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Recently, keyless starting has become a popular option on many new cars. So why should you be denied the sublime joy of starting a car without a key just because you happen to drive a two-decade-old piece of crap? You shouldn't, that's why. So I'm here to help, as long as you're willing to accept that keyless starting is just a candy-ass version of hotwiring. More »
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Our pals over at Make posted this article about Will O'Brien, and how he took an old iPhone, an Arduino, and a handful of electronic crap and made a remote starter for his Subaru Outback that lets him start his car with a text message. The link to his site gives a full schematic of how it was done, and he's made the software source code available to whomever wants it as well. More »
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You know about Google Books, right? It's an ambitious project by Google to, essentially, scan and make publicly available every known book. I'm guessing the end goal is to put them all onto a chip implanted in Larry Page's brain so he can always beat anyone in an argument, forever. It's a grand, noble idea, and it's made possible via some amazing technical feats, such as scanning 1000 pages per hour via some elaborate scanning setup, which I'm picturing as having dozens of whirling, gleaming metal arms. More »
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Car repairs can drain your pocketbook fast, but you can do a wide range of repairs yourself, regardless of your technical skill. We're not just talking oil changes; provided you can hold a wrench, you can fix everything ranging from fuel filters to alternators. We'll detail the tools necessary for your DIY toolkit, where to turn to for help when you're making the repairs, and how to tackle some of the most common car problems yourself. More »
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The standard way to transport a cylinder of cooking gas in the second or third worlds is to balance it on the top tube of a bicycle frame while pedaling. There is now a better way, courtesy of an unknown Hungarian inventor, who has created a bicycle trailer for the job in his unknown shed. The trailer is on sale for $20 and comes with a set of spare wheels. More »
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Charles Guan, recent MIT grad, is certainly a certifiable tinkerer. Where I see a skateboard and a snowblower engine he sees a portable off-road skateboard. Completely DIY, it got noticed at the World Maker Faire New York on Saturday. More »
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Living in Los Angeles as a car guy typically means either being wealthy enough to afford a garage (i.e. Jay Leno) or flexible enough to wrench in an AutoZone parking lot. Alas, Jack Olsen's managed to find an incredible compromise. More »
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Two weeks ago, Mexican army forces captured a tank built by a drug cartel capable of hauling 12 gunmen and reaching 68 mph. Now authorities have taken another off the street — one that shows how every iteration gets tougher. More »
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As automakers stuff more electronics into vehicles, they're also created opportunities for do-it-yourself programmers to swap factory controls for more impressive devices. That's what Ed Zarick has done with the homebuilt setup he calls the Jeeputer. More »
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On Driven Daily, Jesse O'Brien writes about efficiently using your time behind the wheel, including his own BMW with 200,000 miles. Here's his recommendations for the top ten performance and safety upgrades for the serious driver's daily driver. More »
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Quien? Factory Five Cobra or awesome Minneapolis garage mahal? You be the judge. We'll take either one. [6speedonline/Alex Bellus via 0-60] More »
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When The Dark Knight hit theaters in 2008, everyone loved Batman's Batpod, an outrageous, nearly undrivable motorcycle with a bad attitude. Someone even built one and put it up on eBay. Forget that. Here's how to make your own. More »
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Darin Cosgrove, the founder of hypermiling site Ecomodder, has built himself a boattailed Pontiac Firefly, a.k.a. the Canadian-market Geo Metro. The result? 64 mpg and all the rubbernecking he can stand. [Ecomodder via Wired] More »
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Splitting logs is best accomplished with a dedicated hydraulic device. But there are times when you’ve got to make do with a Ben Hur-style axle spike and a pickup truck. Click for the bloodcurdling video! More »
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West Point grad Roy Ragsdale used eight cheap web-cams, a cheap GPS unit and his taxpayer-funded education to whip up the PhotoTrail, a home-brew camera that takes panoramas of his surroundings. Better yet, he tells how we can too. More »
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Check it out: ChargerForums member Black Bullet (likely an alias) wanted that cool LED halo look on his fogs without going the OEM route. About $150 later: Not bad! Mr. Bullet shares his expertise, as well as pictures, below. More »
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Every now and then we come across something so foul, so disturbingly stupid, so "WTF were you thinking," that we begin to question the legitimacy of our love of cars. This epic DIY failure is one of these moments. More »
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There's not much you can do about passengers making noise short of a gag, but there are some cheap, do-it-yourself ways to stop your brakes from squeaking. PopMech shows us how, on the cheap. [PopMech] More »
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We've seen some pretty crappy DIY craftsmanship before, but these examples take the cake. What's amazing is these DIY'ers know how to post on the internet, but not how to research. EPIC FAIL. More »
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It's common to see older cars with misaligned windows unable to roll down evenly. Here's how to fix a drooping window with hand tools and a few bucks worth of parts. More »
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Perfect for hoons, Youtubers and road racers with looking for bragging rights is this do-it-yourself G-force meter. The little box can measure acceleration and tilt on one axis. Attach it to your windshield and see what kind of acceleration and braking forces you can get with your car or turn it sideways and see how good your car is in a corner. We would hope whatever you drive would be able to do a little better than this techno-fiend of a creator in his Honda Civic. Follow the link to see the build process and spend about nine seconds deciding its easier to just buy one off the shelf. [PyroElectro via Gizmodo] More »
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If you're anything like we were as kids eventually your mischievous dad handed you five pounds of bottle rockets with a subversive smile and told you not to blow your hands off.. well, you nearly wet yourself with joy, didn't you? What is it about pyrotechnics that makes young boys lose their minds with happiness? Why, the same thing that makes pyrotechnics attached to toy cars even better. This video comes from what may be the best Instructable ever made, though we're irked at it's improper name. Of course, seeing this makes us want to go out, buy and build Revell's 1966 El Camino model, attach three or four Estes E engines to the bed and be the first to attempt to put an Elco into orbit, falling satellite debris be damned! More »
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Somewhere around 1986, we got the bug to have a badass R/C car of our own. We scrimped. We saved. We scrounged, and we didn't buy an RC/10. Or an Optima. Somehow, we believed that the Tamiya Fox was obviously the coolest R/C money could buy, thus dooming us to a life of fetishizing Citroëns and Mantas. Regardless, that car frankly was pretty awesome to an eleven-year-old boy; we spent plenty of hours terrorizing motorists and wayward dogs with the torquey little buggy, which eventually ended up with a candy-apple red '67 GTO body, thus pre-dating our eight years of GM A-Body ownership by um, three years or so. Steve Finkbuilt has a slightly older fantasy — that of Tamiya's Sand Scorcher Baja Bug. And given that the car is from the company's pre-ABS-plastic era, it goes for far too much money for an econo tinkerer like himself. So, naturally, he built his own, using a venerable Grasshopper chassis as the basis. [Finkbuilt] More »
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Today's question comes to us courtesy of a reader we'll just call Gregor. True, there are some green zip ties lashing down the front of our WRX. Though, the plastic bolts they replaced were actually inferior. So we can't count that. We do remember a friend with a mid-80s Thunderbird that carried 5 gallons of antifreeze with him at all times because depending on the weather, his radiator would start boiling up green funk. But that was more stubbornness than DIY disaster. Could it be that we've never done anything boneheaded while fixin' our own car? And we're not about to count a 7-cylinder Pontiac as a mistake. How about you? – Jonny Lieberman More »
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Oh cripes, this looks like absolutely too much fun. It's a leaf-blower-powered DIY hovercraft, complete with its own game, from the friendly nerd-craftsmen/insane geniuses at MAKE. Hrm...wonder what one of these would be like on Lombard Street... Jalopnik Streets of San Francisco DIY Hovercraft Tourist Trophy, anyone? Also, anybody got a good line on Karl Malden masks? – Davey G. Johnson More »
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Sometimes, the Jalopniks actually leave their houses, mainly to drive cars. I know it's a shock, but when the road calls, we don't just stand there in the basement going, "Mom! But I already cleaned out the lint filter!" Of course, we have words to write, so it might help to have something like this car-interior laptop holder, built from plumbing supplies and what looks to be a piece of wire shelving. Of course, officer, we'd never dream of driving while geek. – Mike Spinelli More »
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