COTW - Toyota Supra MK3

Since I seem to start every post with "it's been a while" I'm thinking this should have been a COTM feature.

After this, on with the business at hand. This car of the week has a rather famous name, Supra. But instead of the one we all know from the fast and the furious, it is an MK3. The one that looks like a mid-size space ship designed in the 80s.

So why would one want one of these ?
Well first of all it has pop up headlights, which add an instant cool to the car.

It's been made over a quarter of a century ago, which means you can get it as an old timer, making the road tax bearable. How does 75€ sound instead of 7600€.

Now on to the car. Of course it's rear wheel drive, it has 2 doors, 4 seats and an inline 6 which used to have 280hp when it rolled from the productionline some 25 years ago. That should be enough to make the 1600kg beast move swiftly.

The inside styling is splendid. Have a look  :

COTW BMW Z3 coupe 2.8

Been a while since i've posted something. Recentely I've been thinking a lot about the Z3 coupe .. again. You might remember my older post on the Z3M coupe, which ended up in me realizing that a 3.2l engine with 320hp would rather kill my wallet when it comes to taxes.

As you may or may not know, the Z3 coupe started it's life as a "humble" 2.8l(M52B28). This makes the taxes bearable, while still giving me the gorgeous looks of the Z3 coupe and the playful oversteer handling resulting form a not so sophisticated rear axle that has to cope with some 190hp.
As an added bonus, there are loads of upgrade possibilities since this is a rather early version of a car that got some nice goodies in it's future life.
- a 3.0 M54B30 engine
- a 6 speed gearbox (from a Z4)
- stability control through an uprated ESP
- a S54 M engine
- some nice big brakes from the M version
And the list goes on, so for a tinkerer as myself it's the perfect car. Now if only it would have 4 seats, so that I can take the occasional friend along for a ride it would be perfect.
 

WTF Blackbird indicators

The other day a dashboard light gave out on the Blackbird. The one that lights up the speedo from 0 to about 200, creating some interesting moments when driving past speedtraps at night.

Needless to say, this needed to be rectified as soon as possible. Instead of just going to the local bike shop and getting me one of those 3 cent incandecent bulbs I decided it's the perfect opportunity to make the change to the 21ste century and install LED lights. So I went to the local parts store called ebay and ordered me some LEDs from China. A week later I found a small package on my doorstep and the repair could start.

Yay Chinese LEDs 

Reading the repair manual, i realized getting access to the instrument cluster meant removing the complete fairing. This is going to be a long one, but hey.
After removing the better part of the fairing i found a wire running from the left to the right indicator with a junction in the middle going to the instrument cluster, so some further investigation was necessary.

Upon opening my rear view mirrors to get  to trace the wire I found this :

Yes, that's a dasboard light glued, well actually siliconed, on the indicator bulb. The connections are soldered and isolated by thin air. I'm actually rather surprised the installer didn't just tie them together with a nice bow in the wire :-/ 

It does however answer the question to why my indicators were always sort of on. 

But there's always a silver lining, it gave me an idea for another project. How does changing the indicators by some LEDs sound. Ok, I agree a bit ordinary, so I'm going to get myself some smoked indicator lenses and some nice 2-tone LEDs. this should give me some white DRLs and orange indicators.

So there you have it, the blackbird is slowly making his entry into Greg's World :-)

Coffee - automation

As most of you know, i'll be getting out of bed at silly-o'clock in the future to make it to work before the roads are clogged up. Hence I don't want to spend any of my potential sleeping time boiling coffee. Especially not since I have an automatic coffee machine of the non-programmable persuasion.

Guess some things will have to change.

I've been looking at the Atmega range, but I haven't got a clue how to program the things. Fortunately there's google helping me out.
I found this site, which has a nice n00b-section, even the name says it all :-)
I'll be working my way through that, but if any of you have some other sites, recommendations or general tips, just let me know.

BOTW Honda CB900F

Since I started a car of the week thing, I might as well start something about bikes.

And I taught I'd start with a kicker. I present you the Honda cb900f.

Other than the fact that I actually rode the modern version of the bike, also known as a hornet 900 or the 919 in the states, it was apparently a very nice bike to ride. And seeing at how cool the one in the picture looks, it might be the base for the project I've been looking for.
Since I already have all the modern power, handling and long distance capability in the blackbird, I need a short distance play thing. Cue the cafe racer :-)

COTW 3 - Porsche 944 turbo

I'm at it again ... this time it's a Porsche 944 Turbo.

Let's brake it down: 

Pro: 

- 220 or 250hp on the rear wheels (ok, that number is at the crank but you get the idea)

- RWD 

- designed by porsche to go on where the 911 left off. (that didn't happen, but the mechanical design should be pretty good)

- 4 seater, with a bit of imagination

- it's a Porsche

- Turbo, meaning more power is relatively easy to achieve

- Pop up headlights ... how cool is that

Con : 

- It's the car that never went on, whereas the 911 did. This means having to live with the "it's not a real Porsche" comments

- Since it stems from the last century it's bound to have some problems

- fuel consumption. Old turbo engines were never known for their economy

- Pop up headlights .. they're heavy and bound to break at some stage

COTW - BMW E28 M5

Since i've been slacking off, here's another one.



The belgian legislation on oldtimers has changed a bit. For the last million years an oldtimer couldn't be uses when dark nor more than 25km away from the garage. Making an oldtimer completely useless.
The changes now liberate us from these restrictions, so driving an oldtimer might actually become fun.

So queue the oldtimer of my choise : The original M5.
It still has the nice shark nose design of old BMW's and not the strange edges Chris Bangle introduced. It came loaded with 80s flair and for that time a load of options. So electrical everything, which i will probably throw out in favour of weight saving and simplicity. Or as Colin used to say : if you want to add speed, just add lightness.
Now let's come to the heart of the car. As any proper BMW, it's graced with a nice inline 6 (the M88), producing 282hp. The ponies are sent through a 5 speed to the proper wheels, i.e. the rears. So we have the basical ingredients for a nice handling car.

As an added bonus, the car comes with 4 doors and can comfortably transport 4 people with ample luggage space. Making it a almost too good to be true.

As far as updates go, the E34 M5 engine is a straight swap to the S38B38, delivering 335hp. That being said, the original engine is good for a 6s sprint to 100kph and a top speed of 246kmh. Not all that slow, even by modern standards.

COTW BMW Z3 2.2

It is been a while since I posted a car of the week. So without further ado, here it is.
I've recently been looking at the Z3. The same logic goes as for the E46, since they came with the. M54B22 engine. For those who don't remember what that means, it's an engine that has the same base as the M54B30, that being the 3L 200-odd horsepower engine that was used throughout the BMW lineup. So a swap of this in a Z3 should be more than feasible. Especially since it was actually mounted in the Z3 coupé at some point in time.
Then there is the problem of it being a 5 speed. Here we can pick a part from the Z4,which should actually fit. Some more investigation is necessary, but hey I already got the engine sorted out.
So there you have it. Rwd 2seater with north of 250hp. Should be fun :-)

COTW BMW E46 320ci

Next option.

For people thinking it's weird to have that many different cars on your mind, have a look at the pistonheads forums overhere. So there you have it, my free ticket to yet another car-idea.

As some of you know, my celica has sprouted an oil leak at a very accessible place (NOT, it's not far from an engine-out job to get to a 20€ seal) Needless to say I've been putting of the repair and I've found myself driving a very nice E46 320d.

It's just a perfect all-rounder car. Very nice chassis (the optional M-chassis), comfortable on longer journeys, yet very able to put a smile on your face during a more spirited drive along some rare winding country lanes. The only thing is that i'm not a diesel fan, and I'm used to having a bit more power.

Soooo queue the 320ci.

It has the same nice chassis as the 320d, while the body is just a little bit lower and sleeker. That should make it even more composed in corners. It comes with an inline 6 cyl engine, which in my mind is the only proper engine for a BMW. It get's even better, since the M54B22 is family of the M54B30 which has won the engine of the year award from 2001 till 2003. And just in case the power-itch comes along it might even be feasible to put the 3.0L block instead of the 2.2L.

COTW 2 - BMW Z3 M coupe

Ok here goes.

Just saw a Z3Mcoupe on the airport parking.
I know I've been rambling about cars with 4 seats to be practical, but I'm willing to make an exception for this one.

Personally I'm a big fan of the car's styling. I mean, it's a shooting break, how cool is that.
As far as propulsion goes, it's an M-car. It has 321hp from a longitudinally mounted inline 6, going straight to the rear wheels. Meaning a tail happy handling and a butter smooth engine.

As far as taxes go, this is where it gets ugly. Our Belgian laws would have me pay a yearly tax of 1200€ just to keep it on the road ... ouch.
There is no way to get this down, the smaller 3.0L is taxed 950€, which is still plenty painful.

So tax-wise the only way to have a nice fun car is for it to be a smaller engine with plenty of horsepower. Either by strapping a turbo to the engine (Impreza) or by making plenty of revs (S2000)

Guess my next COTW will arrive sooner than foreseen.

Car of the week - Celica ST205

I've recently been thinking about AWD cars.
The idea goes if you fumble a corner in an RWD car you're in a pickle. If you do the same in a AWD car you just floor it and let the gods of torsen sort it out. So AWD it is.
So I want a car with a meaning. So it has to be a WRC car. A proper one, not the 37th generation of subaru. And since I like Toyota, it has to be an ST, and the best one is the ST205.
The idea is that 245hp should be plenty, but if I ever get bored of it that 270 is a simple software update. After that, the sky is the limit.

Pi meets Camera

Just found something that spiked my interest again : a Raspberry Pi embedded in a DSLR 

For a while now i've been thinking about getting into photography, but haven't taken the plunge yet. Also I've been willing to have a go at the Pi, but seen no need for it yet. Now let's put one and one together :-)

Minimalist car audio

I was over on revlimiter.net the other day and saw his new radio . That got me thinking. I never use CDs in my car so why should I have a big DIN size radio, when i can get some small retrosound. 

They look nice and customiseable and have a lot of features out of the box
- Radio with RDS
- SD-card reader (don't really need that)
- USB port (big bonus since i got some spare USB hard drives laying around)
- they are small enough to be mounted in an otherwise wasted space in the dash

BUT they lack one function which i can't live without: Bluetooth.

So queue the Parrot MKi9100. I'll  have to do something about the fugly remote, but at least this will add bluetooth connection to the phone and allow me to play music from my phone. As an added bonus the sound quality of the parrots systems i know is really good and the double mic looks nice poking out from behind the steering wheel :-)

So next up is phone mounting. For the moment i have my Nexus One in his proper car mount. Which is really nice since it charges the phone at a higher rate than the normal usb connection, allowing you keep the screen switched on while charging.

This wouldn't be a proper brain-fart if i wouldn't find a way to change this now would it.And this is where this goes from semi-realistic to straight out dreaming.

So the plan is to get a new phone (someday) which comes with, or can be modified to have wireless charging. Then we can have a Palm Touchstone or similar mounted behind a random dash panel, such as this one behind the gear lever. Just put the phone on there, the magnets hold it in place and it gets charged at the same time, perfect. I just hope the wireless charging will pump enough amps to get the phone charged in a reasonable time-frame. Must look into that

Essentially this will free up the space in the dash normally occupated by the stock navigation. Leaving me with a big gaping hole there and two options.
1. I could just get / make some extra storage box, like in a Celica
2. I could mount a display there fed of the phone.

Or and this is the kicker, I could mount a display there that can tilt up exposing a hidden storage compartment. Cue the bond music :-)

This brings me to the next idea / problem. The display should support miracast so that the phone's screen can be put on there. So far all is good but I'll have to figure out a way to control the phone. Does anybody know if miracast / widi supports touch input to be streamed back to the source device ?
Another bonus that comes with this setup is the possibility to add a reverse camera to the display since these kind of displays usually come with a multitude of inputs, one of which can be used for the camera.

Building on all this I could / should also have a wireless router in my car, enabling me to get a NAS running. I believe a Pi would do nicely. Which would in turn make it bearable to have a limited storage on the phone, playing nicely in Googles strategy of pushing to the cloud. The only difference being that it will be my cloud and not theirs :-)

So there you have it, my random thoughts on car audio.

Singer

The other day I was watching Chris Harris testing a Singer.
He went into the design process of the car and this got me thinking. This might be an affordable way to get myself a very nice car, ok, affordable by use of a large portion of man maths.

The Singer he drove is based on the 964 Porsche series, of which a nice one can be had for around 20k. They are not overly powerful (3.6L 250hp), so insurance isn't going to be a complete killer. And the nice thing about Porsches is parts interchangeability. So basically you start with a box standard 964 Carrera 2 and you can start on an upgrading trajectory that leads you to an RS.


The one I've seen on a used car site had those nice leather electrical seats which way roughly 200kg a piece. Replaceby some of these or for a really oldschool feel, a pair of these. I don't know if i will fit in them though.

Some other bloke who's doing something similar with the original 911 is Magnus Walker. I really think he's on to something there :-)

*edid* found another guy who's really made me jealous : Have a look for yourself

Anyway, enough on porsches ... back to the real world.