It’s been a while, I’m sure there were times when I was not around, but this morning heard the sirens go up the street, followed later by sounds of Air1.
 Time for someone to get a ride in the barf bucket again!
Author Archive for taro
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Another from the summer seasonal variety pack. Pours a bright cloudy gold, medium light head. Citrus aroma, a bit of spice. Balanced bitter and some grain notes. Medium mouth feel and crisp. Pretty easy drinking.
A decent 3 out 4 citrusy monkeys.
Another selection from the summer variety pack. Summer is fruity beer time? Anyway, pours a clopudy amber with medium light head. Blueberry aroma immediately detectable upon opening bottle. The berry is mostly an aroma thing, it perhaps lends a little sweet, but there is also a bit of bitter. This one is more beerlike than the previous Porch Rocker, but still pretty light on any malt and grain flavors. Medium mouthfeel. I can’t say I’m a big fan, it’s not like a soda that packs punch that the Porch Rocker is, but doesn’t make it as a good beer either. It’s not horrible.
2 out of 4 blue monkeys.
From their current summer variety pack, this is a flavored beer. A style some might be familiar as a shandy, a combo of lemonade and beer. Pours with moderately small head, a bright clear yellow. Definite lemon aroma, not a whole lot of much else. Not overwhelmingly sweet, but enough to mask most of any bitterness, only a touch of that remains. There’s also not a whole lot of beer flavor to be found, if you try really hard you can taste some grain in the aftertaste. Mouthfeel is light. It’s not objectionable, but it’s like a malt beverage, dare I say it, Zima? At 4.5% ABV it’s about the same as a beer on the lower end, so it can get some buzz going since its so easy drinking.
If you’re looking for something like those hard ciders or lemonades, then this is fine, but as a beer I don’t know how to rate this. 2 out of 4 pop beer monekys.
Got my roof vent and scoop kit last week so I set out to install. It’s not anything terribly complex, just cut a hole in roof, drill a bunch of holes, bolt it in. It did take a fair amount of the weekend as I took my time and also needed to run to the hardware store a couple times. It went together nicely.
So now the FX looks all extreme rally ready. Just needs light bar and gravel guard that I’ve been debating how to make. Oh yeah, it looks cool, but how does it work? Took it for a test ride just now and happy to report it works quite nicely. Good test as it started raining. At highway speed and the vent open in the forward direction it cranks in a lot of air. Only thing is with it centered most of that airflow is going right in the center, between the seats, where no one sits. With the rain, flipping the vent to rear opening allows ventilation but keeps out the rain, except when the car adjacent to you hits a big puddle and throws a big splash all over. This should be a nice addition since the FX has no A/C.
The bike rack for the FR-S is finally done. What I did was buy some 1 1/4″ stainless steel rod from a local metal supply shop and then drew up some plans and handed it over to Fabio. From there it went to the mystery machinist. After making a large pile of shiny sharp metal curlicues I got two beautifully machined clubs. The tips were made to match the OEM tow loop and I threaded them in. Shoulders machined at the other end match the clamping areas of the Yakima rack. Put it together and here it is. Used it a few times already and it sure is convenient!
A limited release item from Goose Island, I bought it with some trepidation as its labeled in IPA, not my favorite type. It’s also labled a “session ale”  and “easy drinking”. We shall see about that! Anyway, pours a clear bright amber with a medium strong head. Strong hop aroma with citrus note that carries through to the flavor.  The flavors clear pretty fast leaving the astringent bitter. Thankfully it avoids the skunkyness  that can afflict some hop heavy brews. I’ve been told that unfortunate flavor is the result of hop compound exposure to UV light. Medium light mouthfeel kept light by carbonation. I’m not sure if I could session this beer solo, it needs some accompanying food to offset the bitter, but it is a pleasant beer.
IÂ would say it just makes 3 out 4 advantageous monkeys.
Don’t want to complete that line for fear of it happening. While waiting on the drive side drive shaft that was sent back, I decided to take care of some small issues on the other side. It still had the OEM short wheel studs so I took the hub off and apart. Oh my, the steering arm joint was missing a cotter pin and was barely finger tight. The joint itself came apart with no tools. Yikes! Definitely a good thing I got in there! I pulled the CV shaft because the transaxle was leaking at that seal. Looks like this shaft is fine, but I discovered something else had rattled loose! The rear engine mount that I welded solid had rattled it’s mount off the transaxle, the bolts were no where to be found! Fortunately it seems the threads are still good so I pulled a set of bolts from one of the spares and cleaned and coated with thread locking compound. Hopefully this holds, I’m sure this was stressing the CV shafts too. Fortunately no more surprises, I changed the transaxle seal and got the whole passenger side drivetrain back together.
Received and installed this camber kit from K-Mac last week.
K-Mac specializes in camber kits and has a slew of them to fit a wide variety of applications. The more bling ones they have are the top mount plate types commonly seen on the front of aftermarket coilover kits. Theirs however is not just the slotted plate type but rather a sandwich plate which allows camber and caster adjustment. This would have been ideal for the FX rear given the custom modified nature of my struts, but it looks like there isn’t a kit for that. Instead I had to settle for the eccentric lower mount kit. What sets their kit apart from the other typical system you see is that it does not use an undersized bolt with eccentric cam lobe as seen here to the right. Their marketing proudly proclaims no undersized crank bolts! It isn’t entirely true, if you need 15 or 17mm bolt size you get a 14 or 16mm bolt with a sleeve, but we’ll let that slide.
Took a dangerous stop at Liquor Collection and picked up a bunch of beers as an offering to the machinist who made my bike rack rods, more on that later. Got some stuff for myself too. This here pours a cloudy medium dark amber with small head. The spicy aroma is detectable the moment you pop the cap. Oddly the corriander and spice don’t hit as strong as say Hoegarten. I’m having a hard time describing this beer. There’s a fair astringent bitter that carries throughout the flavor, the spices give it a warm feel and come out at the finish. The mouthfeel is fairly heavy. This is not a session beer but one to be savored. It also packs a bit more punch at 8% ABV. The aroma is the hard to describe part, the spices are clearly there, but it is hard to pick out any single one. This is quite an interesting one, would have been more appropriate during winter holiday season I suppose.
4 out 4 spicy monkeys.