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nerdstrike

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Everything posted by nerdstrike

  1. nerdstrike

    Gearbox Cruch

    A crunch is the lugs on the gears skipping out of the holes they're supposed to engage with (because they're rotating at different speeds). If you repeatedly abuse the gearbox you might wear the lugs down and it'll be more likely to skip in future (or worst case snap off I suppose), but they are slathered in oil and it probably needs a lot of blunders to have an impact. The 100k mile brigade aren't needing new gearboxes as far as I'm aware. I wonder if our boxes are tough to shift when cold because of the oil, or because of thermal contraction of the moving parts and gear selector? On a cold morning it can take me two or even three attempts to get into 2nd gear in the first couple of minutes if I'm unlucky.
  2. nerdstrike

    Dash speaker wiring question

    I think it's safe to say that quite a few people here are Focal fanpeople. You get what you pay for from reputable speaker manufacturers (at least with drivers, cabinets is another matter). It might make sense to brand match your Pioneers. As for power, only you can say how loud it needs to be. Some people complain that it's not enough. If you're happy with the 6.5s output at the moment (with bassy music) then you've probably got all the muscle you need. You lose the bass punch first when power is short. It might not be worth the effort of extracting the wiring that runs to the rears. Lots of trim to come off. If you did, you could run those wires to 3.5's and cut them to length.
  3. nerdstrike

    Dash speaker wiring question

    Replace the tweeters - they suck and distort all over the place. The simplest solution for three speaker pairs is a 3-way amp, but only you know if you have one of those. If you repurpose the rear cabling, your fader controls will be weird but could act as a ghetto equaliser. It is probably a bad idea to have two mid-high range speakers on a single wire as they'll double up in a large cross-over range. A discrete crossover to blend them together would help. The standard two-way setup in the car has large gap in the soundstage which sounds weird in some music. Mids might help with that, but a high quality two-way is enjoyable if you want to keep the wiring simple.
  4. nerdstrike

    Key fob battery

    My keyless fob definitely took the awkward not available in supermarkets CR1632. The only way to know is to crack them open and look. It's pretty easy and won't mess anything up. I believe a battery will last up to two years in continuous use. There's a lot of communication goes on for the immobiliser and , much more than with the old remote locking fobs.
  5. nerdstrike

    Air-Con

    I've felt chillier blasts, but well done Subaru, your aircon is good for hard times! The same cannot be said for my glasshouse office building with 360 degree solar collection...
  6. To be clear, it's not just tread wear. You can get lots of little tears in the surface of the tyre from spinning out, and it would be a shame to do it to new tyres. The only obstacles to hit are plastic cones and your ego.
  7. I would point out that it depends how much of your current policy remains as to how expensive it will be for a whole year, and like all insurance factors, each risk is a multiplier of sorts and combines unfavourably with other negative factors.
  8. nerdstrike

    Facelift lower mpg

    I'm getting 36.3 mpg pump to pump in a standard 2014 car. It went up a bit after 1800 miles up to Scotland, around and back, which was more like 43 mpg. This car is very efficient from 30-50 mph, claiming over 50 mpg most of the time, but that comes back down to mid 40s at a steady 70 mph. Range is about 300 miles to just under 400 miles for pure motorway. I'm spending £100 less per thousand miles on fuel than I did with my previous 22mpg car, and I'm quicker in the bends. No complaints here!
  9. nerdstrike

    Anyway to get bonnet alignment better ?

    There might be enough play with the hinge bolts. It's a big lump of metal to adjust with precision, might make it worse.
  10. nerdstrike

    Servicing query??

    With regards to fluids, some of them degrade by collecting water. Chiefly brake fluid and engine oil to a lesser extent. The water in the engine oil can evaporate off with good hard use, but brake fluid becomes very not fun if it gets moist, so you should keep it and the clutch fluid on periodic schedule. I'd do my own oil changes with an oil extractor like a Pela, then it only costs you about 50 quid a year and you don't have to take the car in unnecessarily.
  11. nerdstrike

    Catback that looks like std?

    You could try to trash the baffling in the muffler, but that would be destructive. No guarantees about surprise resonances or drones either...
  12. nerdstrike

    Potential Pick Up Tomorrow - Question

    The most likely triggers for car alarms are: Leaving windows down while locked Leaving a phone in the car Scrotes breaking your windows You can deactivate the alarm via the keypad in the glovebox, using the code you get with the car. The alarm will also stop (temporarily) if you unlock the car with the remote. Be aware that the doors have an auto-relock after 20 seconds if you should unlock by remote and not open a door. Alarms will also trigger on a ferry, when the tilt sensors get a workout and the deck vibrates from the engines. If there's something wrong with the boot/door/bonnet lock sensors, then you would probably lock it with the pathetic emergency key.
  13. The Ah rating of a battery will be almost directly proportional to the amount of sulphuric acid and lead it has in it. Both of these things are heavy.
  14. My 45 Ah battery seems to be able to handle about 3 weeks of sitting idle before cranking gets marginal. It's getting on for five years old now. A 65 Ah one in good nick should by extension go at least one more week. If I were off for a month I'd leave it without the battery.
  15. nerdstrike

    Spare wheel?

    I believe the driver assist systems will quit on you for running an undersize wheel across an axle. It should just throw a warning and leave you to it if it's anything like Mazda electronics, so you'd be able to drive but without VSC or perhaps even ABS still operating. Think kindly of your diff!
  16. Some extra pressure helps stabilise the tyres under hard (and bumpy) cornering. It also has the side effect of making the handling sketchier. The surface is fairly slippery anyway, and I was surprised by how little stopping power I had. A couple of the RX8s that didn't add pressure (or had aftermarket suspension doing funny things?) wore all the tread off the shoulder of the right front tyre. They were going at it hard, but it was a shame to have toasted tyres with good tread in the middle. A few extra psi like Angelina said might not go amiss, depends on wheel camber and what kind of lead boots you wear.
  17. nerdstrike

    Headlight problems

    Well, the lack of relay clicks would imply the lights are not being turned off by the relay, but by lack of oomph/shorting/ground issue. Apparently HIDs have ballast to get the filaments lit. You're not the first BRZ-alike owner on the Internet to have issues with high beams, perhaps a faulty ballast can't generate enough voltage to get the second filament going?
  18. nerdstrike

    Headlight problems

    Flickering is rather ominous, and definitely into electrical gremlins. Lucky it's summer and the days are long. How old is your car? Is there any relay clicking when they go off on their own? If you have an OBD reader, what's the voltage like when the car is running? The loss of full beam suggests a fuse may have gone, but what caused it to go? Do you have any signs of rust in the engine bay, particularly where ground wires go to the chassis? Can you turn the headlights on yourself ignoring the auto setting, and does the same thing happen? Do you have any custom electronics in the car, like dashcams and amplifiers?
  19. nerdstrike

    Center Air Vent Grill

    Eek! The air vent system is deeply buried.
  20. nerdstrike

    CEL 4-2-1 decat advice

    It won't run lean just because you derestricted the exhaust. You're almost certainly seeing the "where's my cat gone?" warning, but the fuelling is decided by other means. It's only if you've damaged your O2 sensors that things will get weird. Given that you have a warning light and you can't guarantee what it means, I advise you to get a code reader on it. The code reader could also tell you what the fuel trims are like by showing how far off the base map it wants to go. It's £15 well spent for immediate diagnosis.
  21. nerdstrike

    Saw my first Supra today

    I'd totally have one if I could afford it, but the jokes write themselves.
  22. nerdstrike

    Saw my first Supra today

    Did it say "Aus dem Weg du scheisse Japanisches Auto!"?
  23. nerdstrike

    GT86/ BRZ Get together - Bishop Storford

    I'll see if I can make it nearer the time.
  24. nerdstrike

    Heater seats query??

    The alcantara finish does trap heat a bit, but nothing burns like black leather that's been in the sun.
  25. I think I saw somewhere that a one let go at less than ~280 bhp, and I forget whether it was a turbo or not, but at least there's a sticker for that: https://mightycarmods.com/collections/stickers/products/rodney-the-piston-sticker Boost shortens the life of the engine unless it's designed for it or otherwise overengineered, so you shouldn't expect miracles, but supercharging at low boost is probably the least risky version of FI.
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