The smart guys run a plenum airbox atop them, so sand and grit doesn’t bring your rebuild forward by years...

Motorcycle racers used to add air cleaners on each individual carb... until they saw the guys running properly-jetted ones with the stock airbox, were leaving them mid-corner. This is because, as in the…

I’ve had my share of cars/trucks/vans owned/driven daily and grown attachments to... I feel because ‘it’s mine/my responsiblity’, and know we’ll be spending a lot of time trying to get me to money or earn money, that I tend to notice what’s beyond the cover.

Take the old Astro vans, for example. Those would haul me all…

1999 Ford Escort LX with 2.0L SPI & 4EAT...

Bought off of my mother when I moved home to take care of parents... she’s one of those ‘I put gas in and drive’ owners, so if it was ever in good shape, after 6-7 years of her, it was on its last gasps. Got her a Fit and took the Escort, as I had to sell my car to move...

Jesu…

My take: for series production, 4-cyls are far better from a cost:benefit standpoint in an inline config vs. V4. Half the heads, half the cam drive components, half the exhaust logs or headers, & simpler crank machining outweigh any theoretical packaging advantage. Fours also tend to go into cars that aren’t a marques…

That thing, despite lacking the rest of the STI around it, looks no faster than the whole car. The driven front wheels must make the bars... rather lively when you cane it.

Maybe I’m just so destitute that I have to overcompensate with make-believe... but I’ve driven many a vehicle — mostly not mine (rentals, friend’s cars, work vehicles, etc.) that aren’t stereotypically ‘soulful’, but I began to attach to after living with a while...

Case in point: an iron-block V6 Toyota Tacoma box…

As a long-time motorcyclist we tend to develop skills for threat acquisition and situational awareness, you just don’t get as a driver. I can’t count how many times this gap’s hilariously borne fruit, but nowhere more than in the winter in Seattle...

As you may know, Seattle has a rep for people melting down quite…

For my last 5 years on earth, to somehow inherit an aerospace-level CNC machine shop and 3D print capability, unlimited access to OEM & raw materials, plus CNC/3D data for all my automotive heroes... then set about Frankensteining for 48 glorious months, with proceeds from sales of half going to the ACLU...

... then…

No.

812 Chancretta Aperta

Word. I remember my ancient Yamaha FZR600R having stacks, and that was a new bike back in 1989... of course motorcycles have used side-draft (side-draught?) and downdraft individual carbs, since carburetors were first used on multis.

One thing that I’d noticed on modern carbed & injected sportbikes that was…

Cars:

Parents had a ‘82 wagon... best friend in the military and I both had pre-VTEC hatches. Then I got another brand and missed all of Honda’s super-brill years (CRX, I still pine for you...).

I’ve lived in many cities, in a few countries, and driven and rode in all sorts of weather. Ladders atop a work vehicle by far are the best telltales for dick drivers, whether dawdling in the left lane, or methed-out Mario Carting.

Three words: Seattle motorcycle commuting...

Commuted on I-90 thru Seattle to Bellevue daily, all weather, all times of year. Naturally there were days I drove because it was just too insane to be single-tracking it, but really was less than a week a year.

Have a look around at the kind of people who ride your local bus... not surprised at all...

Then again the guy who rammed his $35K Tacoma pickup at 40 mph into a bus in service drove, so that’s a counterpoint. May be a bus rider after this cluster, though...

Rap’s flavor of Pidgin is 1) of that time, the ‘70s — well out of lexicon, and 2) a subdialect from city Locals (O’ahu, obviously). Us Mauians I guess speak Pidgin kinda boring... the same exchange is as follows for us neighbor island flunkies:

This, plus all the other utter garbage I’ve experienced trying to buy a car from Kiaundai, give me no choice but Japan when getting a daily driver. Not that Hondas empirically have the dominance they used to in the industry by any measure (definitely not Toyota either)... but Ford/GM-like shens as this, aren’t in…

When I was overseas, *almost* bit on a 5.0 manual notchback, same vintage, just red. Worked at a exotic car rental in HS and got to know the 5.0 convertibles... rented them when I got back on leave. So when the correct 5-spd notchback I’d been reading was the one to have popped up in Germany, of all places...

... nope.…

Absolutely. The 787B’s R26B had them (though to be honest, any rotary needs as much powerband-filling tech as practically-possible) way back in 1991... its predecessor had two-step variable runner length, like us in coach now...

In the bike world... Suzuki’s dual-throttle-blade venturis accomplished much of the intake…