TSG's Unified Fleet Thread

[GB]

A lot of us have been on all the various GT boards for 15-odd years or more and I think, with very few exceptions, we all consider ourselves friends of one-another. This holds true whether or not we have met "IRL" or not. And many of us are Facebook friends and get glimpses into each other's home lives, and that's something for which I am grateful.

And there's some others that we've been in contact with for a decade, and have never even seen a photo of them.

So when I read posts and have a dialog with those I've never seen or met, I try to imagine what they might look and sound like. For tsg, for unknown reasons I've always imagined him looking a bit (but not exactly) like an actor by the name of Loren Dean.



I'm here to report that he looks nothing like that.

And we had a great afternoon at Petersen Automotive Museum.

Thanks for spending some time with my family and me on Thursday. What a spectacular venue Petersen is! Would have been nice to have a little more time to sit down for a meal together, but like you said, that will have to be a goal for our next meeting.

[Random]

[thesameguy]

It was indeed a good time - it was a great diversion from my trip and I was stoked all the timing came together like it did. It was really fortunate on every level!

[thesameguy]

Some other things:

The Sprinter netted me 21mpg. I kept it between 65 and 70 pretty religiously. Aside from electronic nannies, it was a solid drive and never felt fatiguing. I'm pretty sure those warnings will get turned off on the way back.

My rental was a Ford Fusion Hybrid that came with 11,000 miles on the clock. Pretty new. I turned it in after adding about 900 miles. The initial driving was all within SoCal - Oxnard to Santa Monica, to Rancho, to Santa Paula. I kept to a bit over the speed limit mostly, a fair amount of traffic but very little stop & go. Before I left, I had the average fuel economy up to 53mpg, which is pretty amazing. On the way out, I took Highway 33 from Santa Barbara out to ... Shafter? Some little town between Bakersfield and Visalia. 33 is two lanes and *super* twisty, with repeated ascents and descents in the 3000-5000' range. I wasn't racing, but I wasn't taking it easy. Once of the open road, it was 80-85 pretty consistently. That netted me 44mpg. Still pretty great.

The Fusion was comfortable, but I found the cloth seats to lack grip and over time I'd literally slide down in them. It would become uncomfortable til I wrenched myself back up and then I was fine for another hour or so. Never a problem in day to day driving, but annoying on a road trip. Otherwise, it was comfortable and easy to drive. Absolutely criminal understeer - something you'd not notice in normal driving but was omnipresent on 33 - head into a turn and then halfway through need to ratchet the steering down further. It was a little disconcerting until I got used to it, and then it was just jarring. Hard to be mad at that when you're driving a commuter boat. As I mentioned earlier the hybrid system worked great - watching the gauge show the power mix (engine vs. motor) was interesting - if you couldn't see it, you'd never have any clue what sort of blend was happening it was so smooth. From my perspective, it seems like the electric system needs to get beefed up - it's *impossible* to keep up with traffic and stay on the motor - anything more than 5% throttle (yielding a guestimate 30 second 0-60) means the engine is kicking in, so it's essentially impossible to do any stop & go on electric. It will cruise effortlessly at 30-60mph on the motor, but *any* increased throttle and you're burning gas. Obviously this works - 53mpg is great - but it seems a small bump on the EV side would yield big gains. This car does not have a lot of power - some of the climbs on 33 were literally full throttle - but it's not a problem around town. And, really, not a problem on the road... just don't expect much. The car has a LOT of buttons, they're everywhere, but it's laid out thoughtfully and ergonomically. Once I figured out what they all did I was able to ignore 95% of them. I liked most of Ford's feature implementation - the display was easy to use, the rotary gear selector worked great, stereo controls were intuitive. All good stuff. I don't care what *anyone* says, proximity keys are the bomb... I really liked just hopping in, pressing start, dialing drive and going. Upon arrival, just press stop - it automatically shifts into park and you're done. That's good stuff, technology helping rather than just hanging around looking cool. It did not have an automatic park brake which I thought was weird considering it was electric, but maybe there was some engineering reason. Although I believe in using the park brake, I didn't.

Overall, I liked the car. In a vacuum, I'd buy one. I think MSRP is like $27k (Hybrid SE) which seems like a value. Buuuuuut.... I think I prefer $7000 XJR and $20,000 worth of gas. So, no sale Ford!

[thesameguy]

Well, got plane tickets to go back to SoCal Thursday night and pick up the Sprinter. It's been a long time since I've logged so many miles so quickly. Oh well, gotta get paid!

In the interim, against all logic, the parts I ordered from the UK arrived. It took six days - Wednesday to Monday, which is absolutely unreal. Stuff from the east coast doesn't arrive that quickly.... and UPS is who transported it from PA to CA! So weird. It does look exciting:



Well, it looks exciting if you're into limited-production cast aluminum parts that connect oddball motors to ultra common transmission.

Also included are a few parts needed to make the clutch work:



I am blown away that the clutch fork - which is from an RS2000 BTW - comes brand new in a Ford bag. Did not see that coming. How come I can't buy XR4Ti parts but they can buy RS2000 parts? I call foul!

I didn't expect things to arrive anywhere near this quickly, so they're just going to have to sit around for a month. I need to figure out what I'm doing for an engine - finding a 2.3l is easy, but finding the good "R" version is a bit more difficult. That got me thinking about maybe going another route entirely - putting a 2.0 in it instead. It's a loss of some displacement, but the shorter stroke means the smaller motor is a bit more responsive and responds better to redline increases. There are plenty of formulas for hitting my target output, and I have the advantage of a bigger engine bay and more room up front for an intercooler. The idea of a 2.0t with an 8k redline (it's been done - new valves, cams, solid lifters) makes me giddy. Down the road, if I decide the 2.0 isn't cutting it, externally the motors are the same so no work is lost. It's an upgrade path!

That, unfortunately, brings me back to Charlotte. Taking her apart just for some T5 parts seemed unnecessary, but if I could repurpose that engine and fuel injection system for the XR and repurpose the top hydraulics for the Viggen, well, that does change things. I already indicated that her caretaker either needs to buy her or give her back at the end of August, so that works out for me - it's either two grand to buy a different car, or parts. Not bad.

[thesameguy]

I forgot the other item that came from the UK:



A boring looking selection of metal bits, that when skillfully assembled by a highly trained craftsman allow one to place a Duratec in a RWD configuration. There is nothing complex here, but those beefy plates save me from a lot of work. Even if I don't use the rest of the parts the plates were worth the $100 or so they cost to me. I'm undecided on those basic rubber mounts (the shiny tubes) - they're probably fine in Locost or whatever, but I'm not sure it's what I'd want in the Falcon. I may get a generic biscuit mount kit and go that route. We'll see. I'm just (oddly) happy I found a reason to place a bigger order with rwdmotorsports.com, as I was struggling with spending $40 on shipping $100 worth of metal that might have mostly gone to waste anyway.

[thesameguy]

Monday morning at 5pm I hopped in the Aero and hauled ass down to Walnut Creek to have the Takata airbag replaced. I haven't really driven it since I bought it - I handed the keys over and the only seat time I've gotten since is pulled it around back for work. Not very exciting. Traffic on I80 in the morning is pretty exciting - a mix of people half asleep doing 50 and a people already late for work in SF doing 80. It gets a little dicey sometimes when the two groups mix. About halfway between Sacramento and Walnut Creek a group of cars *blew* by me. I double checked the speedo to be sure I hadn't fallen into the 50 group. Nah, never happened. Carpe diem, I mashed the throttle. I had forgotten how insanely fast the Aero is - 80-110 in a but puckering moment closed the gap and then clicked off a few miles at 90-something.

The 9-3 is a very weird car... around town it's nice, but doesn't feel special. Honestly, not as planted as a contemporary 3-series, not at solid. What's crazy is how great it feels at freeway++ speeds. Everything just kinda clicks into place and it does exactly what you want it to. Brakes are stellar, transmission on point, a mountain of torque at your beck and call. The faster parts of the journey took me back to my friend's Vector at Buttonwillow... a great drive!

I dropped the car at the dealer, walked a couple blocks to a Hertz, and picked up a rental Sonata. womp womp Funny story, when I met GB over at Petersen, we commented that family sedans are family sedans and largely interchangeable. I think I need to revise that. I wrote down my notes on the Fusion - it was an understeering festival, but an otherwise nice car. The Sonata I have less positive things to say. You know, all the current Hyundais look pretty nice outside, and the '17 Sonata is no exception. Inside, I went back and forth marveling how damned gigantic it felt and how it somehow captured the essence of a 2000 Avalon so perfectly. Like, not bad, but nothing good. Everything about the driver's seat experience was just mushy. Mushy motor, transmission, suspension, brakes, interior. It's like a 75% Fusion. If your only comparison was an oval Taurus you'd be like, "Wow, nice car!" but after driving a direct competitor... I'd take the competitor every day of the week! MUSHY!!! And I don't know why I felt so damned small in the thing. Very disconcerting. On the upside, it knocks out 33-35mpg at 80 on the freeway, and that's not bad. Probably makes a hell of an Uber.

Tuesday night I flew down to Burbank and hopped in the Sprinter to bring it home. The folks doing the work were kind enough to meet me at the airport, saving a two hour round trip out to Ventura. The drive home was largely uneventful, although I am growing increasingly enamored with Sprinters. Rock solid at 75mph, getting 18-20mpg, and just a hint of turbo whistle accompanying me down the road. It's just a nice ride, totally comfortable for 400 miles in the middle of the night. It's parked in the driveway right now, kinda trying to work out a way I can use it a bit before I hand it back over. "Hey guys, can I borrow your brand new $150k limo please? kthx." Hmmm. I don't see that going over very well. Although I do likely have to take it to SF next week, so that's not bad.

Other than that, Chez TSG is on full brakes. The doggie agitated her 2014 injury which will necessitate a surgery next Monday; they'll be removing the implant. That was always on the table - sometimes it stays, other times it goes. I was hoping to have another year or two before that came up, but ~2 years is not atypical. The bone screws are loose and likely the source of some discomfort or pain, so they gotta go. Fingers crossed her body has healed and the implant is unnecessary now, but it's possible that is not the case. Best case is a couple weeks of rest, worse case is a couple months of PT, worst case is a bone fusion. Working in a law firm, I can say bone fusions are never good. Better than nothing, but never good. Given the cost and care commitment, pretty much everything I'd otherwise be doing is not happening. SPG is on hold, Saab Convention is cancelled, XRSaabti is pushed out. Really bummed out about all of this, but she gets whatever she needs and she deserves all of it. It's difficult enough to manage work commitments and dog requirements together - adding anything else is an impossibility. I felt like things were finally really rolling along smoothly in '17, guess it figures that couldn't last.

[novicius]

Was hoping to see some updates on the Viggen. Hope the puppy heals up quick!

[thesameguy]

Me too. Gonna need to order another battery tender because it's not going anywhere for a while.

[21Kid]

Was hoping to see some updates on the Viggen. Hope the puppy heals up quick!

Agreed.