 10 feet, if I recall the CBR's stats properly. Instant acceleration helps too in avoiding accidents, as does a higher riding position. I generally think of it as: You may have a better chance of avoiding a crash because of the performance and visibility characteristics, but if you do get into an accident, you'll suffer heavier damage. -Declan
Re: To Steve Schear, re Rome, Architects, Shuttles, Congress
(This is mostly ruminations on car hacks and adds little to the original thread about physically linking responsibility to effects.) First let me ack my sincere respect for folks like Eric C who work on (rather than tinker/hack/meddle, since he's still alive) their car's brakes or other life-critical systems. Second I should apologize for misspelling SS's name. Now then: From: Bill Stewart [EMAIL PROTECTED] Back when the term hackers started to be misused by the press, as in scary teenage vandals breaking into computers, my usual comment was that teenage computer hackers were really no different from the teenage car hackers of our parents' generations. Another analogy might be HAMs --antennae hacks--, though they're more liscenced and don't get the babez either. During emergencies, they're useful, like the car-hack who fixes a stranded grandmother's car; at other times, they jam your radio or TV, like a car-hack running top speed, mufflerless, at 3 AM. At 08:27 PM 02/19/2003 -0500, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Hackers don't work on their own brakes for a reason: evolution. If I were planning to contribute directly to the future's gene pool, I've got better criteria to do natural selection on than skill at mechanical repair, and there are much more efficient ways to transmit those skills than killing off people who don't have them. Physics has selected those who fear screwing up personal-life-critical systems, and also those who have that rational fear that but are also skilled enough such that they don't have to worry (such as EC and your younger self). It's also evolution of cars and financial states. Back when cars had actual user-serviceable parts, I'd work on carburetors Carburetor? Didn't that connect to the phonograph through a cat's whisker? And evolution should be in scare-quotes. The trade off has been cleanliness vs. reliability/maintainability/cost/weight/power/etc, and so on some scales modern cars are regressions. and distributors and spark plugs and pollution-control widgets, Somehow you escaped the AQMD[1], EPA, DMV, DOT police? Step away from that oxygen sensor, and no one gets hurt. but except for my first auto mechanics class, I didn't mess with brakes - if I mess up an engine, my car might not go anywhere, but that's usually fail-safe, while making mistakes on brakes is fail-dangerous. Bingo. And hacking on production machines is a no-no. (Also, my next car had disk brakes, and I only knew how to do drum brakes.) D'oh! In some states, cars can't be registered without passing a safety inspection that tests for braking distance, etc. Not so in Calif. Selection is a little stronger here :-) I changed a couple of sets of valve cover gaskets myself, but when I was in grad school and the car I had then needed it, the local garage would do the job for $15, which was worth paying for, in part because there was a lot more pollution control equipment than on the earlier car, and a lot more hoses and vacuum lines to move around to get to the engine which would all need reconnecting later. Doncha wish there was a traceroute for hoses under the hood? Cars look like the hoses pipes and tubes in _Brazil_ nowadays. After several years of newer cars with electronic ignitions, I acquired my first van, which was old enough to have a distributor, but it was a Chevy so you adjusted it with dwell stuff instead of feeler gauges, which was too much bother. [Aside] I recently learned that back before you needed a license to drive (ca 1930) you would manually adjust the spark timing (!!) according to your engine speed. After handcranking the engine to start. Kinda like toggling opcodes into a Altair, eh? And these days you're supposed to recycle your oil instead of using it to patch the cracks in driveways, so that's another job to pay somebody else to do. Well you can drop off your oil and various places will take it, free. You're getting soft, Bill. :-) What's next, preinstalled Linux on a preassembled machine? Besides, you could collect your Kyoto tax credit for sequestering the carbon in your lawn. [1] Air Quality Management District, the pollution police in SoCal at least. They make 2-cycle engines and useful BBQ lighter fluid illegal here. Also won't let you register a car if you've modified the pollution controls in any way, since mods are officially bad and you can't register a car without a periodic smog check.
Re: To Steve Schear, re Rome, Architects, Shuttles, Congress
At 8:32 PM -0800 2/20/03, Major Variola (ret) wrote: [Aside] I recently learned that back before you needed a license to drive (ca 1930) you would manually adjust the spark timing (!!) according to your engine speed. After handcranking the engine to start. Yes, and you got a broken arm if you didn't retard the spark before you cranked the car. (Hand crank of course) And these days you're supposed to recycle your oil instead of using it to patch the cracks in driveways, so that's another job to pay somebody else to do. Well you can drop off your oil and various places will take it, free. Yes. Our curb side recycling will pick it up. Free too. That's the way to avoid the toxic waste fee at the local oil changers. (I find it takes less time to do it in my driveway too.) And, I still am willing to work on my brake systems. Replacing pads on a disk brake unit is a lot easier than replacing drums. I'm even dumb enough to have replaced bearings in a couple of my transmissions. And had one lock into high gear because I put the parts back on the main shaft in the wrong order. Set a new personal record for removal, disassembly, reassambly, and installation of a transmission after I slipped the clutch to get the car home too. Always get the service manual when you get the car. Just like, always get the source to your security dependent code. Cheers - Bill - Bill Frantz | Due process for all| Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | used to be the | 16345 Englewood Ave. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | American way. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA
Re: To Steve Schear, re Rome, Architects, Shuttles, Congress
On Thu, Feb 20, 2003 at 11:32:43PM -0500, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Carburetor? Didn't that connect to the phonograph through a cat's whisker? Carburetor is French for leave it alone. While only one of my cars is old enough to have a carb, all but one of the 10 or so motorcycles in the garage do. So I work on carbs a lot. They are a marvel of applied physics and they work pretty well. And if you are careful and keep things clean (carbs hate dirt), they are easy to work on. but except for my first auto mechanics class, I didn't mess with brakes - if I mess up an engine, my car might not go anywhere, but that's usually fail-safe, while making mistakes on brakes is fail-dangerous. Bingo. And hacking on production machines is a no-no. It was a bit tough for street cars for a while, but these days there's a lot you can do and be 100% legal. Many aftermarket manufacturers get EPA approval for their bits (not difficult to do). Fuel-injection has made automotive systems both simpler and more readily modified. It's a lot easier to plug a laptop in and diddle the fuel mapping than it is to take the carb(s) off and change jets. I prefer motorcycles to cars as they are much easier to work on and there are fewer regulations and less enforcement, even in California. And many of the bikes I have worked on have been competition bikes, not road bikes. Doncha wish there was a traceroute for hoses under the hood? Cars look like the hoses pipes and tubes in _Brazil_ nowadays. Not nearly as bad as they did in the 80s. I have an early 80s Toyota 4x4 farm truck and it's got probably 40-60 different Little Black Hoses plus assorted Mystery Boxes. New cars just have an FI computer and a throttle body and a few wires. Some vehicles (i.e. Ducati 999 motorcycle) use a digital network instead of dedicated circuits. Making it even more amenable to hacking, at least until the factory figures out DRM... The future is in a few powerful networked computers per vehicle instead of many dumb microprocessors on seperate circuits. This will make vehicles even more hackable. The other place that computer tech is changing things for the home vehicle haxor is in machining. There are a lot of cheap CNC setups available now. Most use PCs. One of the better CNC programs runs on Linux and was developed by/for NIST, who distributes it free. [1] Air Quality Management District, the pollution police in SoCal at least. They make 2-cycle engines and useful BBQ lighter fluid illegal here. Also won't let you register a car if you've modified the pollution controls in any way, since mods are officially bad and you can't register a car without a periodic smog check. You're not supposed to paint your own vehicles in SoCal either, automotive paint being a VOC. But a back room or garage can be made into a dandy hidden paint booth. All you need is a fan and some plastic sheeting and duct tape. The fumes will disperse enough that the neighbors probably won't notice, and if they do they'll just think that you're running a meth lab. Eric
Re: To Steve Schear, re Rome, Architects, Shuttles, Congress
On Thu, Feb 20, 2003 at 10:31:45PM -0800, Bill Frantz wrote: At 8:32 PM -0800 2/20/03, Major Variola (ret) wrote: [Aside] I recently learned that back before you needed a license to drive (ca 1930) you would manually adjust the spark timing (!!) according to your engine speed. After handcranking the engine to start. Yes, and you got a broken arm if you didn't retard the spark before you cranked the car. (Hand crank of course) My first motorcycle, a '47 Harley, had the spark advance on one hand grip, throttle on the other. BTW, the concept that people would be afraid to work on their own brake system is laughable. I've been doing my own mechanics for 40 years. Unless it's under warranty, I won't let anyone else touch my vehicles. Why anyone would feel safer letting a garage do it is beyond me, there's one heck of a lot of incompetent mechanics out there, and even more crooked ones. That's why I started doing my own -- because I'd had auto shop in highschool and knew when I was getting bs'd by the mechanic. Got ripped off really bad by one shop a long, long time ago and figured as much as I hate turning wrenches, watching an engine destruct shortly after the 90 day warranty for the rebuild and knowing you got burned is a lot worse. And yes, I do the new cars too. Electronic fuel injection is really pretty simple once you figure it out, there are cheap ($150) meters to check the engine codes when your check engine light comes on, and, of course, you need a good manual. Even better, get a diesel. The older ones are pretty simple and bulletproof, the newer ones like the VW's are awesome and you can get cool computer tools like Vag-Com to customize the ecu. Very, very hackable. Besides which, when you're crawling around under the car it's a good time to check for those GPS monitors. 8-) -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: [more car-trivia] Re: To Steve Schear, re Rome, Architects, Shuttles, Congress
--- Adam Back [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As far as evolutionary pressures, aggressive and fast driving is far more dangerous, however adrenaline inducingly fun that may be. Depends on one's strategy. When riding a motorcycle, there are two aggressive driving principles I observe at all times (in addition to the usual precaution of keeping track of the vectors of all nearby vehicles at all times): (a) Remain ahead of car `packs' at all times. From stoplights, I will tend to accelerate aggressively to put distance between myself and the other cars waiting at the light. (b) Drive five to ten kilometres per hour faster than the average traffic speed so that in most cases, I am approacing vehicles from behind, and can therefore plan my maneuverings appropriately. Particularly on the highway, I think it is stupid to stay in the right lane at a speed where most of the car and truck traffic is passing you, and where people entering and exiting the highway are constantly changing in and out of your lane. It is not always pleasant driving in the `fast' lane on a 550 c.c. bike, but it tends to be the safest place. In my opinion, this sort of aggressive driving has its place as a valid defensive driving strategy. (ke =1/2.m.v^2). Also exposed or unduly light vehicles -- motorbikes, light built cars like citroen 2cv or such. motorbikes have very bad accident statistics. This is true, and the reason that I tend to prefer driving my car when I have to commute any great distance, or in marginal weather conditions. That said, individual skill plays a part, as does equipment. I believe I have better than average reflexes and driving skill, and I don't ride a crotch-rocket; which I like to think improves my odds somewhat. This may be wishful thinking, but I've only dropped the bike twice in four years of riding, and on both occasions it occured at very low speeds when my wheels skidded on a tiny bit of loose gravel. Set a new personal record for removal, disassembly, reassambly, and installation of a transmission after I slipped the clutch to get the car home too. I had a clutch cable snap on me when I was moving -- car was jam packed with household effects. Just drove it for 10 miles without a clutch. To start: switch engine off, put it in first, start engine; gear change match engine speed to road speed pull out of gear, reduce engine speed to match road speed at higher gear ratio put into new gear; and plan ahead to not have to do a hill start on 1 in 6 hill on way home :-) You can change down also, but it's harder because there's less tolerance for error in the engine speed. This is called power-shifting. The transmission on my bike is particularly well suited for this and I have found that acceleration is *much* better when you don't have to worry about that pesky lever. Downshifting is tricky, but with a little practice it becomes managable. When I don't care about making noise, it's a lot of fun to ride around, going up and down the gears without needing touching the clutch at all except for stoplights. I think it frightens some drivers when I do this, but that probably has something to do with the holes I drilled at the back of the pipe for those few extra HP. :) Now that I think of it, the noise on the highway at 5500 RPM probably alerts drivers as to my approach, contributing to my safety. It helps to have practised this a bit first, otherwise you'll grind the gears or even break something. I was glad I had practised it when the cable broke. Never had a clutch-cable break, but it's a good skill to have. I've blown a few shifts though, and was Informed of the fact by the very unnerving feeling of the clutch-plates slipping while at full-throttle. Some transmissions are better than others for power-shifting, too. My VW 4-speed will power-shift, but it wasn't designed for it. Consequently, shifting normally with the clutch tends to be faster and more comfortable. There are aftermarket shifters for many cars that will do wonders for your quarter-mile. Only recommended for the truly anal. Regards, Steve __ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
