08 STI Test Drive

The Subaru / Gary Fisher MTB team was doing a little promotion - test drive any '08 Subaru and receive a free biking jersey. Considering the fact that I was planning on swinging by the stealership for parts, I figured I would get a free jersey out of the deal. I thought I would have to just drive a Legacy or base WRX just for the freebee, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Usually Subaru doesn't let people test drive STIs, but I managed to take one out. Blue and gold is a little beat, I would definitely go with white on the 5 spokes, but that's just me. Had to keep it under 4k rpm (only had 50 miles on the ticker) but oh well. The power delivery was still there a lot sooner than the 2.0 WRX, but duh, bigger motor. It was nice checking out what a stock STI feels like since my only seat time with an '08 was with Cobb's car that I posted earlier. Seats were nice, but definitely less support than previous years. The ride was super nice too even over crappy roads and on the freeway. They definitely made the '08 STI more liveable which is a plus for me as a daily driver.

Too bad buying a house comes first right now otherwise I would be all over this car. I was just in it for the free bike jersey. (I'll post pics when it comes in the mail for those who care.)

Rampage Jackson lost his damn mind..

I watch a little UFC/Pride stuff once and a while, but I want to make one thing clear... I am in no way, shape, or form one of those bros who wear Tap Out or Affliction shit. I just like watching people beat the piss out of each other.

Anyway, Rampage Jackson (who knocked out Chuck but lost his title to Forrest Griffin) recently made the news. After going on a road rampage (sorry, I had to do it), he was arrested after driving his massively lifted F350 over a few cars and down to Newport Beach, where he was finally detained.

Here is a tip for you would-be criminals. If you are going to run from the cops, don't use a monster truck with a life-size portrait of yourself on the side of it as your getaway vehicle...

Hell, a white Bronco would have been better


Apparently, he was too messed up to go to jail, so they hospitalized him. There are also mental health issues at hand, but I'm not sure about all the details. One thing I do know, I never want to run into Rampage... he lives in Irvine.

But honestly, who drives around in a monster truck with their mug plastered all over the side?
I don't think I would be able to pull it off...


"Better watch out, I hear after a few Appletinis, that guy's arm-bar is like an anaconda!"

Street Fighter IV

Check out the trailer from E3:



Can't wait...

Fun with Photography

The GF is taking a photography class and she had to work with panning/shutter speed. Having the digital SLR around helped things quite a bit since we could test out the settings without having to develop the film.



We started out leaving the shutter open with a moving light source and went overboard with the creativity. Once we realized things could be spelled out, the fun began.



After we came up with the tracing idea, we went inside where we could better control the lighting, and we did some cool stuff:




Pretty sweet.

Profeta Daniel

Found this picture taken of a statue of the Prophet (Profeta) Daniel in Brazil.


Upon closer inspection, I got a better look at the face:

Check out this sweet Rack

Pun intended.


Just picked up an OEM roof rack (factory EDM). It's pretty weak that Subaru doesn't offer this "load carrier" to the USA. I guess they think the WRX wagon is good enough for us 'Merikuns.

I had to order it from a dealer in the UK - Cheam Motors. It came in about a week, so I was stoked. The only downside is the current state of the dollar. The exchange rate blew, but it's worth it to have a factory rack.

Reason being, all Imprezas have a mount for the factory racks under the black strips on the roof, so the install was super easy. They also allow me to keep the JDM OE rain visors. The racks also just pop off whenever, and they only leave these tiny metal brackets.

It's not too noticeable from a distance, but I can definitely live with it.
To fasten the rack to those brackets, you just use the lever at each base.
You can see in this pic: Fastened:


The base's feet come in contact with the car under the weather strip, so there are no worries about the paint. You can't beat OEM parts for stuff like this. It's so much better when things are meant to worth with one another.

Here is a finished shot after a bath, as the sun was going down:


After the initial install the night before, I didn't have a chance to fit the end caps that go on the cross bars or these little rubber caps that seal off the bottom of the cross bars. The result was a nasty whistle that played in three distinct tones. One pitch at 20mph, the middle pitch at 30mph, and the highest at 40mph. It was hilarious. After completely finishing the install, the whistle was gone, but it was funny while it lasted.

Next thing I need to do is pick up the actual bike/snowboard racks that to attach to these cross bars, and maybe even a fairing. I'll probably get the Yakima High-Roller to hold the bikes, and the Yakima FatCat6 for snowboards, but that can wait until winter. Shit costs money.

K1 Speed - Karting

I took a bunch of my employees to K1 for lunch today, another perk of working in the automotive enthusiast industry. We currently have all of our assistants slaving away at getting all our archive articles up on the web, so we decided to give the project some incentive. Top performers will be rewarded at different stages of the project, the first round being a trip to K1 and lunch on the company.


K1 is pretty sweet. They have 5 locations total, 4 in SoCal and 1 in Seattle. It's not your typical bumper karts/amusement go-kart track. You have your own account (license they call it) and they keep track of all your race times. There is a little print out after each race, raking everyone in your group. They really cater to car people, and the facility is pretty sweet. If you are in the area, it's cool to check out if you care about racing / lap times. If you just want to tool around, go to Boomers or something.

Just for the record, I had the fastest lap time and fastest average time for the whole office.. no big deal.

Here is the track (1 of 2 at the Irvine location).

Link - http://www.k1speed.com/
(pictures jacked from K1's site)

HeroMachine 2.5

Create your own super hero. Awesome.
See what you can come up with.

HeroMachine LINK

I had to give him a light saber to compliment the numb-chucks, haha.
I'm going to spend too much time using this thing.

My New Wheels - One Gear Only

Picked it up this past weekend and I've rode it to work every day so far.

I wanted something cheaper and more simple than my Cannondale roadie bike for commuting purposes, so I decided on a single speed. Specialized has a line of bikes called Langster that are single speed city/commuter bikes, and come in different themes. Each model in the Langster series is named after a city. I went with the 'Chicago' since it's the sickest. Flat black frame, bull horn style bars, black crank, black components, sweet graphics, etc. It even says Gangster instead of Langster, lol, and has a little city scape with Al Capone on the top tube. All it needs is a set of red wheels.

Overall, I'm really stoked on the bike. I'm just going to leave the pedals that it came with on the there since they are just flats with the little straps for sliding regular shoes into. This makes it easier since I'll primarily be commuting and I don't feel like changing my shoes. All the components on the bike are bolted down (no quick releases) so I don't have to worry about locking the bike up outside of the office.

Price wasn't bad either. It was on sale before taking another 15% off for being a VeloSport team member of Rock and Road bike shop. So put it this way, I used my economic stimulus check and still went out to dinner. Thanks for the free bike, US Government. I'll be using it to stop buying gas.

Virtual Reality Head Tracking using Wii Remote

This might be WTLW for some of you ("welcome to last week") but I thought it was pretty incredible.

This dude Johnny Lee, aka Magoo, created this software that used the Wii remote and sensor bar to create a VR environment. Watch the whole thing, it's sweet.



It's pretty cool seeing what can be done with the existing technology. Why doesn't Nintendo utilize this?

This reminds me of a class I took on "New Digital Media" at UCI. There was a section on gaming where we explored the history (from the first mmorpgs to Wii, etc) and examined new ways to enter new dimensions of gaming. Needless to say, it was a sweet class, just too much work. The thing that trips me out is that this new dimension can be achieved using existing technology that is already in place. Pretty cool stuff.

This guy created a couple projects using the Wii remote and has them up on his website. I've actually seen the white board mod, our IT guy at work set one up - here is Johnny Lee's Wii project site

Cobb 08 STI - Follow Up

The article went live.

Click for LINK

These pics are a little better than the ones I posted

When a massive, full-size truck or SUV just won't do...

Saw a yuppie douche driving one of these behemoths around Irvine this morning on the way to work...

Same model as this picture, the GMC Topkick I believe. Now why on earth would anyone need something like this. It was basically like a personal use semi truck.

"World gas problems? Who cares.. Hey planet Earth, FUCK YOU!!"

You stay classy Orange County.

Project Cockpit: Part 4 - Basically Done

Part 4: I think I'm almost done?

I haven't really had much time to work on Project Cockpit (lol), aka project 40 year old virgin, but I did get the chance to mount the seat this past Saturday.

My pops helped me out with fabricating the seat brackets since I decided to just go with some inexpensive hardwood from Lowe's, and he's an old school furniture maker, wood worker, Bob Vila, etc. Growing up as a kid, we had a massive wood shop in our basement that would put shop class facilities to shame, so I knew it would be no problem. The only challenge that presented itself was the bottom of the gaming seat being rounded, since it was meant to rock, but it wasn't that big of an issue.

We started on the rear seat mount since we determined the rear mounting surface would remain flat after positioning the seat at the right angle. We used a hardwood horizontal support plank on top of hardwood blocks that would mount to the ABS piping. These blocks determined the height of the seat in relation to the steering wheel position, so it was important to get it right. Too high - it would be like driving a school bus, too low and it would be like an 8 year old trying to see over the dashboard.

Since the seat should be adjustable (front to back) we fabricated the blocks to clamp around the ABS pipe frame as seen here:
You can see how the outer blocks will clamp to the frame using knobs on either side. The inner blocks are screwed/glued to the plank while the outer blocks are held on with the bolts/knobs. The bottoms of the blocks were trimmed a little so that it would allow the cockpit to sit on the ABS when its on the floor. This will also allow the blocks to slide.

With the rear support finished, it was time to move to the front, which proved to be a little tougher. The mounting surface had to be angled in order to mount the curved-bottom, rocking, gaming seat. We used the same concept as the lower rear blocks (drilled in the middle so it can slide on the frame) but we had to get the angle just right. And since there are already 2 knobs to secure the seats location in the rear, the front blocks were just screwed together around the ABS frame, allowing the front to slide freely.


Here is the result (unpainted obviously):


I had to take the gaming chair apart to be able to drill the frame into the wooden brackets, and luckily it went back together without any issues. We just had to make sure the screws for the bottom seat cushion were accessible after mounting to the brackets.

Seating Impressions:
The front of the gaming chair came with a little handle on the front of its lower frame rail, so adjusting the seat is a breeze. Once it's adjusted and locked down by tightening the knobs, it's very secure and sturdy. The height of the seat is perfect, positioning the steering wheel right where it should be. The seat back angle is also where it needs to be. I'm really stoked on how it turned out. I also really like how the gaming seat folds up for better storage.










Only thing left to do is tidy everything up: Paint the seat brackets black, connect the speakers, maybe route the wiring inside of the ABS piping, etc. There is still a little work to be done, but I would say that the next installment (part 5) should wrap it up for Project Cockpit (lol). I will save the gameplay impressions for part 5..

Previous Installments:
Part 1 - The Beginning
Part 2 - The Wheel, Planning/Design
Small Update - Materials Acquired
Part 3 - Big Update - Frame Complete

Drove an 08 STI Today

Working for Source Interlink (formerly Primedia) has its perks. One of the other editors ended up with Cobb's 08 STI to tool around in, so I took it for a spin.

Although it was only lightly modded, it was still sweet to drive. I'll leave out most of the details since the story hasn't been published yet, but let's just say is wasn't much faster than my car. It just felt like a tighter, neater version with about 50-75 more horsepower and a 6-speed.

Didn't really have a chance to blast around turns, but I did get to tach it out in 2nd and 3rd. Pretty good tuning, you can tell its on the stock turbo, but it was still fun. It had some sticky tires that I wish I could have tried out a little more, but my drive was a little too short.

I can see where all the reviews are coming from that say the new STI is softer and more livable than the previous models. Even though it was modded, you could still feel how it mellowed out. I can only image how a stock STI must feel. But this is actually appealing to me considering how rough and annoying my current suspension set-up is on my WRX for daily driving.

The only downside was that I didn't get a chance to check out the new stock STI seats. Lots of Subaru fan boys have been flaming the 08's seats (probably because we got gypped on the Recaros... I don't blame them) but I couldn't tell you either way... it had some sweet Prodrive buckets in place of the stockers. Only thing was, they sat you on the floorboard. If I wasn't 6'2", I might have had a hard time with visibility, seeing as how Subaru appears to have raised the dash higher than previous models.

Bottom line, I want one. The new STI has gotten all this flack about the styling, but I really like it. Fast hatches / wagons are awesome. I totally regret not getting the WRX wagon (or an STI), and now that the new STI is a hatch, I want one. Badly. Cobb's car represents exactly what I want. Minimal mods to keep it street legal and daily drivable. Looks wise, this is exactly how I would roll - white on gold. They also took care of the nasty tail lights, adding some red tint.
How could you go wrong? A livable, manageable wagon (technically a hatchback) with 300+HP and all wheel drive?
And not to mention, this car smoked a new GT500 Mustang...

Trippy Optical Illusion

Pretty crazy. I want one.



I found out where to make your own - link
Good old google...

I've officially gone Blu

Well since HD DVD has been dead for a little while, I decided it was about time to go from red to blue. The PS3 is probably the best BluRay player out there, so it works out.


I wasn't really pulling for either format to win, I just went with HD DVD since I had a 360 instead of a PS3 at the time. The HD DVD add-on cost me around 70 bucks, came with 6 free movies and eventually led to a $50 rebate from Best Buy once it's death was announced. Ended up being ~20 bucks for 6 movies and a player. Not a bad deal. All the fire sales that followed HD's demise helped out a little as well. Even though HD DVD was a more finished product, it still lost. But I digress..


First few BluRays so far - Cars, Hell Boy, I Robot - chosen to demo the format, and it was awesome. Cars looked absolutely incredible. I Robot's effects looked awesome along with the sound being amazing and Hell Boy was just beautifully detailed, colored, and bad ass.


Best Buy currently has a 2 for $30 sale on certain titles, so I picked up Pans Labyrinth and Blade Runner 5 disk special edition (they are normally over 30 bucks a piece). I picked these up after I got Hell Boy and The Rock with the same sale. It's worth checking out, in-store or online.


Seems like their $50 rebate plan worked since I went right back there with my gift card to buy BluRay disks, LOL. Worked out for me too, spent 10 bucks on 4 BD movies. Overall, really stoked on BluRay, have a few more movies coming from Amazon and I updated my Netflix account to send BDs.


The top rack of my movie storage is so colorful now. It's almost getting to be half and half. It should be full of pretty blue cases soon... I'm such a dork.

Quote of the Week

Taken from a recent conversation today:

Me: Be there around 6. My Mom might be there so she can let you in.

Her: "Oh hey Mary Ann, I'm just going to be in Dan's room waiting for him with my clothes off"

--

Happy Friday.

Project Cockpit: Part 3 - Big Update

Part 3: Frame Completed

Project Cockpit (lol) saw a whole lot of progress since this past weekend. I had a chance to cement all the pieces together to finalize the frame as well as fabricate the mounts for the wheel and the shifter.

Here is the bare frame all cemented up and ready to rock:

The steering mount provided the biggest challenge since the cross support is a round piece of ABS plasic, not the best to clamp onto. The best solution that came to mind was to notch the top and bottom of the pipe, creating flat edges on top and bottom while using a piece of wood to ensure a solid clamp. Orginally I was going to use a piece of wood top and bottom, but the top stayed super secure just using the notched ABS plastic edge.

When I was testing out the measurements and cutting up a spare piece of ABS plastic, I found that it fit perfectly. Since it took forever to dremel out the perfect notches, I decided to use the test piece by chopping up the existing solid horizontal support and fasten the new center section with standard couplings. This actually provided additional support since the couplings were cemented close to the cuts. Also, doing it this way allowed me to angle the platform just right to ensure the wheel gets mounted at the right angle. Rather than trying to make sure the cuts were in the right place, I could just simply twist it to where it needed to be while the cement way drying (you can see in the pic above that it was all measured and marked with a line).
Here is a picture with the wheel mounted:
That sucker is not moving. Super solid.



The next part is something I am most proud of - the shifter mount.
The way it mounts to the frame allowed me to angle it slightly towards the driver and the height is also perfect. I built the platform out of wood (paint stirers to be exact, lol, so they were free). It's essentially a platform with 2 runners along the bottom that double as support and the clamp mounting surface. The Logitech shifter has a center vise clamp, so I put a wood block for that to mount to as well. The way I mounted it to the ABS pipe was simple. I just capped the end with a 2 inch fitting and bolted down into it.

Here is the result:
Also pretty solid and mounts the shifter perfectly secure:
I had the shifter planned out from the beginning and it came out perfect. It went from vision to design to construction, where as the steering mount was more of a "problem / soultion" type deal that ended up working out favorably.



Since I wanted to ensure Project Cockpit (lol) was storable, I left the front and the rear un-cemented with plans to find a way to temporarily attach the whole thing.
Problem solved:
You can see how the joining piece of pipe in between the sockets has been drilled to the front coupler, so the whole thing just separates leaving the seat behind for people to still sit in while the front end can be stored in a closet or something. (cost - $1 each, booya)

--

Needless to say, I'm incredibly stoked on how it's turning out. I tried it out by using a quick, temporary seat (my ottoman) and it's awesome. Really solid, no flex in the steering, perfect location of the shifter, etc. This is going to be bad ass...


Next and final installment: mounting the seat and squaring away the pedals. Stay tuned..

Stupid Car Forum Trends

Car forums are such a circle jerk. They can be really useful for buying and selling parts, catching up on news (although Autoblog usually does the best job), or good for laugh. Off topic sections are usually the best, but the part that actually deals with cars just bugs the shit out of me sometimes.

HDR - yay, let's all use a plug-in to pretend we are 'artsy'!
What's with the latest HDR fad? HDR stands for "High Dynamic Range" imaging (link) and it's actually pretty cool when used in moderation. The way you would create an HDR image is by taking 3 different exposures of the same image - one super exposed, one under exposed, and one just right - and combining the 3 to end up with something like this:


The result is sort of an exaggerated, fantasy-like photo. Pretty cool looking for photos of scenery, skies, etc... but super lame for car photos. If I'm checking out pictures of cars, I want to see the details of what the car really looks like, not some cartoonish, washed out attempt at HDR.

Here are some exampled that led the palm of my hand directly to my forehead:

Really? Am I on acid?
Are those 2 SVXs?!











I have no words for this one.













This would actually be a bad ass shot if the car wasn't in the picture. Don't get me wrong, it's a bad ass car, bad ass backdrop, but the car doesn't belong. It leaves me wanting to see the real photo of the car, and that takes away from the beauty of the scene behind it.


The thing that pisses me off the most, is that 90% of all "HDR" shots have the same 'photomatix' watermark all over the image since they all just used a plug-and-play program. Just cut the shit already. It was cool at first, but now it's just played out. Stop trying to be all artistic by using a filter.

On to rant number 2... Rotas.

Knock-off Wheels - I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.













































Why anyone would risk their 20-40 thousand dollar investment just to save a couple hundred bucks is beyond me. There is only 1 part of your car that actually touches the ground. Figure it out people.

DaTruth's blog said it best - please read

Stop "e" high fiving your buddies for buying the same crap. I'm sick of seeing the "offical rota thread" and the good old "post HDR pics!" thread.
They should be called "the offical I am a cheap ass who doesn't care about my car or passengers" thread and the good old "I pretend to be artsy by running my photos through a filter" thread.

You forum junkies should understand me when I say this. DIAF. Please.