Topic: What did you do to your car today?

[rrocket]

^^^^

[ChaosphereIX]

detailed the Alfa. Damn, is she shiny! Getting her pre-prepped for the Italian Car parade in Ottawa next weekend.

Next: getting her practically straight piped. The induction noise is fantastic, but the exhaust is too quiet. Looking at economic but effective options right now.

[blur911]

detailed the Alfa. Damn, is she shiny! Getting her pre-prepped for the Italian Car parade in Ottawa next weekend.

Next: getting her practically straight piped. The induction noise is fantastic, but the exhaust is too quiet. Looking at economic but effective options right now.

A friend installed a solenoid activated valve in his muffler that basically straight-piped his 280Z at the flick of a switch. 
There were two outlets from the muffler, only one went through any baffles.

[ChaosphereIX]

detailed the Alfa. Damn, is she shiny! Getting her pre-prepped for the Italian Car parade in Ottawa next weekend.

Next: getting her practically straight piped. The induction noise is fantastic, but the exhaust is too quiet. Looking at economic but effective options right now.

A friend installed a solenoid activated valve in his muffler that basically straight-piped his 280Z at the flick of a switch. 
There were two outlets from the muffler, only one went through any baffles.

I had that on the Mini. Took it off. No thanks.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Took the GLI to wand wash GBA pointed out. It's at least cleanish now. I'll have to get some waterless wash stuff.

Now I remember why I like white cars.

[Ex-airbalancer]

Took the GLI to wand wash GBA pointed out. It's at least cleanish now. I'll have to get some waterless wash stuff.

Now I remember why I like white cars.

Did you buy black ?

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Yup. Pearl Black, which looks absolutely great for about 20 seconds.

[Ex-airbalancer]

Yup. Pearl Black, which looks absolutely great for about 20 seconds.

Had One black car , that was enough
Silver / grey is best colour , same colour as dry salt 
But boring

[valuator]

Yup. Pearl Black, which looks absolutely great for about 20 seconds.

Had One black car , that was enough
Silver / grey is best colour , same colour as dry salt 
But boring

As the owner of two black vehicles, I totally agree.

[Neutron]

I finally managed to fix my car's infotainment system!

So lemme clarify, a while back I was trying to update my car's CMU firmware and ended up bricking it lol.

Some context, Mazda has 2 files for the firmware update: failsafe and OS. You should not reboot the system (ie don't restart the car) between updates. Why you say? Because their failsafe is not a failsafe at all actually. If the system detects a version discrepancy when booting it won't boot into failsafe, instead it won't start at all and you're greeted with a black screen instead of your precious MZD connect infotainment system.

Well, I didn't know, and I restarted the car between updates which basically prevented my infotainment from booting again. Replacing the CMU would be at least 300 CAD for a used CMU compatible with my vehicle + tax and shipping + installation and programming fees. That I wasn't willing to pay. I decided to look online for a solution, and after much digging I found a way to directly inject code into the onboard flash chip of my CMU that will force it to boot from failsafe and allow me to install the compatible OS version. What I needed to do is to connect the flash directly to something that can talk to it, namely the GPIO pins on a raspberry Pi, and then use a piece of software called flashrom (which is a Linux console program) to modify the boot file on the cmu. Here are a few pics of the process (excuse my crude wiring):









The most difficult part was actually removing the trim and then the CMU that's behind it, and I couldn't do it so I just paid an electrician to do it for me, meaning the whole thing cost 25 CAD. A far cry from the 400+ CAD for replacing the CMU.

[blur911]

^Very cool, love it when you can do something like that.  The sense of satisfaction is also worth as much as the money saved.

[Neutron]

^Very cool, love it when you can do something like that.  The sense of satisfaction is also worth as much as the money saved.

Thanks! Yup it was a rush lol. I've always been interested in circuits and coding and I finally managed to put it to use lol (it's not what I study nor what I do for a living). The Raspberry Pi itself came from my TV, as I use it for streaming sorta like an Apple TV replacement lol

[mlin32]

^Very cool, love it when you can do something like that.  The sense of satisfaction is also worth as much as the money saved.

Thanks! Yup it was a rush lol. I've always been interested in circuits and coding and I finally managed to put it to use lol (it's not what I study nor what I do for a living). The Raspberry Pi itself came from my TV, as I use it for streaming sorta like an Apple TV replacement lol

That's very cool. I remember I did some easy coding changes to the MZD Connect system- most notably disabling features which are absurdly locked while in motion but as a very, very unskilled technical person I was rather afraid of bricking it. I can't even fix my own computers at home 

[rrocket]

Came outside to leave for work...tire flat to the rim.  Sigh...of course...because TOMORROW I'm scheduled to get my new tires put on.

Ran in the garage, got my jack.  Jack, jack, jack, jack!

Grabbed my impact gun....Bzz, bzz, bzz, bzz.

Tire off, in the garage.  Grabbed my tire puncture repair kit.  Ream hole, apply glue to plug...plug hole!

Fill with air, check for leaks with my spray bottle of ONR.  No bubbles.

Tire back on...and away to work.

Car wasn't out of service even 15 minutes!

I know it's still holding because I made it to work safely!    

[Bubba]

Took the GLI to wand wash GBA pointed out. It's at least cleanish now. I'll have to get some waterless wash stuff.

Now I remember why I like white cars.

Which one did he recommend?

[rrocket]

Yup. Pearl Black, which looks absolutely great for about 20 seconds.

Get some of the Meguiar's stuff I've been talking about.

Wash car.  Dry car.  Then apply.

You'll be glad you did.  Easier to keep clean..and I notice it seems to repel dust/pollen more than expected.

[Great_Big_Abyss]

Took the GLI to wand wash GBA pointed out. It's at least cleanish now. I'll have to get some waterless wash stuff.

Now I remember why I like white cars.

Which one did he recommend?

River City Car Wash, but only because it's closer.  My personal go-to is Blondies.

[Seafoam]

Had a tire blowout in the truck a few weeks ago. Ended up getting one of my snowtires mounted after a friend brought it out to me . I knew I wouldn't be able to get the spare down. It would be totally seized up in there. So today I freed it up and coated the mechanism with grease and undercoating. When I got it  down it was coated in 20 years of mud and road debris with a pressure reading of about 10 lbs . Not surprising since it hadn't moved in 20 years. It was actually one of those spacesaver spares, not a real tire.
To those of you who have pickups with a spare  underneath the vehicle check them out occasionally to make sure they are functional and have air in them. I know most people would probably call CAA but it doesn't hurt to know how to do it.

[johngenx]

Broke all the bolts loose on the Forester yesterday to see if I could do a complete brake job.  And for the first time in this car's history with me, they all come loose with just a breaker bar and some Liquid Wrench.  Honestly, I'm shocked.

I buttoned it back up, will buy parts in the next few days and next week replace the pads and discs.

[rrocket]

New tires on the IS-F...finally!