The Spechtacle

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Author: Greg (Page 7 of 14)

No speedo… no sweat.. GPS to the rescue…

January 25, 2009 / / 0 Comments

gps

My speedometer in my Saab 9-5 quit last month. I traced the cause to a faulty brake control unit. It is the brain that controls the brakes when traction control and electronic stability control is in action. These are cool things cars have nowdays that really do help a mediocre driver keep control of his car. I don’t think it helps people that know how to drive, but is handy nonetheless.

The brake control unit (also known as the TCS) couldn’t read the wheel speed sensors anymore. This is how the car knows how fast it is going. This data is sent over the bus (the cars network) to all the other control units that need to know the wheel speed, such as the engine control unit (ECM) and the dash gauges (MIU). So now the speedometer doesn’t know how fast the car is going.

It took a week to get the parts, but in the meantime, I remembered my old handheld Magellan Sport Trak map GPS unit I had laying around. It had a screen that shows how fast your going, and since it was time based and corrected gps, it was a hell of a lot more accurate than the cars speedo. The cars speedo was calibrated at the time of manufacture and is based on lots of variables, including tire size. The tires on the car now are close to the rolling radius of the original tires, but not exactly. An error of 6% is widely accepted in the industry, and it’s always factored upward so that the car is always going slower than the speed shown. Car manufacturers don’t want their customers getting tickets all the time.

The gps was cool, because I always also knew my altitude. I was surprised to find my daily commute was also about 300 feet uphill. These gps units are digital, which means the price comes down dramatically every year, so cars should be getting these things to run their speedometers other than some built in algorithm. And it would be a lot more accurate.

greg

The economy and the invisible barbed wire fence…

January 15, 2009 / / 0 Comments

When I was a kid, I was lucky to have woods to run in. One day, in a fit of youthful exuberance, I was running down a creekbed at full speed when WHAM! I found myself laying on my back in the creek, dazed, confused and bloody. The day before a neighbor put up a new barbed wire fence around his property, and it ran across this creek directly in my path. Laying there, I still couldn’t see it as I had lost my glasses in the encounter. What happened?

I think the same thing happened to the world’s economy. It was running pell mell straight into an invisible wall and BLAMO! We still don’t know what we hit. I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now.

One thing I do know, the barbed wire fence didn’t keep me out of the woods, but I did have to change how I did things.

greg

Saab V6.. 4 quart engine, 3 quart hole…

January 9, 2009 / / 2 Comments

saabv6001

Since 2006, some select Saab 9-3s come with GM’s new (for the time) global V6 engine. For you techie types, the 2.8 liter engine comes to the U.S. with 250 hp (less in the ROW- rest of the world) and 258 ft. lbs of torque. For once the U.S. gets the hot engine. Made from a clean sheet of paper, its a 60 degree v motor (reduces vibration), 9.5 to 1 compression ratio (more power), and almost everything possible is made from aluminum (light weight).

This motor (B238L) was designed from go to be turbocharged, unlike it’s predecessor, B308 which was not. The B308 was an Opel engine that Saab designed some heads for, with belt driven cams and later ones had an asymetrical turbo run from the front bank of cylinders. This motor liked to shed belts and it’s belt drive mechanism was redesigned a couple of times. It was not well liked by technicians. You really didn’t get much power difference from the simpler 4 cyl cars either. The B308 came in some 1995-98 900 models, and some 1999-2004 9-5’s.

The B238L has some good features. The cams are chain drive, which all 4 cyl Saab turbos have been all the way back. The cams have variable drive, which is a way of changing the cam profile (something inherently unchangeable because the cams are cast in steel) for better drivability and power at different load conditions. The piston rings are stainless steel, the connecting rods are fractured (for more secure connection) and the pistons are graphite coated and oil cooled. This was all race car stuff just a few years ago. It’s a cool motor.

And the turbo is cool too. It runs 9 pounds of boost, and has a twin scroll design. Unlike it’s 308 predecessor, the turbo is symetrical (uses both banks of exhaust) and the twin scroll takes advantage of the exhaust pulses to spin up faster. The waste gate is electronically controlled by a pwm signal (pulse width modulated) from the engine’s ecu to keep the turbo spinning on lift off, for better response when your put your foot in it again.

However this engine completely fills up the space alloted to it. Technically this isn’t a problem, as the motor is not bigger than the space it resides in. But it does make for creative repair techniques when you can’t get your hands around it.

I guess you could say that Saab and General Motors aren’t so much car manufacturers as packaging companies.

greg

A mere vulgar craftsman….

January 9, 2009 / / 1 Comment

chinesepainting2a

I was listening to a podcast this morning out of Australia on ancient Chinese history, on my way to work in southern Ohio, on my Japanese MP3 player in my Swedish car. (kinda global, isn’t it…) The speaker was talking about acient Chinese landscape painters, and how they thought it below their dignity to be paid for their work. In fact, they thought it would make them mere vulgar craftsmen, something to be despised.

Also lately I’d been reading The History of the Ancient World, and the discussion of Ancient Greece, about 500 B.C. Chester Starr was relating the fact that none of the ancient Greeks would work for anybody. Even the lowest Greek on the totem pole scratching around on his plot of dirt was too proud to work for wages. His activity was aimed at getting together a couple of bucks so that he could buy some slaves to do all the work for him.

So what’s up with that?

Seems to me, if it wasn’t for all these vulgar craftsmen who did all the work, there wouldn’t be any classical civilization, and all these guys would have starved to death before they got anything accomplished.

Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I like being a craftsman. I fix machines that have come to grief is some way or other and make them right again. And I get a check every week for doing it. And once you start fixing one kind of machine, you never stop there. You start fixing everything, cars, computers, cell phones… whatever gets in your way that’s broken. It becomes a way of life. I can’t stand not knowing how something works, and that does become problematic in this day and age, as even the engineers that think this stuff up don’t understand it.

However, here’s to the Chinese guy, I hope some vulgar guy makes him some paint!

greg

Wheel locks

January 7, 2009 / / 0 Comments

saabwheel2

With the advent of cool aluminum wheels, wheel locks have become more popular. These are strange looking little things with an odd looking head made of high strength steel that need a special tool that locks into it to remove the wheel.

locks

The neat thing is that while some of tools interchange, there are not many duplications. And it’s really hard to get the wheel off if you don’t have the tool. So in this respect they’re great. However if you loose the tool you’re in for it.

Tool manufacturers make all sort of devices to get them out if the tool is lost, but it’s a throw of the dice if your wheel doesn’t get ruined in the process. Some wheel designs really make it harder by putting the lug nuts down some deep hole.

Personally, I don’t want taking a wheel off to be any harder than it is. The tool is small and easily lost, or left behind in a garage that is servicing your car. The Chinese make wheels cheap now that will match yours, like here.

To lock them down or not to, that is the question…

greg

Ancient History… very confusing…

January 7, 2009 / / 1 Comment

historyofancientworld

Been reading a good book lately, The History of the Ancient World by Chester G. Starr. I’ve been hung up on the transition from cave men to civilized men (?), and Chester’s book covers that transition up till the fall of the Roman Empire. This is arguably an artificial limit to ancient, but you got to cut it off somewhere.

I’ve learned loads of things I didn’t know about the ancient world, like a huge barbarian invasion (from who knows where) just before 1000 BC that brought the civilized world to it’s knees from Greece to Babylon and on to India. This precipitated a dark age that lasted 500 years before these areas got back on their feet. (I like a good dark age… I think were just entering one now.)

And the Romans having direct seaborne trade with India and China. It wasn’t a lot, A trip in a ship from Rome to China in 200 AD must have been pretty rough. It was rough on sailors in the 17th Century, much less the second century. But the thought of a Roman trading ship sailing into Shanghai harbor is pretty cool.

I’m wrapping up this book, and I’m getting close to the part where the Christian faith takes over the Roman Empire, but ol’ Chester just threw me a religious and philosophical curve ball… and I quote..

“Neoplatonism, as measured by Christianity, could not truly formulate a metaphysical explanation of human individuality in relation to transcendental unity, and it could not excise the defects of it’s pagan inheritance.”

What?

greg

DIY FW190… Update..

January 4, 2009 / / 0 Comments

fw190

In May of ’08, I wrote a blog about building your own Focke Wulf 190. The inspiration for this blog was the FW190 project going on at our local attraction, the Tristate Warbird Museum, in Batavia, Oh. This project has been going on for a few years, and they hope to fly it in 2010.

This particular bird was built early in 1944, and was written off late in 1944. Some more parts of it were recovered at the crash site in 2000, and are being used to finish it. The airframe was rebuilt by Flug Werk, and the 4 guys who work at the museum are finishing it. Parts for these old birds are being scavenged the world over and are principally found on the internet. There is a small tight knit community of airplane enthusiasts whose passion is to see these birds fly again.

chinesemotor

The plane is painted to represent the “Red 13” of Heinz Barr, who had accumulated over 200 victories, the last of which were in German jets. He was shot down over Soviet lines, and 17 other times, and flew over 1000 missions. He like to fly but never wanted to be a fighter pilot. Recognizing his ability, his mates talked him into it.

This aircraft in impressive in person, and showcases the abilities of the museum staff. They are also working on a P-40 flown by New Zealands top scoring ace….

but that’s another story.

greg

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