Turn: 1, First Half of Big Bend
Description: The entry speed corner comes at the end of the main straight, so you want to maximize what speed you're able to gather (about 110 MPH in the MX-5) by braking as late as possible. Since the entry is very wide and the curve is relatively gentle, that means you're going to be shedding that speed while turning.
Gear: Starting in 5, finishing in 3.
Difficulty: High
Method: Brake gently at the last braking marker and turn in, heading in a straight line towards the apex. Now brake harder, shifting into 4th, then 3rd. Keep the car around the middle of the track as you approach turn 2.

Turn: 2, Second Half of Big Bend
Description: A late apex in a decreasing radius corner that sets you up for a short straight leading into the following corner.
Gear: 3
Difficulty: Medium
Method: turn in late, lift slightly to tighten your line and hold the car against the curb to the point where it ends, then let the car track out to the left. You need to be at wide open throttle to maximize the short straight. If you do it right, you'll bounce off the limiter a few times, but changing up a gear, then down again for the next corner probably won't save any time unless you're very fast.

Turn: 3, The Left Hander
Description: As the name suggests, the only left hander at Lime Rock. Deceptively long, there's a couple of usable lines through it, but either way you need to be able to get all the way to the left of the track on the exit to set you up for the next corner.
Gear: 3
Difficulty: Medium
Method: Enter in the middle of the track, trail braking as you turn slightly. Once you can see the apex, turn in sharply, clip it, but hold the wheel to left as you use the throttle to exit. You need to hit the turn in point for Turn 4 all the way to driver's left.

Turn: 4, Entry On To No Name Straight
Description: A fairly standard right hander that sets you up for the following series of slight bends known as "No Name Straight."
Gear: 4
Difficulty: Low
Method: A basic corner with a textbook approach: just turn in all the way over at driver's left shift into 4th, clip the curbing at the apex and track out. Get the throttle fully open as soon as you're in 4th. Straight line the straight as much as possible, no need to hit curbs or anything.

Turn: 5, The Uphill
Description: A fairly straightforward right hander that's been made complicated by sticking a steep hill in the middle. If you don't have your wheel straight when you crest it, you'll spin and the barriers are very close to the track.
Gear: 4
Difficulty: High
Method: Brake lightly at brake maker 4, then turn in at marker 1. Clip the apex and get on full throttle pointed out towards the curb halfway up the hill on driver's left, then once you hit that hill use the compression to tighten your line the rest of the way. Hands straight as soon as you've done that and hug the edge of the track over the crest and down the short straight. It's easier than it looks.

Turn: 6, West bend
Description: A right hand sweeper that can be taken very fast. The inside curbing is very tall, so get close, but don't clip it. Sets you up for The Downhill, which is super important to lapping quickly, so the exit is all important here.
Gear: 4
Difficulty: Medium
Method: Brake lightly, then turn in for a normal apex, get fully on the throttle early and hold it there as you ride the curbing on the outside.

Turn: 7, The Downhill
Description: If you're going to crash at Lime Rock, it'll be here. A very fast downhill right hander with compression on the entry that aids turn in. Sets you up for the main straight, you'll lose lots of time if you don't get this corner right.
Gear: Start in 4, finish in 5.
Difficulty: High
Method: Very confident drivers only need to lift slightly down the hill in the MX-5, but I still brush the brakes a little for some added confidence. Make sure you're on maintenance throttle at turn in, which is just where the hill flattens out. You need to use the compression this transition creates to maximize front end grip on turn in, so predict where its going to happen and turn in aggressively just as the front suspension compresses. Roll on the throttle as you clip the apex, getting it fully open as soon as possible, then track out fully the left, shifting into 5th when revs dictate. Huge the left side of the track all the way down the straight.

Here I am trying to put what I learned into practice. The cars are Mazda MX-5 Cup racecars. Over the standard vehicle, they add a $5500 Mazda racing package that includes a new intake and exhaust, boosting power from 167 to 200 HP. There's also remote reservoir Eibach dampers, considerably stiffer Eibach springs, solid antiroll bars, racing brake pads and 225/45WR-17 tires. The cars are also stripped of their interiors and soft tops, have a full cage welded in and you sit in racing buckets with five-point harnesses facing a removable wheel. The whole thing weighs just 2,600 Lbs. In short, it's a real race car with much improved throttle response, steering and outright grip. It's an extremely neutral car that'll understeer if you push it too fast into corners and let you tighten your line if you lift the throttle, making it near perfect to learn on.

Driving in the rain is like jaywalking — it's not the safest thing in the world, but millions of people do it without incident, and most folks don't give it too much thought. Live where it rains a lot? Planning on driving somewhere other than a sun-baked desert? It never hurts to remember the basics.

Take care of your car and its tires. Every vehicle talks to the road through four small patches of rubber. It doesn't matter if you're driving a Ferrari, an all-wheel-drive Audi, or an asthmatic garbage truck — if the tires aren't happy, the car isn't happy. Handling, braking, and acceleration are all directly tied to how well your rubber grips the road. On top of that, what seems like a minor irritation (a bit of squealing, a slight wandering at speed) on dry pavement can often be downright homicidal in the wet. Neglect your tires, and you neglect the one part of your car most responsible for your safety.

Thankfully, keeping track of this stuff is limited to two simple tasks: checking your tire pressure and checking the depth of your tires' tread. If you understand how to use a ruler and can afford a two-dollar tire-pressure gauge (try almost any gas station), then you can do either yourself. (If not, don't worry; any mechanic can help.) The recommended tire pressures (yes, pressures — front and rear are usually different) for your vehicle can be found inside your owner's manual; tread depth can be checked by measuring from the bottom of the tire's tread to the top of its shortest tread block.

While you're at it, make sure your windshield wipers are still soft and pliable (squeegees don't work if they can't follow the contours of the glass) and check to that your defroster is still working. When it comes to your comfort level in inclement weather, proper visibility makes all the difference.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Slow down. Speed is a wonderful thing, and in most cases, we're all for it. But when you're in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the beltway and can't see more than a few cars in front of you, you need all the reaction time you can get. It may sound obvious, but the slower you go, the easier it is to stop or swerve in order to avoid an accident.

Because wet pavement is slicker than dry pavement, cars lose grip whenever it rains. Reduced grip means increased acceleration and braking distances, not to mention slower cornering speeds. Every mile per hour that you chop off — and every foot of following distance that you add — gives you one more moment of reaction time should the unexpected occur. And in bad weather, you should always be looking for the unexpected.

Photo Credit: Salty Grease/Flickr

If you lose control, don't do anything sudden. When your car begins to slide, it's best to remember one thing: It will eventually stop. (If you're lucky, that moment will come before you end up in a tree.) In the interim, you need to do everything you can to preserve your tires' hold on the pavement. Gently ease off the accelerator and refrain from slamming on the brakes. If the car is sliding in a corner, steer into the slide and keep your eyes pointed where you want to go. If you're hydroplaning, resist the urge to yank on the wheel or throw the car into another lane. Above all, remember this: When your tires are struggling to hold onto the road, the slightest provocation can upset them. Keep them happy. No surprises.

Photo Credit: Timothy J/Flickr

If you can avoid it, never drive into a flooded area. This may sound obvious, but a surprising number of people lose their cars — and often their lives — every year by driving into or across waterlogged pavement. Currents can run remarkably strong on a flooded road, and what looks like a foot-deep stream can often suck you and your car off to a watery grave. Think of it like an ocean's rip tide — you wouldn't drive your Civic into Waimea Bay, would you?

That said, it's occasionally unavoidable. If it's a matter of life or death and you absolutely have to get across, there are a few steps you can take to better your odds. First, go as slow as you possibly can without dawdling; higher speeds increase the chances that your tires will lift off the pavement, that the car will float instead of roll, and that you'll lose the ability to steer. (If you look out the door and notice that your wheels are producing waves—i.e., a wake—then you're probably going too fast.) Second, if possible, cross the water's flow at an angle in order to narrow your profile. And finally, remember this: If it looks a little too deep, then it's probably a lot too deep.

If you should happen to get stuck or be swept away, don't leave your vehicle. If the water is strong enough to levitate two tons of steel off the road, it's definitely strong enough to swallow you whole. Roll the windows up, get out the cell phone, and pray that the car comes to a stop.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Calm down. This piece of advice might not apply to everyone, but it's still worth keeping in mind. The human body's fight-or-flight process is pretty remarkable, but when you're busy behind the wheel, the last thing you need is an elevated heart rate and twitchy reactions. Breathe deep. Look as far ahead as possible. Try not to get excited or nervous. The more control you have over your body, the more control you have over your car.

Bonus Tip: If you can, stay at home. It may sound impractical, but it's often the best way to avoid trouble. If flood warnings are issued and you can't see the end of your street, then let discretion be the better part of not getting helicoptered off the roof of your sunken Datsun. You may know what you're doing — and chances are, if you're reading this site, you do — but that doesn't mean everyone else does. And while it's true that the majority of accidents are avoidable, there's no sense in unnecessarily putting yourself in harm's way.

There's the "dump 'em in a big bucket, let God sort 'em out" method, which saves time up front but means you'll spend hours digging through 100 pounds of greasy junk every time you need a certain bolt. Then there's the "sort 'em obsessively by size/type and put them in eensy, well-labeled drawers for later use" method, which takes for-freakin'-ever but pays dividends when you're working on your Hell Project at 2:00 AM and all the hardware stores are closed.

My method is half-assed organized; I have drawers for broad categories of fasteners (Long Bolts, Lock Washers, Machine Screws, etc.) and mix all the metric and SAE stuff higgledy-piggledy. A few Whitworth bolts have found their way into the mix, just to add to the fun. Hose clamps, weird pressure fittings, gauge senders, and other oddball crap gets quasi-sorted as well. The upshot: after a quarter-century of junkyard scrounging, I've got a big enough collection of hardware to find what I need… if I'm really motivated. How about you?

Face it: I'm a doofus when it comes to taking care of the modern car. The replacement of mechanics with electronics has shifted the power of tinkering squarely into the domain of geeks. But there still exist a few simple car maintenance tasks we should be able to perform without expensive shop time.

The blatant frenchsploitation displayed above is the work of Tim Street, a Disney World engineer turned television writer, who began producing French Maid TV in 2006. Street’s videos teach you how to do simple things, employing women with huge breasts and fake French accents to hold your attention and your jacques and jacques stands.

How To Change Your Oil is one of those videos you’ll watch over and over again, amazed and that a professional production has actually drawn the parallels between oil spillage and mammary intercourse in the most explicit way.

Even more amazing is that the video is actually useful. Useful for learning how to change your oil, that is. Especially if you drive a US-spec Citroën SM, that is.

It all started about two years ago, when I caught the 24 Hours Of LeMons jones, bad. How bad? Bad enough to put a team together, drop a Ford 302 in a Volvo 244, and enter the notorious Altamont "Demolition Derby" LeMons race back in early '08. With a Scandinavian Black Metal theme, the car needed to look evil! And thus began the saga of the Screaming Skulls...

Nowadays, my beater '92 Civic sports a pair of clattery, chattery "talking" skulls that use up pretty much all of the hatch area's storage capacity. When I hit the brakes, the jaws open and close (with enough force to bite through a celery stalk; yes, I've tested the bite power) and the eyes gleam a menacing- yet safe- red.

They're loud and annoying, but totally worth it. All it took was a few bucks in parts and hundreds of hours of time.

First, I needed a couple of plastic skulls. It turns out that "factory fourth" med-student skulls are dirt cheap on eBay. They're cheap because they tend to have different colors for the cap and face, or maybe some missing teeth, or just ill-fitting parts. None of that mattered for this project, so I ordered two right away.

My initial plan was to use vacuum motors, or "suck power," to actuate the jaws. I grabbed a couple of heater-vent vacuum actuators from a Chevy Astro Van and started cutting holes in the skulls. They're made of very dense, heavy plastic that's quite easy to drill, cut, and grind. I started the project by drilling out the eye sockets and cutting another hole at the base of the skull for the steel pipe that will form the "neck."

The illuminated red "eyeballs" were made from a pair of steel-and-glass Alfa Romeo warning lights, pulled from junked Alfa Spiders. Junkyard tip: always grab these lights when you see them; the quality is excellent and they're easy to mount on your homemade instrument panel projects.

The jaws on the cheapo plastic skulls don't include a reliable hinge mechanism for the jaw, so I went with a homemade rod-and-tube arrangement. Drill some holes, push the pipe through the jaw holes and a piece of tubing, then JB weld the ends in place.

Here you can see the pipe T fitting epoxied into place at the base of the skull, as well as the installation and wiring for the eyeball lights.

The Astro Van vacuum actuator goes into an aluminum spacer plate that mounts between the skull and its lid. There's a rod going down to the jaw. During high vacuum (engine deceleration), the actuator will suck the jaw closed; mash the gas pedal and the resulting low vacuum will let the springs pull the jaw open. Now repeat these steps with a second skull!

We mounted the skulls on the car's roof, hooked them up to a vacuum port on the intake manifold, and went racing. The skulls worked, but the jaws only opened at WFO throttle and it was a chore to get the springs adjusted for the correct tension. Clearly, I'd need to go to electrically-operated skulls next time!

I didn't have to look far to find electric actuators for the upgrade; most Volvo 240s came standard with power door locks. I sold the actuators that came with our car to meet LeMons budgetary requirements, so I had to hit the junkyard to get some more for the skulls. Here's a promising candidate!

Here's a mugshot of a typical Volvo 240, to make your junkyard shopping trip go faster.

First step is to remove the window crank, armrest, and door panel.

There's the actuator! A few turns of the wrench and a snip of the cutters and it shall be mine.

Voila! One more and I'm done.

My junkyard shopping isn't through yet, though; I'll need some relays and a turn signal flasher to create the "brain" that will control the skulls. Next stop is a 1980s BMW for some Bosch relays. This E30 looks promising.

There we go! This project requires three SPDT relays per skull, for a total of six. No problem finding Bosch SPDTs on an E30- just look for the ones with five terminals, including two labeled "87a" and "87b." As for the turn signal flasher, I like the old-fashioned cylindrical ones from pre-1990s Detroit cars; these skulls will use Chrysler K-car flashers.

The control circuitry is pretty simple: the power to the eyes and the coil of Relay #1 goes through the turn signal flasher (I added a taillight bulb, labeled "Load Bulb" in the diagram, inside the skull to provide enough current draw to make the flash rate a bit faster). When the coil on Relay #1 activates, it causes the coils of Relay #2 and Relay #2 to activate, which reverses the polarity of the power leads going to the lock actuators in the skulls. This causes the actuators to deploy down ("lock") as well as up ("unlock"), which means springs won't be necessary to close the jaws.

Speaking of jaws, I decided to improve the linkage with a double-jointed arrangement.

Some modification to the lock actuators was necessary to attach the jaws.

Now it's time to start playing with wires.

Here's a quick bench test of the circuitry. Hey, it works!

And it works when installed in the skull, too!

There's just enough room in the skull for the relays, flasher, lock actuator, wiring, and load bulb.

It's going to be a tight fit to get the lid installed, but it should work.

And remember, everything has to be done twice!

For Black Metal V8olvo Mark II, I decided to get some anatomically correct plastic skeletal arms (also cheap on eBay) and rig up the skulls so they appear to be backseat passengers. Add a T-shirt and it looks pretty good.

I hooked up the wiring to what became known as "The Metal Switch" on the race car's instrument panel. Pulling the Metal Switch activated the skulls and caused Opeth to crank from the in-car PA system. Oh, they'll love this at the track!

Some cheap blond costume wigs gave our skulls more of a "dead Swede" look. Add some evil black robes and spiked Hammer Of Thor V8olvo medallions and we were in business!

It looked great on the race track!

I'd be going on to a new theme for the race car, so the skulls were retired. What to do with them? I know- brake lights for my Civic! First step was to find an unused circuit in the fusebox to get some power. There's no sunroof on my car, so the sunroof fuse it shall be!

It would probably be more sanitary to tap into the brake light switch at the pedal, but that would mean running more wires to the back of the car. Instead, I'll just splice into the taillight wiring harness.

Since I've got junkyard relays all over the place, it's no problem to find one to actuate with the signal from the taillights. This will go in the spare tire well in the hatch.

A little carpentry work will be needed to mount the neck-pipes in a way that will be visible in the car's back window.

Because safety is so important, I'll use these long bolts through the spare tire (which is clamped to the floor) to hold the Skull Shelf in place.

A couple of wingnuts and it's fixed pretty firmly. As long as I don't wreck at a speed above, say, 15 MPH I shouldn't get bashed in the back of the head by 30 pounds of plastic skulls. Don't try this at home unless you find some way to mount the skulls more solidly.

I don't want the wigs coming off the skulls when I open the hatch, so a few hairstylist-approved sheet-metal screws will ensure that they stay in place.

Because following drivers at night won't be able to see anything of the skulls but four glowing eyes when I hit the brakes, I'll need to illuminate their faces. The rear side marker lights from a mid-80s BMW 7 series are just the right size, so it's off to the junkyard for some more shopping.

Some coat-hanger wire and an easy wiring job and the face lights are in place. I'll bend the wires so that the lights will be hidden below the edge of the window, out of view of drivers behind the Civic.

Here's the shelf installed in the car. I've cut holes in the hatch floor and carpeting for the mounting screws, and the wiring harness connects to the skulls via a 2-pin connector, making it easy to remove the whole unit when I get tired of the lack of cargo space.

The skulls look good installed, although the noise they make when I hit the brakes is a bit maddening. Sort of a "Ka-CLACK! Ka-CLACK! Ka-CLACK!" racket, which irritates nearby drivers nearly as much as it irritates me. The slightly different cycle rate for each skull's turn signal flasher means that they rarely sync up.

The whole rig looks quite snazzy. Amazingly, I rarely get pulled over by Johnny Law while driving this fine automobile.

My long-suffering neighbors have given up any hope of me ever driving a nice car. I like to get their hopes up by bringing home the occasional brand-new press car... which then leaves a few days later.

One skull has a ponytail, so you can tell them apart.

Here's what it looks like at night. Success! The puzzled looks I get from tailgaters are worth the effort... maybe.

(Thanks for the awesome tip goatrope)

Yesterday we drove over to GM's Performance Build Center (PBC) in Wixom, Michigan to build an LS9 engine — the most powerful production engine GM's ever built — and the 638 HP beating heart powerplant underneath the hood of the Corvette ZR1 — all while being taught the tricks of engine assembly trade by the man who's built more LS9's than anyone else.

Here's how the magic's made.

Aluminum block, aluminum heads, forged crank, Forged pistons, titanium connecting rods, valves, and valve springs, a bespoke Eaton four-lobe roots-type supercharger displacing 2.3 liters of air per rotation blowing into an air-to-water intercooler, all backed by a twin-plate clutch. It's 638 HP of smack-you-in-the-face and it'll shove the ZR1 to a 0-60MPH time in 3.4 organ-crushing seconds. But first it has to be built

Each Corvette ZR1 engine is hand assembled at GM's Performance Build Center (PBC) in Wixom, Michigan, a purpose-built 100,000 square foot facility with the express intent of building the best motors in the GM universe. It's a mix of the latest thinking in lean manufacturing paired with the old world responsibility inherent in a one-man, one-engine build philosophy. The facility also builds the monstrous huge 7.0 liter LS7 for the Z06 and the hopped-up LS3 for the new Corvette Gran Sport, but when you're offered the opportunity to build an engine of your choice, you pick the LS9.

My guide through this most unique of looks into the guts of GM's baddest engine was Mike Priest, the man who's put more of these engines together than anyone in the world and some say he assembles the fastest ones. Good hands to be in. We start the day off by getting right down to business, cracking the connecting rods. Each piston comes sub-assembled complete with a high-moly top ring, a nodular iron lower, and a 3mm oil ring.We inspect each for nicks and scratches, make sure the wrist pin turns freely, and then systematically mark the bearing cap and con-rod to make sure they match up later. The bolts are then loosened and they're separated by a light tap or a cracking fixture.

The bearing journals are then laid in and everything gets placed in a tote and wheeled to the first station on the rolling engine stand.

The line is arranged into individual stations, each being fed by pre-kitted parts and a pull-type delivery system. The stations each have at least one Atlas Copco electric torque driver which torques fasteners based on a scan of the build sheet. Each data point is recorded and tied to the individual engine, and data can be reclaimed at any time. A naked engine block is sitting on the delivery fixture awaiting assembly, it'll be engine 10ZAN 322731901. In the very first step we install studs which will hold the engine to the rolling engine stand.

Once Mike gives the engine a good once, a water passage hole is plugged, then we move on to installing the first exciting piece, the camshaft. An assembly fixture is placed on the back of the cam and then a handle screwed onto the front, the journals are given a coat of assembly oil the cam slides in easier than any cam you'll ever touch. It's nice having factory tools. Mike then uses the overhead crane to hoist the block over to the stand where we bolt it down. Finally, the cam seal and retainer is installed.

Next we loosen the crank bearing caps and use a custom pry bar to remove them without damage and set them aside.

The bearing journals and main bearing are now snapped into place and liberally coated in assembly oil.

After inspecting the crankshaft, Mike expertly drops it into place with a crane fixture. He offered to let me do it, but the idea of marring such a critical piece wasn't something I was too excited about.

The crankshaft is gently turned to make sure there's no unexpected drag.

Next we assemble the other half of the journals into the bearing caps and oil, installing them as they were delivered in the block.

The caps are torqued down using a multi-spindle driver to simultaneously drive the inner then the outer bearing bolts. Those bearing blocks also get cross-bolted to the walls of the block, which increases the assembly's overall stiffness. As a validation, the torque to turn the crank is checked, to make sure there's no undue drag.

Next we stuff pistons. Assembly oil is applied to the piston bores, the edges of the piston and the connecting rod bearing. An assembly guide is slipped over the end of the connecting rod and a ring compressor slipped over the head of the piston. I' told to run the piston up and down to make sure it slides smoothly in the compressor then place it over its cylinder. When the bottom of the piston is seated in the bore, one strong push to the top of the piston and the entire assembly slides in smooth as silk.

The connecting rod cap is lubed and installed and the process is repeated down the line, then the bolts are all torqued. The engine is rolled to the opposite side and the process repeats.

Next up the engine oil baffle is attached to the studs on the crank bearing outer bolts.

Next, the timing is set. Piston number one, on the driver's side front of the engine, is raised to top dead center. The chain tensioner is then bolted into place.

The crank gear is then pressed into place with a pneumatic ram.

The timing gear for the cam is placed on, two timing marks on both gears are are aligned and the cam gear is removed, the chain is laid over top and then the chain is attached to crank gear as the cam gear is slid into place and bolted down. The pin in the tensioner is then removed.

The dry sump oil pump is then carefully positioned with a fixture to ensure its ports are flush with the bottom of the engine block, then bolted into place.

The back engine cover compete with rear main seal and the front engine cover are then installed

In the next station, the first step is to lay down RTV sealant beads at the front and rear covers.

The pickup and oil filter-equipped oil pan is now dropped into place carefully and torqued down.

A protective cover on the side of the pan is removed and set aside to be sent back to the supplier and the oil cooler is bolted in its place.

After a quick look we drop in one side of the cam followers living in their cam carriers.

Now it's time to for the aluminum heads. Here's a bit of information that'll be useful in garage trivia: The aluminum heads on the LS9 are exactly identical, there is no left side or right side, they are the same part number and on the engine one gets a screw in temperature sensor and the other gets a screw in plug, that's the only difference.

After tapping in guide studs and laying on a crazy seven leaf gasket you just drop them on without fanfare.

Fourteen stainless steel bolts go into each head and get tightened down simultaneously with a multispindle driver.

Next up is the valley cover which seals up the 'V' between the cylinder banks.

The final process in this station is putting together the valve train. First, the pushrods are slid in place. (Aren't those old fashioned?)

A cam rail is placed across the inside of the head and the rockers are put in and the bolts are hand started. A pair of installation guides are then placed over both heads. These indicate the torquing order for the rockers, begin on the green number one and travel around the engine in order driving the bolts in, when you run out of greens, stop, manually turn the crankshaft 180 degrees to realign the pistons and then pick up the tightening order for the yellow numbers.

Once installed, a generous application of oil on the rockers finishes the station.

At this point, the line turns around on the other side and starts back the other direction. Here a set of guards are temporarily put in place to protect the lower intake as rivet-like cup plugs are popped into small holes in the water cavity.

Next, the valve covers are put in place and torqued down followed by the coil packs that aren't delivered preassembled for the sake of assembly access.

The water pump is installed along with a couple of hard vacuum lines and the alternator bracket.

The crankshaft damper is placed on the crank and a pneumatic ram presses it into place.

The next step is where happiness is made.

The supercharger comes largely preassembled and is lifted from a tote by crane and inspecting for the hoses, wiring, and gaskets.

It's gently placed into the valley of the engine. The entire unit is bolted into place and the supercharger gets a good spin to make sure it turns freely.

You can hear it pulling a lot of vacuum against the closed throttle.

Next we take a quick look at the intercooler, which incidentally is the only class-A surface underhood in any GM product, which means it must be protected from damage just like a fender or a hood. The intercooler gets a gasket, debris and paint finish inspection.

It's then dropped onto the supercharger, torqued down, then covered with a cardboard guard.

Next, Mike puts a lot of faith in me as he applies his name plate to this engine which I've had a dangerous amount of involvement in building.

Next up is an all-too-unsexy but entirely necessary step, a complete leakdown test of both the coolant and oil passages. All the ports and still open areas are sealed off with plugs and covers, then a controlled amount of air pressure is applied and the rate which the pressure drops is measured. The less leakage the better, this one passed with flying colors.

Once all the testing equipment is removed, spark plugs are put in place and the exhaust manifolds are installed as well as the manifold studs, the engine mounts are put in place and two temporary engine hoist loops are put on the front and back for transport.

In the final station, coil wires are installed and then the engine number decal is put onto the head.

The engine is then taken off the rolling engine stand and dropped into the flywheel and clutch installation fixture.

The holes in the flywheel are then numbered to make balancing engine easier later downstream,

The flywheel is installed and torqued down.

Next the clutch housing is picked up with an assembly reaction arm.

A mark on the twin clutch pack is then aligned with a mark on the housing to balance the assembled parts.

The clutch is then installed. And with that, the assembly process is complete.

The engine is weighed (530.6 lbs dry) and placed on a palette and an engine audit is completed another employee.

The palette is taken over to the final step in our process which would be running the engine through cold test.

In the cold test process, 2.5 quarts of oil is put into the engine after it's affixed to a test stand.

The stand is rolled into the test cell and hooked up to electric couplings, various sampling sensors, like noise vibration and harshness sensors, pressure sensors, etc. as well as a big electric motor. When the doors are closed, the motor spins up and turns the engine over after building up oil pressure. There are an array of tests done in the 90 second cycle time, but in the end all the lights were green and it passed everything very convincingly.

Since it was a shutdown week, we didn't proceed to the next step, but normally the engine would go to the balancing chamber. In the balancing chamber, the engine is hooked up to an isolation fixture which freely allows multi-axis vibration. It's then hooked up to a special ECM and a natual gas fuel source and fired. That's right, a Corvette ZR1 motors first breaths come from a clean fuel. During the engine's operation, sensors detect vibrations and calculate where to add weights on either the flywheel or the crankshaft damper to bring the engine into balance. The weights are installed and the process is repeated until it passes the test. The final step in the process is a second, intense inspection, from the assumed position of the customer at the Bowling Green Corvette factory. After it's gone over with a fine toothed comb it's off to storage awaiting the truck to Kentucky.

It wasn't really my engine, I did a lot of the installing and bolting down, but I was just a monkey following directions. It was, and is Mike's engine, and I have to pay him my respects on his level of care and attention to detail over even the smallest potential flaws in any part or element of the process. He's like a parent watching over a child. And yet, at the end of the day, it was gratifying to see the engine turning over, pumping air and passing all of its tests. Someday in the recent future, that motor will find its home in a ZR1 and it'll be rocketing some happy new buyer to delirious speeds. Kind of a surreal day if you ask me.

You'll need a laptop, some open-source software, and some cleverness. Thankfully, you won't have to be as clever as Ragsdale, who tested his device by first walking around holding it over his head and then by mounting it on his Jeep and driving around the town of West Point. Ragsdale says he'll eventually get the device down to helmet or headband size, allowing you to document your hikes in great detail. Very, very cool. So get cracking out there, everyone. [Spectrum via Wired]

For starters, you'll need the following parts:

The rest of the 66-page guide, including CAD-like drawings on stuff like sheet board optimization, can be found here.

One of our dealer contacts sent us in the above three-page list of the terms and conditions for GM's 60-day money back guarantee. It's a far cry from what Bob "Maximum Marketing" Lutz told The Today Show this morning. In fact, there's 13 stipulations that must be met.

But, if you're able to meet all 13, then you've got yourself a free GM vehicle for two months. Have at it.

• The Eligible Vehicle must be a new 2009 or 2010 model.
• You have purchased an Eligible Vehicle and taken Delivery between September 14, 2009 and November 30, 2009.
• You must be able to deliver to the Participating Dealership a clean and unencumbered title to the Eligible Vehicle, which title has remained in Your name since the Delivery Date of the Eligible Vehicle.
• You must be an individual natural person who is the title owner of the Eligible Vehicle. Businesses,
corporations and partnerships do not qualify.
• Your Eligible Vehicle's odometer must not have more than 4,000 miles since the Delivery Date.
• Your Eligible Vehicle must have been registered and insured in the Buyer's name since the Delivery Date.
Your Eligible Vehicle must have no more than $200 of damage as determined by GM or GM's agent.. Such
damage may include, without limitation, internal or external scratches, scrapes, dents, odors, rips, burns, etc.
• Your Eligible Vehicle may not be leased.
• Your Eligible Vehicle must have been returned to a Participating Dealership where You purchased it, in the same working order as it was on the Delivery Date.
• Your Eligible Vehicle must not have incurred damage or non-warranted repairs in excess of $200, regardless of whether such damage has been repaired.
• Your Eligible Vehicle must not have been subject to any liens or other security interests other than a lien for the original financing used to purchase the Eligible Vehicle.
• A minimum of thirty (30) days must have passed since the Delivery Date of Your Eligible Vehicle.
• Only one Eligible Vehicle may be returned per household.
• Your Eligible Vehicle must pass a purchase inspection conducted by GM or GM's agent.

We can't wait to hear the first stories in two months of people screwing over the system. Hooray for hacking!

[via ChargerForums]
[via ChargerForums]
[via ChargerForums]

The nice folks at MSR Houston allowed me to suit up and strap into the passenger seat of the Pike's Peak-winning Rally Ready Evo, enabling me to get some great on-track shots of the Yeehaw It's Texas '08 24 Hours Of LeMons. Unfortunately, I won't always have access to a 600-horsepower race car with a pro driver who's willing to risk his high-buck machine on a track full of $500 heaps. What I needed was a cheap digital camera with a timelapse feature- just bolt it onto some sucker's volunteer's LeMons racer and let it capture action shots at regular intervals!
A bit of online research led me to the Kodak DC290 Zoom, a late-1990s-vintage 2-megapixel camera that bears about as much resemblance to current cameras as the Dynatac "brick" cellphone does to modern-day phones. It's a real antique, but you can get one for dirt cheap and it has a timelapse feature that will make it take a photograph every minute.
Once my new camera arrived, I spent several minutes making a crude bracket out of a slab of 2x4, some drywall screws, and a handful of zipties. At the track, I convinced the guys on the Mustard Yellow V8olvo to let me bolt this contraption onto their car's rear bumper. A couple of 3/8" bolts held the bracket to the bumper; the zipties around the bumper were just insurance. When the race got going, I started the camera and hoped for the best. Would the batteries last long enough to fill up the camera's 256MB CompactFlash card with usable action shots? Would the camera refuse to function after a few minutes of bumps and vibration?
LeMons races have been quite clean in the post-Altamont era, so I wasn't too worried about the camera getting bashed by another car… but that's just what happened, just a couple of hours into the race. Some driver whacked his crapcan's snout into the V8olvo's bumper, and the camera disappeared somewhere near the section of track they call the "Bus Stop." When the V8olvo rolled into the Penalty Box after the incident with the camera bracket empty, I was almost too distraught to dish out appropriate justice to the miscreants.
With 7 hours left to go in the race, I wouldn't be able to hit the track and search for the camera for quite a while. I didn't care about the camera, which I assumed would be run over several thousand times as it baked on the hot tarmac all day, but I figured that the CF card might survive such abuse. Once the day's race session was over and the track was empty (save the usual mini-junkyard of bumpers, fenders, connecting rods, etc. you always find dumped on the asphalt during a LeMons race), the LeMons Supreme Court hopped into the LeMons Highway De-Beautification Department's F250 and headed for the Bus Stop. Would we find the camera?
Yes! Obviously, the fact that you're seeing these photos indicates that our search was successful. LeMons Supreme Court Justice Lieberman spotted the Kodak in the weeds about 50 feet from the track. The camera hadn't been run over, still powered up (though the LCD display was broken), and had some decent photos on the card!
What's next for LeMons BumperCam technology? For LeMons South next month, I've picked up a cheap Canon A460, and I'll be installing the free CHDK software created by some firmware hackers for Canon Powershots. CHDK uses simple scripts written with a version of the BASIC programming language, and it's pretty easy to get an intervalometer feature going on the A460. This time I'll put a little more time into camera mount construction (no 2x4s this time), too. We'll see how well my new setup works in the real world!

LeMons BumperCam Images, Part 1:


LeMons BumperCam Images, Part 2:

Exhibit A

The problem:

We see a young lady trying to place a bag of groceries inside her Audi R8 V10. She is prevented from doing so by the R8’s 5-liter V10 engine which gives off enough heat to prepare an instant meal from the chicken and the produce in her shopping bag. This is undesirable as her dinner guests are yet to arrive and she would hate to serve them a less than fresh meal.

The Jalopnik solution:

Invite dinner guests to parking lot. Produce copy of Manifold Destiny: The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine! and find a recipe. Prepare chicken on intake manifold of engine. Serve piping hot. Initiate highbrow petrolhead conversation by pointing out Bernd Rosemeyer’s 1936 Auto Union Type C racing car on shopping bag.

Exhibit B

The problem:

We see a bike rack installed above the 5-liter V10 engine of a Lamborghini Gallardo, with a bicycle clipped to it. Even if this is a high-end racing bike made of titanium with a melting point of 3034 °F, the immense heat from the engine will cause it to melt and splatter said engine with molten metal. This is undesirable, as a Lamborghini with a melted engine will quickly come to a complete stop.

The Jalopnik solution:

Take off bike rack. Take off bike. Get on bike. Find skilled driver. Hold on to passenger side rearview mirror. Acquire balls of titanium. Enjoy 200 MPH ride on skinny bike tires.

Model: Natalie Polgar. Photo Credit: Balázs Fenyő (Audi), Milano Fixed (Lamborghini)

A very good friend of mine with excellent mechanical aptitude and a history of custom car projects once wrote that the differential gear is obviously a piece of alien technology. We may be using it on cars but it cannot have sprung forth from the minds of men. In light of blue LED’s and probes sent to Saturn, he may be exaggarating—but, aroused from sleep, would you be able to explain the differential’s workings?

A wonderful visual explanation, no doubt produced and filmed by extraterrestrials, is offered by an unlikely source: the Chevrolet Motor Division of the General Motors Sales Corporation, as put by this 1930s tutorial video.

Filmed in an age when the average motorist was required to understand in much greater details the intricacies of the automobile, it’s ten minutes of excellent popular engineering. Do watch.

And as for explaining the limited slip differential?

We should leave at least something for the aliens.

Photo Credit: Audin/Flickr, Renaultsport

Relying on GPS makes us nervous. There we said it. Let's say you're out in the desert, deep in the bush with your previously trusty automobile when it decides the high temperatures and remote location are the perfect place to break down. If you've gotten to your location via GPS system, you've got a couple hours of operational charge assuming you've got a mobile navigation system. That's assuming there are never problems with the military satellites needed to triangulate your position and direction of travel, the software and maybe hand-held hardware in your nav system, and you aren't under heavy cloud cover with Saturn in alignment with Mars and the dozens of other things that can turn a very nice GPS system into a paperweight. It's always handy to have a paper map close at hand, and judging by the number of portable Nav units we see suction-cupped to windscreens everywhere, we're thinking a reminder on their use might be in order. Our four-step guide starts by clicking the "Next" button over yonder.

1.) Know Your Map

Following your GPS-pocalypse, you'll be happy to get your hands on any map you can, but how you read it will be highly dependent on the type of map you've got at hand. Conveniently, mapmaking is among the most label-oriented professions in history, so it's likely there's map-type identifier somewhere. You have many to choose from, all with their own use, there's topographical, municipal, over-the-road, and many more. For the sake of this article we'll focus on the classic US standard road map. (More at eHow)

2.) The Basics

Using the right scale map is important, a national interstate map won't help you a lick if you're doing city driving. The scale of the map is usually in a corner or in the legend and tell you how large things marked on the map are. And speaking of the legend, it's where to go to decode the symbols on the map. The usual suspects include the types of roadways, rest areas, parks, and the like. Interstate freeways are usually marked in bold blue lines and a blue and red number shield, state highways in red with a white number shield, and toll roads are usually marked in green, it varies with each map though. (A list of Legend symbols at Map Symbol Library)

3.) Advanced

Road maps get much more useful when you reconcile the road system against the map. The interstate freeway was laid out left to right and south to north, so the lowest numbered freeways are on the west coast and south coast and the highest numbers on the east coast and northern states. Likewise, mile markers, the little green and white numbered signs on the side of the freeway, start on the western or southern edge of a state and go up from there. Those mile markers correspond to the exit ramps and can be matched to the exits on the map. In between intersections on a map, there are often marked distances telling you how far it is between spans, freeway or not. Subtracting your entrance and exit on freeways and adding distances on highways and county roads can give you the entire distance of your trip. If you're traveling to a city and using a road atlas, often major metropolitan areas are given their own maps with much greater detail. Those maps will also indicate bridges, one-way traffic, and the locations of freeway on-ramps. (Some more mapping info, trivia and quizzes at FunTrivia)

4.) Other

There's a lot of stuff on a map that's really only good for navigation or entertainment. There are items like mountain peaks, forested areas and protected land gets outlined, county borders are there but particularly useless to the long haul drive. Stuff like campgrounds, picnic areas, rest stops, rivers and lakes and golf courses are often marked as well, which is good for the meandering traveler or someone looking for somewhere to go for no good reason.

Krider Racing appears to be on a quest to participate in every form of vehicle racing that the world has to offer (though it's all an anticlimax once you've won the 24 Hours Of LeMons). In addition to Autocrossing 101, or, How To Kill Cones and Rallycrossing 101, or, Let's Get Dirty Baby, we're sure to get Cordoba Bashing 101, Soapbox Derby 101, racing involving eating dust and cacti, and- if Rob can be believed- Pinewood Derby 101. Each episode includes the handy Racer Boy Gauge Cluster, which indicates such factors as expense (fuel gauge) and excitement (tachometer).

[Rallyrossing 101, Autocrossing 101]

It presents quite the dilemma, because even the crappiest cassette deck serves as an irresistible lure, tempting some crackhead to smash your side window with a spark plug and then gouge the hell out of your dash with a prybar while removing his $2 prize. Fortunately, Jalopnik Cheapskate Tips™ have the solution! These days, all you really need is a means of connecting an MP3 player- or even a cellphone with music-playback functionality- into an amplifier driving a couple of speakers.

4-time DOTS honoree WhatWouldJesseDo leaves his super-clean '83 Toyota 4x4 in the parking lot of a local train station each day, and the truck has had its stereo torn out by thieves three times in as many months. Each time, Jesse installed a cheaper, less appealing stereo, and each time he returned to his truck to find the window smashed and a hole in the dash. All he wanted was a way to plug in his iPhone and have music while behind the wheel, yet the truck had to appear completely bereft of anything that might be readily converted into hubba rocks, 40-ouncers, black tar, DMT, or Ibogaine.

I found the solution when rigging up 2-way radio communication for the Black Metal V8olvo race car; we didn't have the money to buy fancy radios with in-helmet headsets, so I rigged a cheapo GMRS walkie-talkie with a modified CB radio microphone and fed the audio to this no-frills audio amplifier, which drove a couple of door-mounted junkyard speakers. When the spotter called out a yellow flag into his walkie-talkie, the driver- as well as drivers of other cars and, occasionally, spectators in the bleachers- heard him loud and clear!

The thing has "MP3 IN" printed right on the case, so that was all the inspiration I needed. This little amp, sporting an alleged 360 watts of power (ha ha ha!), is sold under countless brand names, but all are the same; I assume there's some town in southeast China that's made up entirely of huge factories churning out these little blue boxes. They're crap, but they get the job done and the sound quality doesn't suck as much as you'd expect; you get RCA and 3.5mm lines in, two speaker outputs, volume, bass, and treble controls (which feature a really cheezy multicolored flashing LED setup). They're all over eBay, and you can get yourself one for under $15 shipped.

Jesse opted for the prestigious Cheng Sheng version, which boasts an impressive 400 watt output (I'm guessing it's more like 25). He stopped by Chez Murilee yesterday, while I was working on wiring the 20R Sprite, so I just grabbed my implements of Wiring Hell and shifted operations to his Hilux.

Since the last car thief owned wire cutters, enough of the old stereo's wiring harness was still present to make hookup of the Cheng Sheng Amp a simple task. I had a stash of inline noise filters I'd picked up during junkyard expeditions, so I added one to the power circuit; without such a filter, ignition noise is liable to come through with such a cheapo amp.

Just to make sure everything worked, we rigged up a temporary wires-twisted-together installation and tested it out with an iPod. Sounds good!

If your car lacks speakers, no problemo! Just head over to the nearest self-service junkyard when it's having a Half Off sale and grab some factory speakers for $2 apiece. I prefer high-end Japanese cars for my junkyard speaker selection; why go with Nissan when you could have Infiniti for the same price?

Since portable music players all have volume and EQ controls, there's no need to install the Cheng Sheng where prying eyes might spot it- just wire it so it's powered up when the ignition is hot and leave the volume knob cranked, then adjust the sound on the music player. In Jesse's truck, the best out-of-view location was under the seat. Rather than drill holes to mount it, we just used self-adhesive Velcro.

A 3.5mm stereo plug to dual male RCA cable can be had for next to nothing, so the budget so far remained under 20 bucks. We ran the cable under the seat and to the center console. All systems go when plugged into Jesse's iPhone!

But the dash didn't quite look wretched enough. To convince would-be thieves that they'd be better off moving on to the next vehicle in the lot, the Toyota's dash had to look thoroughly de-stereoized, preferably with a tangle of sliced wires hanging out of a gaping hole where a stereo once lived. Here's a shot from the junkyard to provide inspiration.

By a stroke of good fortune, I'd just torn out the last vestiges of Prince Of Darkness wiring from my Austin-Healey; what could possibly look more disreputable a-dangling from a jagged dashboard hole? Quickly, I fished some of Lucas Electric's finest from the trash can. You know what they say about Lucas Electrics: Get home before dark!

Some work with the cutters and a few zipties, and it looks just horrible! The only concern here is that the Quantum Unreliability Field of the Prince Of Darkness wires might destabilize the Toyota wiring harness at the quark level, but we figure the Warlord Grade™ construction of the Hilux can handle it.

Now, some of you are probably saying to yourselves, "Well, that's all well and good for when I want to listen to Foghat's Fool For The City on my $12 iPod Shuffle knockoff, but what if I want to listen to the radio, eh? What then, smarty-pants?" Well, of course you want to listen to the radio, and you can totally do it with this setup. Just pick up a $6 portable AM/FM and plug the audio cable right into the headphone jack. Hell, you can even use a Walkman cassette player. Mission accomplished!

Come on, admit it. Since you've been laid off/had your pay reduced/lost all your savings/got caught running a Ponzi scheme, you've been thinking up ways to reduce your expenses. Like any other commodity, it's easier to steal gas than it is to pay for it. So if you're looking for a way — totally for informational purposes, of course — here's six of the best — and one really bad way — to do it:

6. Pirate An Oil Tanker
Pros: Results in enough fuel to supply entire failed state. Relatively low risk to reward ratio. Very easy, no special skills required beyond basic navigation, AK-47 firing. Illegal for tanker crews to carry firearms. More glamorous than other methods.
Cons: You'll need to steal a refinery too. If you accidentally steal an American tanker, snipers will shoot you in the face. Hopping on an already crowded bandwagon/dinghy.
Instructions: Obtain a small boat and an AK-47; crew and RPG-7 optional. Sail into the sea-lanes south and east of the Gulf of Aden. Look for an oil tanker; they're the big ones without shipping containers on the deck. Board the ship, tie up the crew and sail home. Bonus points for jaunty headwear.

5. Siphoning Fuel From Someone Else's Tank
Pros: Being able to pick the location, secluded is best. The ability to directly target your enemies. Relatively simple and cheap.
Cons: No way to check how much fuel is in the tank before you decide to steal it. Applying suction by mouth may result in severe vomiting, recurring nightmares, cancer, addiction.
Instructions: Insert a small, stiff pipe into a vehicle's gas tank. Apply suction. When fuel starts to flow, place pipe exit below tank height and fill jerry can.

4. The Old Switcheroo
Pros: No special tools or knowledge needed (except a midget or small child).
Cons: Requires a relatively advanced level of grifting, limited time means you probably won't get away with a full tank. Risk of confrontation is high.
Instructions: Simply create a distraction while your assistant swaps someone's paid-for pump into your own tank.

3. RFID Hacking
Pros: Non-confrontational. Little physical effort required. Perfect for nerds.
Cons: Requires a high-level tech know-how. It's a felony offense. High up-front equipment cost.
Instructions: Many gas stations offer SpeedPass-style pay-by-RFID. Unlike RFID cloning a credit card, the encryption ciphers in these cards are vulnerable to a brute force attack. Crack the code and give yourself free gas for life.

2. Siphoning On An Industrial Scale
Pros: The economies of scale. Relatively stealthy. High profit margins.
Cons: Requires the possession and subsequent modification of a large trailer. Penalties are commiserate with the scale of the theft.
Instructions: Pull a trailer fitted with a trap door, a large tank and a pump over a gas station's underground reservoir. While you pretend to make repairs under the hood, have an assistant open the trailer's trap door, insert a pipe down into the reservoir and then pump out the gas.

1. Pump Hacking
Pros: The ability to fill up multiple vehicles. Very stealthy. Once learned, this is a skill with near universal applicability.
Cons: Requires specialist knowledge and tools.
Instructions: Details are murky, but it appears that fuel pump service tools are making their way into thieves' hands. Get your hands on such a device, the technical know how to use it, exploit the system.

-1. Drilling Gas Tanks
Pros: Any idiot with a drill can do it.
Cons: Spark, fire, death, destruction. Permanently damages another person's vehicle, and that's just wrong.
Instructions: Climb under car with drill, make hole, slide container under cascade of highly flammable liquid. Best to avoid open flames, static electricity, cell phones, electric drills.

*Note: Gasoline is most flammable as a vapor. By drilling a tank, you're removing a liquid while leaving behind vapor. Vapor will also permeate the area around the vehicle. Even if you manage to avoid setting yourself on fire, there's always a chance the car may blow up when the owner tries to start it. Killing people is bad.

Some may call it a garage. Some may even call it a workshop. But we know what it's really all about. It's about you and creating your very own secret lair designed to help you relax around your very own, hard-earned collection of man toys. Take a walk below through our ten steps to creating the perfect man cave, then give us your pictures of your own man cave in the comments below.

Frequent visitors will already know that tipping a skycap gives you access to the VIP Yellow #1 taxi line, bypassing the plebes. But, on weekends and during some of the bigger events, even that line can back up to half-an-hour or more.

Instead of waiting, tweet @VegasCabbie as soon as you land. By the time you pick up your suitcase full of Hawaiian shirts he'll have responded and will have someone waiting for you at Yellow #1. Wow, Twitter actually managed to reduce our hatred of Vegas from "abject" to "intense." [via Vegas Chatter]

My friend Roland is backpacking his way around the world and—being a proper petrolhead—he took a bus to Sepang International Circuit during his stay in Malaysia. After making friends with the track’s officials, they showed him around the facilities. His tour included a shot of the computer used to stop Formula One races. Turns out it’s an unassuming touchscreen with, yes, a proper Big Red Button.

As Roland was discussing Sepang’s layout with the track’s medical officer, Lamborghinis began arriving for a track day organized by Lamborghini’s importer in Kuala Lumpur. Being the well-equipped car geek traveller, he whipped out his video camera and started shooting. Enjoy!

Photo Credit: Milestone.hu

Has anyone ever assembled a table on the soporific qualities of various engine configurations? I’m not aware of any—but people with kids to take on long-haul trips would kill for one.

Perhaps—and I’m practicing wishful thinking here—the results would show that high performance engines strike a particularly tranquilizing note in the developing auditory cortex. Imagine the possibilities! Responsible family men could reasonably argue that a Camaro SS is nothing but a pacifier on wheels.

Over on my other site, we performed such an experiment with a Nissan 350Z, powered by a Tennessee-built VQ35DE V6 engine, good for 287 HP and 274 lb-ft. The car is an American import, with an MPH speedo and an automatic transmission—weird objects in metric, manual-happy Europe—and like all 350Z’s, the noise is so lovely all you want to do is curl up in a ball and listen to it all day. Since I can doze off in any car, be it powered by an inline four or a V8, a suitable test person had to be found. And nobody is more suitable than 18-month-old Polish cutie Gabi Popiołek.

We set the whole thing to a Sicilian lullaby—Eugene Ruffolo’s Piccolo Girasole—just to make sure. Suffice to say that Gabi, an even greater bundle of energy than her countryman Bob Kubica of BMW Sauber F1, was snoozing in no time.

Photo Credit: Balázs Fenyő, Video Editing: György Szeljak

We’re sitting at a vast dining table, my friend Máté and I, idly racing a toy Ferrari in the shadow of salmon sandwiches, and he says, hey, let’s turn that Ferrari into a Mad Max Interceptor Pursuit Special.

The Ferrari is an F430 Challenge, sans Stradale, the racing version of the basic F430, and you can get one at Shell gas stations with your purchase of gasoline (and candy bars), at least here in Europe you can. It’s palm-sized and comes with a pullback motor which is synched with a speaker emitting a rather faithful engine noise. I know because I have a 250 GTO and the sound is vastly different, modern flat-plane V8 versus vintage racing 3.0-liter V12.

We’ll skip the hood-mounted supercharger as there’s nothing to supercharge up front, same with the sidepipes and the ghetto black paintjob, but we can’t skip the tanks. On the original Pursuit Special, the tanks stored scarce gasoline, a substance which is indeed getting scarce but which unfortunately does not come in tiny canisters.

What does come in tiny canisters is nitrous oxide, the mother of all dual-use technology, used in dentistry for anaesthesia, in car tuning for, well, you know what, and in the kitchen to make whipped cream. Nitrous oxide is extremely soluble in fat, as in the fat of whipping cream, enabling the user to create whipped cream twice the volume than with air.

Nitrous oxide in cars is usually labelled NOS after Holley Performance Products’ Nitrous Oxide Systems but my mother is a chemical engineer and she would disapprove of that, so we’ll go with the chemical formula N₂0. With a dab of overhead marker and a strip of Scotch tape, the car is ready to rock and roll.

Ready, I lied, but not quite. The heavy N₂0 canisters are overloading the pullback motor, making the car extremely sluggish. And you can’t have an F430 Challenge Interceptor Pursuit Special associated in any way with that dreadful adjective. What we’ll need is an ultra-precise double-barreled nailgun which fires two pins in high sync to rupture both nitrous canisters at the same time, creating in the process a nitrous-powered jet car.

If you have such a nail-gun handy, Jalopnik Nitrous Initiative would like to hear from you.

Photo Credit: Máté Petrány and the author

You’ve already seen what the Red One can do with Megan Fox, and you've probably already seen what Canon’s 5D Mark II camera—which shoots HD video at 1080p—can do in the hands of Vincent Laforet, one of the world’s best photographers. His short video Reverie, shot entirely with the camera, is a sight to behold.

It was also shot with $30,000+ of Canon lenses and ample helicopter time, so it’s probably not going to replace the Flip for shooting impromptu driving videos. On the other hand, the camera itself only costs $2,700—and when you consider that camera development proceeds at a speed the Large Hadron Collider would be proud of, we will probably have 1080p video in an entry-level DSLR camera in a year.

As a preview for the beautiful videos you will be able to shoot while driving, watch this short clip by Apple interface designer Mike Matas, who shot this from his 2005 Audi TT with “one hand on the wheel and the other out the window holding my Canon 5D Mark II.”

He didn’t say what lens or filters he’s put on the 5D but let’s hope it wasn’t one of those multi-thousand-dollar monsters, however delicious the images they capture.

Source: Mike Matas Blog

International Full Size Jeep Association member, rixcj, doesn't have to be ashamed anymore when his wife calls on him to make a late night tampon run to the store, knowing full well that he'll be able to use those little cotton pops for his own leaks. He had just completed a full rebuild of a 1989 AMC 360 engine for his 1979 Jeep CJ5 when he found a nasty little oil leak dripping from the oil pump. Tired from the rebuild, he didn't feel like tearing the whole thing down to find out where he'd gone wrong, he made his own little fix with the help of a fabricated bracket and a tampon. (Hat Tip To LTDScott!) [via ifsja]