Here are my takeaways:

Timing chain wear is a problem with direct injection engines. This is caused by soot that is formed due to the direct injection setup. When soot gets into the oil, there is the possibility that it can get into the tiny clearances on your engine's timing chain. That will cause wear. One way to mitigate this problem is to make sure the engine oil you are using has the API-SP and ILSAC GF-6 certifications.

Repeated short trips, less than 15 minutes or so, can lead to fuel dilution issues in direct injection engines. To avoid these issues, you want the engine to get up to operating temp (180F) during your drives. This means that if most of your drives are short trips, you need to incorporate a longer drive (30 minutes or more). The longer drives help vaporize the fuel that has mixed into your engine oil.

LSPI (Low-speed pre-ignition) is prevalent on small engines that run high boost. It's because running high boost on a small engine, will naturally lead to increased cylinder pressure, which can make LSPI more prevalent. Similar to the timing chain wear problem, one way to mitigate this problem is to make sure the engine oil you are using has the API-SP and ILSAC GF-6 certifications.

^ It might sound like this recommendation doesn't make sense, but you need to watch the video to get the full context. It has to do with studies done on oils that have the API-SP and ILSAC GF-6 certifications. They were found to be better able to resist LSPI.

Side-note: From what I recall during my days of hanging out on car forums, LSPI was prevalent on the 1st-gen Mazdaspeed3 and some early Hyundai turbocharged engines. For the 2nd-gen Mazdaspeed3, Mazda used a different piston design to mitigate LSPI. I don't know what Hyundai did to address the issue. So I guess this is more of a heads up to people driving older cars with turbocharged direct injection engines.

Another side-note: One thing we were sternly warned about as new Mazdapseed3 owners back then, was to never get into WOT or boost below 3000 RPM. This was to avoid blowing up the engine due to LSPI. I've kept this practice to this day and so far have not blown up my engine yet. Knock on wood. I have over 128K miles now on my Speed3.

Tags: #Bookmarks #Cars #CarMaintenance #Mazda #Mazdaspeed3

You think you love your car when it's brand new? You'll love it even more when it's paid off.

Did your car just get dinged? Oh no worries, it's already paid off. 😉

Does this mean that after paying off your car, you won't get tempted into buying a new one? Absolutely not 😄

So then what's the point of this post? Stay with me for a bit.

As a car guy, I struggle with this since I'm always enamored by cool new cars. However, the experience of not having a car payment, will make you think twice about signing up for another car loan. At least, it does for me.

Going on a short tangent here...

What's the average monthly car payment nowadays? Over $650 a month in the US? Imagine the kind of things you can do with an extra $650 a month.

• A road trip or vacation every few months?
• Dinner at Saltgrass Steakhouse every weekend?
• A new video game console every month (if you can find one in stock 😀)?
• A new pair of Adidas Ultraboost every month? How about two pairs of Ultraboosts every month? Or how about two pairs of Ultraboosts plus a pair of Onitsuka Tiger Serranos?

On a more serious note, you can do so many good things with an extra $650 a month. Build up your retirement savings, get out of debt, help out people in need, etc...

So anyway, the past few months I've found myself looking at new cars every once in awhile. When I find one I really like — a Mazda3 Hatchback Turbo AWD or a Dodge Charger Scat Pack — I usually end up on a car payment calculator. And every time that happens, the fact that I don't have car payments right now just hits me in the face.

Imagine a hand extending out of my monitor, then slapping me silly while a dismembered voice says, “You do not have car payments right now, why would you want to have one again?”

While I would love a brand new car, I absolutely do not want a monthly car payment right now.

So, go out and drive your paid-off car and have fun with it. Nothing beats driving a paid-off car.

Tags: #Cars #PersonalFinance

While I've enjoyed watching road trip episodes from Top Gear, I always felt like they were out of reach. Like the cars were out of reach, the people doing the road trips were out of reach. Those were big budget production episodes and it felt that way.

This one though is different. While these guys were sponsored, this one still feels relatable. This feels like seeing a couple of car enthusiast friends film their road trip. It feels down to earth. It feels like something a regular joe, like you and me, can do.

As the title states, it's a road trip across 48 states in two Mazda FD RX-7s. One is still running a rotary engine, while the other has a K-swapped Honda engine. Interesting, right?

It's also very nicely shot. The cinematography, if that is the right word, is beautiful. The choice of background music is beautiful. I've never thought seeing somebody wash a car would illicit an emotional response from me, but it did. Then there's the numerous clips showing a Mazda FD RX-7 in motion. It's like watching poetry in motion. Just stunning to see a red and yellow Mazda FD RX-7 cruising on the highway. It's a sight that I'll probably never get tired of seeing. I consider the Mazda FD RX-7, one of the most beautiful cars ever made.

Anyway, I've run out of words and time. I hope you enjoy watching these as much as I did. And to the car enthusiasts out there, enjoy driving your fun to drive cars. It won't be long before our stick shift enthusiasts cars will be replaced by self-driving electric cars.

Episode 1

Episode 3

Tags: #Cars #Mazda #RX7 #GearsAndGasoline

Got back my Mazdaspeed3 last Saturday. I'm glad to have it back. But I also have to say that I was so spoiled by that CX-5 turbo loaner car. It was a really good car!

Anyway, cost to repair the leak in the Mazdaspeed3 transmission was $1,071. It was actually the transmission shifting mechanism that was leaking, not the transmission itself. Thankfully it was an affordable repair bill. And that's thanks to an emergency fund set up for times like this.

So, no need to trade in my car then. Though that CX-5 turbo did make me think twice about trading in... Is still making me think twice LOL!

Started reading the Lord Of The Rings 50th Anniversary Edition book. This was a much appreciated Christmas gift from my brother.

There's apparently a way to forward/send emails into OneNote. Got this idea after reading Tiago Forte's One-Touch to Inbox Zero: How I Spend 17 Minutes Per Day on Email, which is a great read by the way.

Here's some good parenting advice from an Instagram post on how to handle your kids when they lie to you.

Up to Episode 6 now of Vincenzo and man, what a good show! There were a couple of interesting things in Episode 6 that caught my eye, most notably the interaction between a Buddhist and Catholic character.

There's this scene where a Buddhist monk was carrying a huge wooden cross, like Jesus was on his way to crucifixion. The monk was carrying the abandoned cross to donate to a nearby church. It struck me as a beautiful scene, where people can cast aside their differences and just be kind to one another.

That scene then led to a conversation between Vincenzo and a Buddhist monk regarding enlightenment.

Vincenzo: “If I go live somewhere far away, like in the middle of the ocean, will the anger inside me disappear?”

Buddhist monk: “It doesn’t matter where you live. What matters is whether you still have the anger inside you or not.”

Vincenzo: “Does that mean that I need to achieve enlightenment?”

Buddhist monk: “The only way to get rid of your anger is by fighting it. Stand your ground and fight back. Enlightenment is what you get when you win that battle.”

Tags: #Weeknotes #Cars #Mazda #CX5 #Mazdaspeed3 #LordOfTheRings #Productivity #Parenting #TVShow #Vincenzo

I really enjoyed the 2020 Mazda CX-5 loaner car. I had it for a few days while the Speed3 was in the shop. I think it's a great daily driver. It wasn't the top of the line CX-5 trim, but it had a Bose sound system, heated seats, heated steering wheel and even had power folding mirrors. I think it also had ventilated seats, but I didn't get to try it out.

It didn't have the turbo engine, but it drove really well. Sure, it could use more passing power at highway speeds, but the engine felt responsive and strong. The biggest difference in my opinion, between the engine in this 2020 CX-5 and our 2016 CX-5, is the powerband. They both have the same 2.5 liter 4 cylinder SkyActiv-G engine. The newer engines do have cylinder-deactivation. But the powerband on the 2016 CX-5 goes from 3250 to 5700 RPM, while the powerband on the 2020 CX-5 goes from 4000 to 6000 RPM. Technically, the 2016 CX-5 has a wider powerband, so it should feel stronger in everyday driving. But this was not the case.

The much improved throttle response on the newer CX-5, plus the powerband being at the higher end of the RPM range, meant the newer CX-5 felt stronger in everyday driving. It also made for a much more fun drive. Bury the throttle on a 2020 CX-5 and the transmission puts you right into the powerband, where you can wind it out to 6000 RPM if you want to. The 2016 CX-5 on the other hand, feels like it runs out of steam before the redline. It's like the 2016 CX-5 doesn't want to be revved to redline, while the 2020 CX-5 wants you to redline it as often as you want.

The 2016 CX-5 also seems to prefer to cruise at around 60 mph. To cruise faster than that, you have to step on the gas pedal more. But when you do, you will feel this sort of resistance. Like it does not want to cruise at a higher speed. The 2020 CX-5 on the other hand, I had a hard time keeping it below 75 mph. It's almost like it prefers to cruise at 80 mph. The engine spins so freely while cruising on the highway, I end up cruising at a much higher speed than I intend to.

The throttle response and transmission shifting logic in the 2020 CX-5, was so well matched to my driving style, it felt telepathic. This was one instance where I really felt Mazda's Jinba Ittai philosophy in a car. It's almost like the car was made for me, or I did the test driving and told them how the throttle response and transmission logic should be set.

The interior is a great place to be. Mazda has been trying to raise their cars up to luxury car standards. Their current cars are not far off. If you consider the price you're paying for a Mazda, versus say a BMW or an Audi, then yes their interiors are luxurious enough. And they are very quiet too. As soon as I closed the doors on this 2020 CX-5, my ears picked up on the deafening silence. Okay that's a bit of an exaggeration. But it is really quiet inside. You have to try it out to understand what I'm saying.

Lastly, it is a beautiful looking car inside and out. I seem to be saying that for newer Mazdas nowadays. But I really believe that to be true. Mazda's newer Soul Red Crystal Metallic paint is beautiful. And it comes alive in different lighting conditions. You can see the difference in color when you look at it under the sun and at night. It renders a wonderful shade of red, that looks even better than the Soul Red on our 2016 CX-5.

Anyway, time to wrap this up. I've written more about this car than I thought I would. And it was just a loaner car. And no, this not a Mazda sponsored post. But I am a Mazda fan. If you are looking for a new daily driver and it needs to be a CUV, then this is my recommended choice. Get the turbo if you want more passing power. Otherwise, stick with the Grand Touring trim and the 2.5l engine for a luxury feel without the luxury price tag.

Related: – 2019 Mazda3 Sedan – First Impressions – Final Thoughts on the 2019 Mazda3 Sedan

Tags: #Cars #CarReview #Mazda #CX5

A quick search online will reveal hundreds of articles explaining the terms horsepower and torque. No matter how many times I read them though, I just don't get it at times. The easiest way I can sum them up is, horsepower determines how fast a car can go, while torque determines how strong a car feels when you step on the gas. However, the most important thing to note about the two though, is the formula for calculating horsepower; Horsepower = (Torque X RPM) / 5252. From that formula alone you can see that more torque, or higher RPM, or a combination of both produces more horsepower.

So how does that tie in to the scene in Cars 1 with McQueen struggling to pull Bessie? It goes like this.

Since Lightning McQueen is a race car based off stock car racing, I'm going to assume his engine can produce around 800 horsepower and has a redline of 9000 RPM. Since they race on high speed oval racetracks, his engine is most likely tuned to only make power at the higher RPM range, probably around the 7000-9000 RPM range. Which means, the reason he is struggling to pull Bessie, is because he just doesn't make enough horsepower at the lower RPM range. In other words, he doesn't make enough torque at low RPM. Also, at low RPM, he is nowhere near his engine's power band.

A car's engine feels strongest when driving in the engine's power band. The typical definition of an engine's power band is the RPM range where the engine makes peak torque, up to the RPM where the engine makes peak horsepower.

In our hypothetical example of Lightning McQueen, his engine's power band is at the 7000-9000 RPM range. In my own car, a 2013 Mazdaspeed3, my engine's power band is around 3000-5500 RPM. Any time you step on the gas while you are in the engine's power band, the car will feel like it has a lot of pickup. It will feel strong, it will feel torquey.

Going back to the scene where Lightning McQueen was struggling to pull Bessie and taking into account the formula for calculating horsepower, we can see that in that instance, Lightning McQueen's RPM was too low to generate enough horsepower. Since he has a high strung engine, his engine also most likely didn't make enough torque that low in the RPM range, which again means not enough horsepower. To generate enough horsepower to easily pull Bessie, he had to be spinning his engine at like 7000 RPM, but since he was starting from 0 mph, there was no way to get to 7000 RPM without first going through 1000, 2000, 3000 RPM where he didn't make enough horsepower. (Having a very short 1st gear would have solved this issue, but seeing as he was struggling to pull Bessie in that scene, he most likely didn't have a short enough 1st and 2nd gear.)

So, at the end of the day, all we (I) really care about is horsepower. Horsepower determines how fast a car can go and how strong it feels in everyday driving. Torque determines how much horsepower you make at a certain RPM.

As stated above, the peak torque number that is quoted for engines, determines when/where a car's power band starts. When people say that a car has great low end torque, what they are really saying is that the engine in that car generates more horsepower at the low RPM range compared to other cars. It also means that in a car that generates great low end torque, you are most likely already in the engine's power band even if you are just cruising along. A quick stab of the gas pedal will elicit a quick response from the engine, making the car feel a lot more powerful than the numbers suggest. This is what makes the Volkswagen GTI a very popular daily driver. It doesn't make a lot of horsepower, but it makes good enough torque low in the RPM range that it makes the car feel stronger than it ought to be.

Wow I just geeked out on a CG movie about cars talking about horsepower and torque. I feel like such a nerd but I blame Davin haha. If anything I've said about the topic of horsepower and torque is woefully inaccurate, please let me know by sending me a comment.

If you have not watched any of the Disney Pixar Cars movies, man you are missing out. They are great movies in their own right even if you are not a big fan of cars. The lessons they teach in the movies also make them great movies to watch with your kids.

Tags: #Cars

I had never driven anything powered by a Wankel, and the contrast of the RX-7 compared to everything with wheels I had experienced was stark, and noticeable immediately. The feedback normally received from a piston engine is not felt, due to the fact that there is no more conversion from vertical to rotational motion, a rotary engine (as implied by the name) involves no vertical momentum. It's not that the engine refuses to communicate with you, it's just speaking an entirely different language. The whiny exhaust note has an odd property to it that can be heard from no other source. It conjures up images of the mysterious, angry pair of triangles whirling about in their cage. Purely imaginary, of course.

Because the Wankel is so smooth, I found myself wondering why I should shift up. A piston engine makes you anxious when you push it close to the redline. Most send the driver a variety of auditory and tactile messages indicating that they must either shift up, or face a molten tie rod to the head. The RX-7, however, gives no such indication. When close to the redline, one hears only an excited whir. The result (forgive the upcoming Disney analogy) is an almost magic carpet-like experience. It's as though the power simply materializes before you with no apparent source or sacrifice.

What a good read! I found myself hopping over to Autotrader looking for used RX-8s around my area after reading this piece. Then, reality set in and I realized that I am in no position to be owning a second car. I say second car because I'm not sure I would replace my Mazdaspeed3 with an RX-8. Hard to give up the hatch, the passing power and better gas mileage from the Speed3.

Link: Reunited with a Quaint, Wankel-Powered Friend

Tags: #Cars

From RockAuto:

• LUK 10064 (10-064) Clutch Kit
• LUK DMF118 Flywheel

From EdgeAutoSport:

• 6 × Mazda OEM Flywheel Bolt Mazdaspeed 3 2007-2013 | Mazdaspeed 6 2006-2007
• 1 × Mazda OEM Clutch Release Fork Mazdaspeed 3 2007-2013 | Mazdaspeed 6 2006-2007
• 6 × Mazda OEM Clutch Pressure Plate Bolt Mazdaspeed 3 2007-2013 | Mazdaspeed 6 2006-2007

Couple of notes on the choices of parts.

• EdgeAutoSport does sell a Mazda OEM Clutch kit, however as I mentioned in a previous journal entry, I have learned that LUK is an OEM parts manufacturer from Germany. So their parts should be as good as OEM parts, if not better.
• EdgeAutoSport only sells the Mazda OEM Dual Mass Flywheel, which is very expensive. I decided to go with the cheaper LUK Dual Mass Flywheel from RockAuto.
• The LUK Clutch Kit, unlike the Mazda OEM Clutch Kit, doesn't come with the flywheel bolts and pressure plate bolts, so I had to get those separately from EdgeAutoSport.
• The LUK Clutch Kit and Dual Mass Flywheel combo is actually a very good combo. I would even say it is an upgrade over the OEM setup. The clutch pedal was noticeably lighter which makes for a more comfortable daily driving setup.
• The clutch release fork was something that the service tech recommended I get, since I was getting the clutch replaced anyway. People on forums don't seem to be getting this one though, so you might be able to get by without having to buy this one.

Tags: #Cars #CarMaintenance #Mazda #Mazdaspeed3

Research on deindividuation theory has been conducted in numerous settings (not just driving) and has found that when we feel anonymous, we’re more likely to disregard societal norms for behavior.

Basically, it’s easier to get mad at someone when we don’t know them because we’re less likely to be held accountable for it.

“It’s the same reason why people feel like they’re entitled to be angry on certain social media platforms,” Dr. Himanshu Agrawal (a psychiatrist at the Medical College of Wisconsin) explains.

Since we rarely know the person in the car next to us (and since we also have a box of glass/steel between us and them), driving creates that sense of anonymity, making it easier for us to lash out.

When I decided to read this article, I was doing so because I wanted to learn more about road rage and how to avoid it. I didn't expect to run into this gem. This article basically says that one of the causes for road rage, is also responsible for the sad state of communications online. If you really read into it, it does make sense.

Link: Why We Have Road Rage and How to Combat It

Tags: #Bookmarks #Cars #SocialMedia

Link: 2020 Performance Car of the Year

When it came to lap times, we enlisted a licensed club racer with no Thunderhill experience: me. We did this for a reason, and it wasn’t to build my ego. Most of our readers are not pro drivers. When you buy a new car, a professional’s lap time at any track is an interesting metric, but it’s rarely reflective of a normal person’s experience. We wanted to stress accessibility and adaptability. How easy is it to get up to speed in a given car? How communicative is the car? Is it hard to learn the quirks? Under the watchful eyes of our testing staff, every PCOTY contender got a quick warm-up session to set tire pressures, then no more than seven timed laps. Just enough to establish a representative lap and suss idiosyncrasies, not enough to set a record.

I love that. More car magazines/publications should follow suit.

Highway 119 spilled onto the long, windswept Bucks Lake, and we arrived in a blink, settling into the gravel lot at Lakeshore Resort, a small restaurant and lodge on the shore. With the cars tucked in next to local pickups, we headed inside for lunch. The restaurant’s back patio was drenched in that crackling sunlight that seems so particular to Northern California afternoons. Iced tea arrived by the pitcher, and we washed down burgers as bald eagles circled the lake.

I can picture that scene in my mind like I was there, almost...

By the way, this is another article from Road & Track that I am once again very impressed with. The writing is so good, for a car magazine that is, that I am now considering a magazine subscription.

#Cars #Bookmarks