superhawk996

If it's a good vehicle, discontinued models hold value better than those still in production. If the replacement model sucks it'll boost the old one's value. With a basic search I found several under $20k, but they all had over 100k miles.

They probably have to be solid, or close to it, and possibly of a decent material to hold up. I don't know how much that costs to make, but probably not very cheap. And "costs to make" is filament, printer wear, electricity, and labor. The labor side is fairly low, 'till the machine needs work. And I could be totally off, Carlos will know better.

Kinda like my first milling machine projects, to make stuff for the mill. Also got to use the band saw and metal brake/sheer. Now that I've added a lathe I should be able to stay busy making stuff for themselves and each other 🤣

I got nothin, but Ashely might. And I'd forgotten how much I like arroz con huevo so 'yall are welcome to try 'till you get it right while we're there.

As horrifying as that sounds, if we had them I'd use a Dorito as an ice cream spoon and give it a try.

Use tie downs to minimize the gap and a tarp to keep the rain out of it.

She needs a new mechanic. A tank of it can't hurt it. The octane improvers are likely to leave more deposits, but premium gas often has better detergency so who knows where that'll settle out. Some premium gas also has lubricants that help reduce upper cylinder wear. Depending on the year and engine, it might advance the timing and take advantage of the octane, or maybe not.

Di makes more particulate because of incomplete combustion, which seems bass akwards since DI is supposed to be cleaner. But with emissions almost everything that lowers one gas emission increases another. And DI isn't just for a 'turbo hit', lots on NA engines use DI.

That's what many people think is driving this stuff, I think it's not that nefarious. We all know that the gubment will do whatever stupid thing they feel pressured to can monetize and that they'll put whatever quota hire in charge of it to make sure that it's retarded. On the flipside, "unachievable" standards have been repeatedly met and surpassed. There have been many instances of manufacturers achieving things before they were mandated, and in some cases it stopped a mandate. I look forward to an emissions compliance regulation for EVs so that supposedly clean states like CA stop using dirty generation.

That might be exaggerated, but maybe not. Someone's gotta pay for extra stuff plus the 450k mile warrantee on that stuff since everyone knows that there's a good chance of it failing while in warrantee.

GPF is going to capture all the particulate matter that now exists because of direct injection. Modern port injected engines emit less particulate than modern diesels, DI engines emit about 3x what the diesels do. DI is terrible in so many ways, but it helps in other ways. Kinda like EGR on diesels, it decreases NOX while increasing particulate emissions and much more. AFAIK cats don't create particulate matter, they just alter the gasses into non-harmful ones.

Yes.

This is a combination rant and PSA, if you're looking to buy a new vehicle, especially diesel, in the near future you might want to hurry. There's a new mandate to significantly lower NOX and particulate matter from diesels for the 2027 model year. The changes will likely increase fuel and DEF consumption while lowering performance and reliability. The mandate also comes with a significant increase in the emissions warranty which is going to raise the price of the vehicle even more than the emissions equipment alone will. Being that they already produce less particulates than direct injected gassers I started to wonder how long it would be before they went after those. While I don't know of a proposed mandate, Ford has jumped ahead and the 2025 Maveric has a GPF (gasoline particulate filter). They've announced that it comes with a decrease in power (12% I think) and probably a hit in fuel economy as well, along with an increase in price. The addition of a GPF is likely to force changes with gasoline and oil formulations, not much we can do to escape that.

The biggest problem is remembering that you'll forget and not forgetting to remember to plan for forgetting.

Unfortunately, that sometimes doesn't work with aftermarket wires. There are several cars where there might be a few wires that are within an inch or two of eachother and the aftermarkets might vary by enough to ruin the "match one at a time" strategy. You'll think it's working, then discover that you've run out of wires long enough, then have to go back and see which ones you have to switch around. I typically mark the old ones, lay them out, match the new ones up, then install. If the routing is important, take photos before pulling them.

You probably bought a Ranger wire set, those are in inches, the Mazda needs metric length wires. But in actuality it's probably because it's you, I don't think I've ever had a wire set that was a problem as long as they were installed correctly. And yes, I know that some are a bit finicky and actually have to be installed correctly.

Other than the '97 Bird, I've never had an issue with Mobil1 15-50 or any of the 15-40 diesel oils. My first '97 didn't like 15-40, my current '97 and the Springer Softail I had hate the stuff; nearly impossible to get neutral and clunky shifting. The Bird got billion dollar Motul and the clutch & shifting change was fuckin incredible, I think about a gear change and it's already there. -slight exaggeration. The springer got cheap Dexron3 ATF and that cured it. Interestingly, Rotella T6 5-40 and 15-40 are JASO M2 rated so technically is it a motorcycle oil. It's also CK-4 rated which is the latest diesel spec, and SN rated which is the latest gas spec so they're nearly "fits all" oils. Mobil1 15-50 isn't JASO rated so clearly it's going to kill your bike....except that LOTS of people have been successfully using it in bikes forever.

The worst part is that what is written in that article contradicts some of what the guy said about the different Dexos designations. And he didn't talk about the different generations of Dexos1, I think we're now at Gen3.

No. The cap has low miles and looks good. 5 of the plug wires were new-ish, the #1 was older. Three of the wires were kinda stacked on each other, one being the old #1. When I gave them a wiggle the engine stalled. I sorted them out more neatly thinking maybe they were cross-arcing, when I grabbed and wiggled the #1 it stumbled, then stalled. I pulled it off the cap and the connector was rusty, figured it was probably arcing inside and moving it around was killing the spark. He had a new set under the seat so I installed it figuring that would cure it. Wiggled the new #1 and it stalled. When I went to do it again I noticed that the engine stumbled right before I grabbed it, that's when I figured out that it just took being close to it to create the problem.

It's solved now, I think. The missfire under acceleration was fairly bad and it's mostly gone, but there's a hint of it at certain RPM/load conditions. The van is a high mile rusty beater so probably good enough. I theorized that putting my hand or metal objects there was helping conduct whatever energy 'leaks' from the wires or maybe from the terminal in the cap to the wire harness and/or the pickup module in the distributor which happens to be partially on that side of the distributor. I rotated the distributor clockwise one cylinder position so that the distributor harness wasn't pressed against the side of it and that appears to be what it needed.

Today I learned about the designations of motorcycle oils that address clutch action/grip; JASO MA, MA1, and MA2. Basically, MA2 is more grippy, MA1 is more slippy, MA is somewhat of an in between. Rather than me trying to spell out all the fine details, if you're curious, google it.

My understanding: Mobil1 is Dexos approved and regular Mobile isn't. Maybe Mobile is getting rid of the non-1 oil and that's driving the discount. It seems pretty silly that they'd keep making both, but maybe they don't and the non-1 might just be re-labeled oil from someone else. Dexos is a good thing and it 'should' be superior oil, but not something I'd spend much money for. I feel better buying 'generic' Dexos oil like Supertech which costs less than regular Mobile or any other name brand. My professional layman's take on how oils are produced: A vehicle manufacturer reaches out with a need/desire. A 'big name' oil company makes an agreement to create a suitable oil and spends a bunch of money to make it happen and sells it at a premium. Other oil blenders copy the formula and sell it cheaper. The copies might be slightly inferior in that they might barely meet the minimum spec instead of surpassing it. In some cases the generic might have some better attributes even if they only barely meet a spec, oil blending can be harder than rocket surgery. Many of the additives used fight against other additives so they have to be chosen carefully. Probably all additives have an upper limit where adding more creates a problem, but having too little is also a problem. Then there are additives which can be safely replaced with a cheaper one, but then other parts of the formulation need to be tweaked to keep them all happy. This is why you shouldn't use additives willy-nilly. It's also why one shouldn't do things that mix different oils: topping off, not changing the filter, etc. In an ideal world one would do a 'double drain' when switching oil types, but it's usually not a huge deal. This will likely sound wrong, but an oil can cause high friction and low wear or high wear and low friction. The goal is for both to be low, while also preventing sludge, preignition, etc. It ain't easy. The more I read about Valvoline Restore and Protect the more I'm considering paying the premium for a name brand oil. While I don't know if my engines "need" to be cleaned, there's little reason to not want them cleaned.

None will, but almost all will last way longer than 30k. A properly maintained quality U-joint operating at a low angle can go a million miles.

BMW, the ultimate driving machine.....only 30k at a time. I wonder if they use shitty materials or just didn't do the math on the angles and that's what makes them wear out.

Hadn't even considered that, but .50 seems like the right answer. Hmm, or maybe start with a suppressor muzzle protector.