Back from Miami..

Okay so it's five in the morning. I got home from the airport at 10pm, spent about 2 hours putting in my newly-rebuilt CV axle (shameless plug for Marty at raxles.com: higher-than-OEM quality remans for $149 + s/h and a real neat sticker), took the car out for a drive at 12:30..

impressions after not driving the car for a couple of weeks:

it's TOO powerful! haha!! oh this is great!!! once i got out of the mud ruts and frostheaved pavement, I stomped the go-pedal and spun the tires just a little bit on the cold & wet road. I attribute the "increased sense of power" to only driving a sub-100hp Jetta TDI for the past coule weeks, and also to the fact that I'm running without an AC belt. I get the feeling that this frees up a reasonable amount of power (imagine running an underdrive pully AND no AC belt!) in that i've been driving with a sticky (read: power-sapping) compressor for the past few months.

so the miami trip was cool, great, whatever.. unfortunately i have no tales of debauchery or goings on so that you old, married folks can re-imagine your younger days through my eyes.

here's the first Offical Miami Vacation Photograph.. you can't actually SEE the car i'm in, which is a crying shame, since i think everyone here should take a long, hard look at every aspect about it with the rather important exception of its torque curve..

(hint: can we say "another rotor please?")

[Mr. Pockets]

Originally posted by alacrity024
so the miami trip was cool, great, whatever.. unfortunately i have no tales of debauchery or goings on so that you old, married folks can re-imagine your younger days through my eyes.

Brilliant.

Yeah, I really dig the RX-8. I want to drive one before I pass my ultimate judgement on it, though. The numbers on the torque curve may mean absolutely nothing to me is the car drives well enough.

[Chicane]

I could be wrong here, but I believe the AC belt doesn't matter unless the AC is on. Most modern cars turn off the compressor and just sorta let the AC clutch 'spin' upon hard acceleration so it doesn't sap any power.

[Mr. Pockets]

Originally posted by Chicane
I could be wrong here, but I believe the AC belt doesn't matter unless the AC is on. Most modern cars turn off the compressor and just sorta let the AC clutch 'spin' upon hard acceleration so it doesn't sap any power.

You're correct, Rob. Unless the AC is on, the compressor clutch keeps the compressor from running. You could argue that there's still a little power lost by just turning the belt, idler and clutch - but that couldn't be noticable.

yeah, you're both right.. under normal circumstances, a very negligible about of power is sapped from the engine by the AC compressor when it is not running.. however for the past few months, my compressor has been sort of broken so that it is REALLY hard to spin.. you know how you can sort of just spin the wheel on the outside? yeah.. it takes a whole lot of force to get that wheel to move just a little bit on mine.. fortunately i've got a month or two before it gets hot enough up here in NH to warrant a replacement..

btw, I spotted an SVX near the intersection of Lincon and Alton roads in miami.. it was red with the side emblems and a bra on the front. i saw the guy start it up.. sounded like it needed some exhaust work.. then he backed out of a parking space, put it in drive and just sort of sat there with traffic building up behind him for awhile before finally taking off.. probably needs a new transmission with that exhaust..

-adam

[Landshark]

wow, look at that rear legroom! why did they bother with the rear doors - if you're small enough to fit in that back seat you could just squeeze through one larger door.

i don't really like the way the RX-8 looks, but i saw a pic of one with a aftermarket front bumper and it looked WAY better!