slomove

Invest in lottery tickets or a trip to Las Vegas. Since the stock market is nowadays churning many times the actual value of traded items I guess it has lost any connection to reality or predictability.

My best mic place so far is to shove it behind the seat back rest, probably similar to the boot. It does however still pick up a lot of hissing tire noise and the rumble of rolling over uneven road. Under the dash on top of the gearbox was not impressive due to tranny whining. I have the external mike wrapped into an old sock to isolate it against vibration/body noise. At one point I had the microphone inside the engine compartment but that was a strange concerto of odd sounds (rattling/slurping/humming)

O.K., O.K., I withdraw the "build quality" explanation except for my own shoddy work.

Looks like this is a good explanation. I did some research in the meantime about the tank level sensor. Normal gasoline has a dielectric constant of 2.0, while ethanol has a whopping 24.3. That means adding 10% of ethanol roughly doubles the dielectric constant of the fuel mixture and a capacitive level sensor (if not compensated) might show twice the level. I calibrated the sensor many years ago when the gas in CA probably did not have as much ethanol. For the last few years it always hit the peg when full and started reading only when fairly empty (I did not bother to recalibrate). Then, on the trip it showed only 3/4 when filled to the top. It all makes sense but does not give much confidence in the reading

While I was out to Wyoming and South Dakota, I obviously had to fill up with the local gas. I did notice 3 major differences: - the tank lasted about 10% longer than here in CA on long distance trips (28 vs. 25 mpg) - the indicated AFR on my wideband gage was about 0.8 to 1.0 points lower (richer) - the calibration of my electronic (capacitive) fuel level sender was suddenly correct, after it had been way off for the last couple of years. The first two items may have been influenced by the overall altitude (about 5000 ft average for the trip) that is probably not perfectly compensated in the ECU map. But I get the feeling that it has to do with the higher ethanol content and other crap they put in here. Does that sound reasonable or just coincidence?

Well, you may be right. I believe most failures were not really the result of inherent design weaknesses of the basic car but the consequence of build quality. That is surely true for the broken wing stay tube that I fabricated myself. But, considering that Bill's Stalker (not sure about Stewart) came already assembled speaks indeed for the quality of the build. Gert

BMW preview of the Frankfurt IAA. Model i8 with 345 hp from a 3-cyl gas engine plus electric motor, 85 mpg average and available in 3 years. I am wondering if this ends up like the early Chevy Volt concepts and cost a million bucks anyway. But so far, looks pretty cool. More here incl. a more realistic small car concept. http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-242707-galleryV9-fkvd.jpg

Ah, sorry about that. I should probably better have used a Windows Media File instead of MPEG-4 or H264 or whatever that format is. The .avi suffix does not mean much if the playing computer does not have the proper codec installed.

Not sure if that works but I posted a teaser video clip. For the record, the white van in one of the clips was standing on the right lane so we had no choice. :cooldude: Be warned, the file is something like 112 MByte and it is only a small fraction of what I took. So far no title, no transitions, no music but it may give an idea. I am still weighing my options how to produce a real nice video. Maybe a 30 min DVD for whoever is interested or maybe only a 10 min Youtube clip. Any ideas?

I do have the Emerald but get the same popping if I do not use the overrun shutoff function, that is to turn off fuel completely when the throttle is in idle position over 1600 rpm. But that is anyway a good idea to save a little gas. I think the accuracy of the air/fuel ratio close to idle position is not that great with only the throttle position sensor and single stage injectors on the Jenveys to get that perfect. And the Jenveys were anyway not really designed for best road cruising behavior. In the transition area, when the fueling just kicks in there is still a tiny bit of pop from the exhaust but that I got used to that as part of the character. With a little more fiddling I can probably make it go away.

I uploaded a ton of pics to Picasa to save server space here. But here is a small selection:

Quick overview of unexpected events (from memory, somewhat chronological, never mind errors and omissions): -- Herb has a broken ignition coil feed wire - fixed on the spot with auto store parts -- Randall's exhaust hanger breaks - fixed with band clamp, is welded later in Custer -- Randall's thermostat housing leaks - fixed with auto store parts -- Derek physically loses complete exhaust - new bracket fabricated in Custer for a few bucks. -- Bill loses speed sensor signal to ECU - minor idle issue, not fixed -- Bob's fuel pump fails - new one found in Custer -- Randall's car has a flat tire - turns out to be a leaking valve stem -- Gert's right front wing stay tube breaks - jury rigged on the spot with 7 hose clamps and several cable ties, holds up until end of tour -- Dion's alternator stops working - 2 days on Skip's trailer until a new 93 Miata alternator is shipped to Red Lodge -- Randall's starter does not work - turns out later to be a bad crimp -- Randall's radiator hose leaks - fixed on the spot by tightening but in the process we moved the fan sensor that started leaking. Radiator leak-stop held up until home. -- Steve's alternator bracket broke on the way home - new bracket fabricated for little money in Cody -- Gert's tow vehicle fuel pump stopped on the way home -- got towed but no fix, worked again with enough fuel in the tank to cool the pump. -- Dion's tow vehicle got rat (or mice?) infested - still working on a solution Summary: everything went pretty well. All part of the adventure.:smilielol5:

My pleasure. However, did you check with the Wyoming Fish and Game Dept. if it is O.K. to remove live animals from the state? And did you declare them at the California state line inspection? :jester:

Well, we are home. Pretty uneventful tow at a good clip together with Dion. He stopped for the night at Nephi, UT. We continued and even caught up with Randall at a gas station in the middle of nowhere on I15. Only a few miles miles later, the engine of our trusty Hyundai Santa Fe cut out from one second to the other. No luck restarting until 10 minutes later. Another few miles on the freeway and it cut out again. AAA tow truck came, loaded the Hyundai on the flatbed and hitched the trailer. He got us to our reserved overnight place at Beaver, UT (only 35 miles away) and told us he has one or two tows a day with this symptom, related to fuel pump overheating. Well, it was somewhat hot and the fuel level was a bit low so maybe the pump did get hot (never done that before but maybe that 8 year old thing is on the way out). Anyway, in Beaver we filled up with fresh cold gas to the top and kept it high: no trouble since. Not sure how we can convince the dealership to replace an obviously working fuel pump on the 10-year warranty but I don't really trust it anymore. To give it credit, this was the first trouble with this car in 8 years. Now...unpack, stock up refrigerator, shower, download/upload pictures, and....back to work on Monday :ack: It was a fabulous trip, as others mentioned. Thanks again to everybody who joined and made it a special event. Now, while we were driving back through the Nevada desert my mind was wandering where to go next in 2013. Eastern Oregon, northern Idaho, western Montana, Glacier NP etc. (maybe into Canada?) just sounds good. Let me think about that a bit. Gert

My photo of the day, first aid with bandages for the broken wing stay tube. (note to myself: don't build parts with high fatigue stress from stainless tubing)

I took a bunch off video clips and some of that looks like it came out well. I will try to get it sorted and edited in a reasonable time when I come home. Admittedly I never completed the PNW2007 video and did not start working on the 2009 video. But I will give the 2011 movie some priority ;-)

Sounds like the tour is about to break up. But no, the hard core is still going strong. Well that means, kind of strong ar better said pretty weak after 340 miles with temperatures hovering around 100 to 104 degrees. On the way to the Badlands NP we wanted to avoid an unforeseen 20 mile dirt road, just to drive a 60 mile detour on a paved highway that had, guess what, about 20 mile construction with gravel surface. Accordingly we looked like we had done the Paris-Dakar with dust in the mouth and everywhere else. Badlands is spectacular, but given the circumstance we did not even stop at the vista points. I think they are better enjoyed later in the year or in a car with A/C. Anyway, thanks to all who had to leave the tour already for coming along. It is just not the same driving alone. The 2-Dollar tap pint happy hour was a serious bonus, though :cheers: P.S.: the other day we did not join the engine choir that Randall described. Not that my engine was singing out of tune but we wanted to sleep in and do the laundry. We did the "Wildlife Loop" of Custer State Park instead later but other tha a few aggressively beggig donkeys there was no wildlife whatsoever.

It was actually pretty crowded at Mt. Rushmore but we parked at the top level that was just filling up. Otherwise, the popular roads like Needles and Iron Mountain obviously had a lot of (slow) traffic but most cars pulled over after a while. Also, the scenery is so nice that you really don't want to race them 10/10, not even considering the wildlife that has a bad habit of jumping onto the pavement. Other than the two famous highways here are ample other back roads with no traffic to speak of.

Will do! So far no pics Se7en related yet but tonight here in Tonopah, Nevada we have seen the light....well, at least a nice sunset. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29562014/SeeTheLight.jpg

Skip, sorry to hear that. Do you still have warranty? You should complain with the guy who built the car :cuss: :jester: Anyway, looking forward to seeing you. At least you won't get wet when it rains. We had a roaring thunderstorm today in western Nevada and were happy to be still towing.

Don't take all that too seriously. 204 0r 216 is probably well within the margin of error, considering equipment calibration (or lack of calibration), possible "optimistic settings", normal measurement uncertainty, temperature, humidity, hub vs. roller and whatever. I have yet to see a NIST traceable dyno measurement.

Priorities, man! :cheers:

Keep in mind when quoting U.K. based dyno runs that they often (or always?) include certain powertrain loss to estimate crank hp and are not the rear wheel power numbers. For further comparison here the results (earlier posted on another thread) of a more local shootout: http://lh5.ggpht.com/_242PlvPtVpE/SxMlkjN3VsI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/Zoe4cHf82co/AllDynoResults.jpg

Just got email from our friends....the neighbor lets us park the trucks and trailers for free. Please check your GMAIL account for directions.

:willy_nilly: I think I keep my wimpy Hyundai Santa Fe with light trailer for a while. Towing on I5 e.g. across the mountains to the Buttonwillow track yields me 18-20 mpg. Maybe not at 75+ but at a license conserving 65 or so.