http://dannyandeliza.com/V3

I'm still waiting for my new car to arrive.  Above is what I've pre-ordered.  A Subaru BRZ in Galaxy Blue Silica with the Limited package.  Not bad huh?  I'm a little bit closer to having it.  I have a VON (Vehicle Order Number) from my dealer.  It's nothing more than numbers on a screen, but it's nice that things are progressing.  Lately, I've been thinking of a name for the car.  It will obviously need to start with the letter "B".  Brenda?  Betty?  Beatrice?

So, a few years ago I sold my project car.  A very bitter sweet day.  I received word on what it's been up to.  Due to various reasons, my project car was semi parted out and sold.  The B16 long block was built up into a screaming NA motor.  High compression pistons were added to the mix of aggressive cams, valves, retainers, & springs.  HP is just under 200 with a 10k rpm red line.  The shell apparently is being built up with a turbo K20.  I'm happy and sad...  I was kind of hoping that I'd see my hatch again some day.  Oh well, at least I have a cool car coming my way in the near future.

So, yesterday after using a trickle charger on my car battery and a fully charged jumper box, I was unable to start my car.  It's confirmed, the problem is my starter motor and not the battery as I had hoped.  Kind of sad...  I then jacked up my car and put the front end on jack stands to see just where the starter motor was on my car.  I had read that it's a bit of a pain to reach in this thread.  Boy were they right.

In the above photo, the center box is where the starter motor is.  Point of perspective, I'm lying under my car with my feet out the front of the car.  It's located to the left of the oil filter, above a half shaft (the black cylindrical bar going left to right), which is then above a frame member and an exhaust flex pipe that are physically next to each other.  The frame member is off camera on the left/other side of the flex pipe.  As you can see, my starter motor is pretty rusted.  The previous link contains well written instructions on how to remove this.  Save for this picture.  To remove the starter motor, you need to undo one electrical clip, lift the rubber boot seen on the end smaller cylinder, and then undo a nut.  After that, there are two bolts that can be accessed from under the hood that need to be removed.

Sadly, I lost my nerve and didn't remove it.  Whenever I touch my car, I almost always break something.  My car has seen some unreal amounts of salt in it's life.  Bolts tend to snap whenever I try remove them, no matter how much PB Blaster I use.  Add to this the fact that my floor jack doesn't raise the car very high.  That flex pipe on the left was about an inch from my face.  Normally, I'd just drive my car up my rhyno ramps...  A lot more clearance for this sort of thing.

I also noticed just how much rust there is on parts of the chassis.  There's a frame member that connects the front and rear cross members.  This center frame member also has a center jack point.  When I tried to use this center jack point, I was greeted with a crunching sound as flakes of rust came raining down on my jack.  The front cross member was horribly rusted and was giving while I jacked up the car.  Sigh...  12+ years & 183,000 miles of Chicago driving have sure done their work.

Not sure what I'm going to do.  If I donate my car they will tow it away for free and I'll ultimately get a tax write off.  I could try to fix it myself by changing or fixing the starter motor.  But I'd have to remove it first.  I dunno, when that flex pipe is right next to my head, it's pretty tight in there and I just lose my nerve.  Visions of the car falling and crushing me...  Don't worry I do take proper safe guards.  Wheels chocked with heavy bricks.  A pair of jack stands used and my 2 1/2 ton floor jack as a secondary device for a total of three lift points.  I did take a bar and gave it a few good taps to see if that would help a possibly stuck solenoid.  No change.  Should have sold the car to carmax right after going to the Subaru dealer...

Updated list of things to do on the Sentra in order of importance.

• Diagnose non starting issue.  Replace battery or starter motor.
• Fix what sounds like an exhaust leak.
• Fix rear brakes.
  • Replace passenger side rear caliper, possibly driver side rear too.
  • Replace pads and rotors.
  • Brake fluid flush.
• Replace air filter.
• Full Tuneup.
• Stop the rest bubbles on the doors, hood, and trunk.
• Fix the sunroof.
• Change all struts.
• Replace power steering pump, not sure.
• Fix CD player.
• Fix CD Changer.

I took part of Saturday afternoon to vacuum and wipe down the interior.  I also cleared it out of most of my stuff as well.  All that remains is a lone box of emergency road side stuff in the trunk.  If I can get the car started again, I may just sell my car to Carmax this week and not worry about it anymore.  We'll see.  I have to say, I'm still rather attached to my car.  Maybe I'll just keep it around as a beater?  Makes no financial sense, but I'm finding it hard to let go as things start winding down.  I could keep it to learn how to fix things I'm normally too afraid to mess with.  We'll see.

Yesterday was a big day for me.  I finally picked the car to replace my Sentra.  With all of the problems my car has been building up, it just felt like it was time.  Something that hadn't been true in the past 12 years and 183,000 miles of ownership.  So, after a couple days of email exchanges, we walked into Evanston Subaru and put myself down for a BRZ.  Specifically a manual transmission one in galaxy blue silica with the limited trim/package.  Fun times I've gotta say!

Sadly, the only thing left for me to do is wait.  I may not see my new car for quite a while.  Good thing Diablo III is coming out the middle of next month.  That will for sure keep me distracted.  Ha ha!

In other news, I've been offered a trade for my 3 Dell u2410 monitors.  My monitors for a Dell u3011.  It's a tough choice.  I went with my multiple monitor setup because I felt that a single 30" monitor would be weird.  But now that I have 5 monitors...  a single 30" monitor doesn't sound so bad.  I'm still thinking it over though.  It will majorly disrupt things and for sure I'll need a video card that can cope with that many pixels at once.

Fun times though.  Good problems to have.  ha ha!

I've finally become healthy again.  I was sick for over a week with the worst flu I've ever had.  With all the down time, I plotted some computer upgrades in preparation for Diablo III.  Okay maybe not for Diablo III but that's my excuse.  My computer is now sporting 24GB of ram and a massive Thermalright Silver Arrow heatsink.  The heatsink just barely fits inside Eliza's old computer case.  I have just about 1mm of clearance between the side panel and the tops of the fans!  I'm now overclocking my i7 920 from 2.6Ghz to 4.2Ghz.  Woohoo!

I think this shot gives a better idea just how big the heatsink is in what now feels like a tiny case.  The clear acrylic fan in the back is 120mm in size.  For all of the geeks out there, the Thermalright Silver Arrow heatsink fits perfectly fine on an Asus P6X58D-E motherboard.  It doesn't block any of the slots of RAM.  In fact, if you use RAM with super tall heatsinks, like Corsair Dominators or Vengeance, they will fit just fine and not touch the metal on the Silver Arrow.  However, you'll need to go into a Pull-Pull fan setup instead of a Push-Push.  I'm using G-skill Ripjaws X sticks.  While the 140mm fans will touch the tops of the ram and not allow me to close my case, using a 120mm fan similar to how a Noctua NH-D14 is configured worked out great.

The case itself is actually holding me back at this point.  It simply does not have enough airflow.  However, it's also doing a pretty good job all things considered.  Long term plan is to make a new case out of wood.  I do want to buy some odds and ends however.  Would like to pick up another set of fan clips so I can add a 120mm push fan to the heatsink and a PWM fan cable splitter so I can plug both of those big 140mm fans into the same 4 pin header.

Next big upgrade will be the videocard.  I'm going to sit and wait for a couple months to see what AMD and nVidia end up doing.  With kepler being released today and putting a serious hurt onto AMD, I'm hoping there will be a nice price war to bring prices down on the AMD 7950 or whatever nVidia releases as an encore to the new 680.

For quite a while now I've been riding my bike on a mismatched set of tires.  A red Kenda Koncept Lite in the back, and a black Vittoria Rubino Pro up front.  The Rubino Pro on the rear wheel ended up with a slice large enough that it would bulge when pumped up.  The Kenda has been doing an admirable job but it doesn't feel anywhere near as nice as the Vittoria did.  It's also starting to square off after several hundred miles on the trainer and a grand total of over 900 miles.  Mix in my fear that my front Vittoria tire may tear as easily as the rear did, and well...  It's just time to make the switch.

Sitting here are two new Continental Gatorskins for me, and one for Eugene.  Can't wait to get some more outside miles on my bike.  All this indoor riding is driving me crazy.