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AutoNotes #14, 06/06/94 copr. 1994, Dave Williams
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Big Brother Is Watching You: Jerome Lemelson of New York patented a
parking meter that radios the police when your time expires.
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Big Brother Is *Really* Watching You: Nissan's AP-X show car has a
dashboard-mounted camera continuously monitoring the driver's face.
If the onboard computer decides you look sleepy, it sounds an alarm
and emits a stench to wake you up.
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Jaguar's new anti-theft package consists of microdots - real, James
Bond type microdots - with the vehicle's serial number. You scatter
the microdots all around the car. Jaguar says there are so many of
the dots and they're so hard to find, that criminals would never find
them all. One wonders if the police could find them either.
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Remember re-refined oil? The super-cheap sludge you used to put into
your old beater to fog mosquitoes with? It's back! The new kid on
the block is Enviroil. Yum, yum. They're claiming a SG/CD rating and
the API Energy Conservation II rating. Packaged in convenient green
bottles so your enviro-Nazi friends know you're doing your part for
the Cause.
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Dow Chemical has developed a new type of paint. It's based on a
relative of Teflon, and is said to be resistant to bird shit (hey,
don't laugh, it can eat right through to the metal!), bugs, tar, and
the usual auto grunge. They're also working on a variant to paint
subway and telephone equipment - Dow says most graffiti will wipe
right off. No word yet on the actual product name.
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Rankinton Stainless Steels Ltd. of England has introduced a new
coolant called (gag) FORLIFE, all caps. It has been marketed in
Europe for seven years under both the Carburol FORLIFE and Toyota
brand names. It has corrosion inhibitors, antifreeze properties to -
20F, boils at 220F, has a recommended change interval of five years,
and costs $14 per gallon. And you don't mix it with water - the major
selling point is that you use it straight. My handy Chilton's manual
shows the average car uses between 5 and 7 gallons of coolant. Lots
of Americans live in places where -20F protection is no protection at
all, and 235F thermostats aren't all that uncommon on modern cars.
I'm afraid Rankinton's product doesn't look so hot.
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According to Harper's Index as quoted in R&T, the average American
spends six months of his entire lifetime waiting at red lights.
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The four-valve heads on the Aston Martin Virage were developed by
Callaway, of turbo Corvette fame. The British are normally very
inbred with their designs. Strange Cosworth or Weslake or Ricardo
didn't design the heads.
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Mustang owners may have to worry about dogs chewing their air dams,
but even GM owners are at risk in California's Sequouia National Park.
Squirrelly things called marmots have damaged parked vehicles by
gnawing radiator hoses and wiring. And if you go to Yellowstone, the
bears just eat your whole car. Suddenly the 5 o'clock rush doesn't
look so bad any more.
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A group calling themselves the Highway Loss Data Institute claims
they have done a study which shows no statistical drop in wrecks of
ABS-equipped vehicles as compared to non-ABS-equipped vehicles.
Before putting too much faith into this sort of data, remember a lot
of people have a completely unrealistic (not to say outright bizarre)
idea of what ABS can do, and who knows who the "Highway Loss Data
Institute" is, anyway? Remember the important-sounding "Institute"
that staged the fake GM truck fires in 1991? The NHTSA's figures are
skewed enough, I put no faith at all in unknown organizations.
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GM says it will start offering daytime running lights on its '95
models. I really don't like this idea at all, no matter how wonderful
the Scandinavian countries and Canada think it is. The idea is, you
have a driver who's so mindless he can't see another car in the road
in broad daylight, but if the other guy's headlights are on, he'll see
him fine. There ought to be plenty of motorcycle data since 1973
(when the wired-on headlight was mandated) to show this is absolute
bullshit, but it's a *safety* thing, and you can't possibly be
*against* safety, can you?
You'll know me on the highway - I'll be the one flipping my lights at the '95s - "Hey, asshole - your headlights are on!"
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Achtung, mate: BMW just bought 80% of Rover. Honda owns the other
20%. BMW now has rights to all the Rover, MG, Triumph, Austin, Riley,
Range Rover, and other names and products. Honda is reportedly
annoyed at being partnered with BMW and is expected to sell off its
holdings.
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Mercedes-Benz has bought a chunk of Ilmor.
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The new-generation GM 3800 V6 (now almost a completely different
motor from the old 231) gets even more changes for next year - deck
height is to drop one inch, (say bye-bye to those nice long rods)
cross-bolted main caps, new balance shaft bearings, redesigned oil
galleries and new timing cover. The advertised numbers are
205hp@5200, 230ft-lb@4000. That's fairly high RPM for modern Detroit
V engines, but the peak figures compare favorably to the 5.0 Ford and
Chevy V8s.
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Back in the mid-'70s I doodled out a set of motorcycle-type reed
valves in the intake port of a heavily-cammed four stroke. It
would've reduced reversion a lot. Like many other thinks I've
doodled, it never went anywhere. Back in the early '80s Alfa Romeo
invented it on their own, and were going to put it into production.
They even claimed they'd patented it, though I'm not sure it's a
patentable idea. Warp ahead to 1994, and Alfa Romeo is issuing press
releases - they've just invented the reed valve intake port *again.*
Duh. Wha' happen?
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Toyota's AXV-V show car has a hydraulically-actuated air brake on the
roof. Big deal - it won't slow a car much at any legal speed in most
countries.
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Mercedes-Benz and pistonmaker Mahle (they also make pistons for
Harley-Davidson) have invented a variable-compression piston. It uses
oil pressure to adjust the height of the piston deck in relation to
the wristpin. Mercedes says "it could be used on future production
engines." I'd lay my money the other way - you'd have to feed the oil
through the rod, meaning sealing or continually compensating for
losses around the bearings. You'd have the weight of the oil in the
piston, plus the problems of the oil coking due to the heat. You'd
need to feed each rod off a separate main journal, and control the
pressure to each main individually. You could probably use a
combustion pressure sensor to tell how high the dome was at any given
time. Nah, I don't think it's worth it.
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If you've ever worked on a British car you've probably noticed they
won't use one coarse-thread bolt when they can use two or three fine
thread studs, a flat washer, a lock washer, and a nut. The Brits seem
to have a thing for multiplicities - double decker buses, dual gas caps
on Jaguars, three windshield wipers in MGs, etc.
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I don't know who's responsible, but the new BMWs and Mercedes look
like they were styled by the same guy - I have trouble telling them
apart when I meet them on the highway. Of course with today's toilet
trout styling, I have trouble identifying most cars I meet on the
highway. Detroit's stylists have finally succeeded in making the AMC
Matador look good. No mean feat. Probably the best looking of the
newer cars are the large Cadillacs. I can't believe I said that...
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