One of the things I visually really didn’t like on my FR-S were the rims. The five paired shiney spokes just didn’t do it for me. A pretty popular thing to do that I’d seen someone at McB do to his tC was to paint the rims with Plastidip. Plastidip is a synthetic rubber coating, possibly known more from olden times as tool handle dip. It’s also in an aerosol form as used here. The only bummer is you can only find black, red, sometimes blue, and maybe clear locally. Too bad because they have a bunch of other colors, including disco neons, camo tones, metalics, and pearlizer finish. Anyway, the beauty of this stuff is that it is non-permanent. Get tired of it, you can peel it of. As a consequence, it’ll eventually peel on its own. We shall see how long it lasts. I only did two major coats on the front side, more is recommended. Continue reading ‘Plastidip’
Archive for the 'car' Category
Page 11 of 39
So in the wide eyes of my co-worker’s young son, does Dad go to work with Asian James Bond?
My co-worker today told me how he brought his son by work one day and they saw my new car. Kids will notice little things, and at the time I hadn’t cut and fit in the trim plate so the PTunning tow hook mount in the front bumper was much more pronounced. Little guy asked Dad, what’s that?
Dad said as a matter of fact, “oh, it’s a machine gun.”
“You mean like James Bond?”
“Yup!”
I guess next time he comes in I’ll have to say, “hey kid, the name’s Hong, James Hong.” Oh wait, that’s a real persons name!
Hm, so maybe that can be my next year’s Haloween plan? Originally if I had gotten the white I had a perfect plan, I could cosplay Speed Racer! Find some red masking tape to lay out the red M, make or borrow a magnetic circle 5 for the doors. I already have a white Racer helmet, would need to find a little too tight blue polo shirt, a red scarf, and white jeans. Pretty easy and I’m sure would work great driving around!
Oh well!
Just got back from a quick jaunt to Waimanalo and back, after first running to Napa to buy a new oil filter socket wrench. I had bought filters and gaskets at Toyota earlier, but I didn’t realize that this filter was yet a different size. I don’t have the universal fit tool Dave has. Anyway hit the magic 1000 miles. Pulled into the garage to get ready to do an oil change. I heard the infamous “crickets”. We shall see what happens after the oil change, but it looks like it’ll be going into Scion/Servco to apply the TSB. With the power of the Internet, technical issues are now quickly widely known among the enthusiasts. The chirping is an acknowledged problem with the very high pressure fuel pump for the DI. There is also a TSB regarding the ECU engine mapping that I might be needing. It manifests as uneven idling, sometimes going as far as causing the engine to die and triggering a check engine light. Mine doesn’t seem to be bad, but I do see an occasional idle dip below normal when clutching in coming to a stop.
Saw a black Nissan with “JZTY10” vanity plates. “Jizz Titan”? Okay, whatever, semen giant.
(1)Having a brand spaking new car, I’ve been fairly picky about finding parking, but sometimes lots are pretty full without much choice. Last night stopped by Hawaii Kai to pick up something to eat. Figured it was going to be fast so I picked a stall near far end, but not the very end. It was next to a nice BMW so I hopped less risk. Imagine my horror as I was walking back to my car, the BMW was gone, and some guy was attempting to pull into the end stall with some Buick/Chevy Centuryish thing of recent vintage. He was repeatedly bashing against the end curb trying to turn in, car bouncing around as it started to climb up. Thankfully he gave up, maybe because he saw me, and went to find another stall. Shake your head moments, like seeing a VW Beetle with scraped side. Makes you believe that people really do need back-up sensors on a Smart car.
And check out the site yourparkingsux.com for more examples of great parking skillz!
It’s been a year since I got the E36/8 M Coupe. In that year, I’ve put about 7600 miles on it, and the fuel consumption has settled into the 19-20 MPG (8.1-8.5km/l, 12.4-11.8l/100km) range with occasional dips and peaks. The mileage is double what the Land Cruiser gets, but the M requires 91-octane, so the price-per-gallon is a little higher. For all intents and purposes, my fuel bill has been cut in half. Roughly, that 7600 miles works out to around 390 gallons at 19.5 MPG, which means about $1660 for the year with an average price per gallon of around $4.25. Continue reading ‘A Year on the M’
Darned driving around with hooligans made my gasoline go away! Too much full throttle action. I even got the traction control light flash like an xmas tree turning onto Nimitz.
(1)Received my full custom drive shafts from The Drive Shaft Shop. I got the short side installed on Wednesday night. The long side was being stubborn so I got a heavier convincer and tried tonight. It ends up that no amount of convincing would work, the spring clip was jamming and now was mangled. I tried bending it back, but no good. Tried without the spring clip, of course it doesn’t work, one trip around the block and I’m dumping tranny oil out the seal. F! The rally FX will not be ready for tomorrows(todays) event, I work on swapping the rally tires onto the street FX. 1:30AM and its done. So much for my $800 shafts. I’ll have to get in touch with DSS and see if I can get a replacement retainer clip. Ugh, wake up in four hours!
OK, first nice weather since picking up the car, here’s first beauty shot. I need to get PhotoChop so I can clone out those poles in back. Kinda weird having a car that gets looks and comments from normal folks and even chicks, not just Toyota geeks. Thanks Mitch for the quickie wash last night, it managed to stay pretty clean till I took this. Got a chance to get a little spirited into some turns and that brought an instant grin to my face. It’s been kind of frustrating having to restrain from pushing the engine, but this finally gave me a taste of what the car is about, and it’s yummy! Speaking of the engine, keeping it down makes me sad. The engine note is not very nice down low, I know it’s a four cylinder, but even so it sounds pretty buzzy, I think an exhaust well help.
So the first 100 miles have gone by for the FR-S. It’s still too early for much of a performance and driving review. It’s pretty frustrating to wait for the “break-in” period to complete. But the 100 miles is enough to form some thoughts on the ergonomics and daily operation of the vehicle. There is very little to complain about with the driver cockpit. I’m sure much work went into that. The seat have good side bolsters, and is thankfully narrow, it actually is effective in keeping me snug! As opposed to the FX where the seats have aggresive side bolsters, but are at least an inch too wide on both side. Driver seat has basic back tilt adjustment and fore-aft slider and also a height adjustment. All are simple mechanical lever actuated.
Steering wheel is “leather trimmed”, I’m not sure which portions are actually leather and which are pleather, but the wheel thickness is good and the diamter is actually quite small. It’s actually the same dimensions as the 350mm Momo that was on the street FX. It features palm bumps on the inside at the 10 & 2 o’clock positions. Fairly small range of tilt adjust, good telecoping adjust. I can achieve a good driving position, as opposed to the Yaris where I can’t quite get an adjustment to give nice leg and arm distance at the same time. The turn ratio, is a bit quicker than the FX, but the radius is bigger. The plastic finisher on the bottom spoke of the wheel looks a bit cheesy. Conventional Toyota light, turn, wiper, interval, washer and cruise control stalks. No steering mounted controls for anything other than horn.