Iggy

Hey man,
Long time no hear. Check out the gallery board for my big adventure to PA with the my new YAKIMA cargo box.My Box

See ya in the fall!!

Iggy

Southbound

Iggy,
Where's Chevy Chase? Can you fit Grandma up on top in that box? LOL As long a Christie Brinkley gives you the nod, I'd say keep it on. No matter what it looks like, I'm sure the road tunes "Sounded" good!

Yeah, I haven't clacked for a while trying to catch up on work, etc. I do, however, browse the board everyday just to see what's new. I've been waiting for "heyrandy" to report in as to how his rear install of the DX6s went, and what value of tweeter resistors worked out best for him. I've also been wondering what ever happened to "sniper" and his terminator install? Last I heard he had his parts in hand and was going to give it a try... that was weeks ago... I will probably take my doors back off and futz around with the tweeter resistor and/or rolloff cap over the 4th of July weekend, just to make sure that I've done all I can to make these speakers sound their best with the STOCK electronics.

I noticed that you hadn't posted for a while either, I thought maybe you were busy jumping the pond. Glad you had a good vacation! Sounds like the TLS and the Yakima gave you what you were looking for. Speaking of racks on top of cars... I'm a skier and don't have any BIG SUV to carry skies in. I could probably put a couple of pair in the trunk and use the pass through beer hole. If not, I'll have to someday buy a ski rack for the top even though I hate to dirty up the new car that way.

MY QUESTION... For anybody that has lowered their car... Are you able to still put snow chains on afterwards? I plan to keep the car stock in that regard because there looks like plenty of height clearance for chains. Again, I hate to think of chipping up the paint job on ski runs, but then again, you can't stop doing what you love just because you bought a new car But is it possible to still use snow chains with different springs?

heyrandy,
If you're reading this... I have another fuel related question. I've been putting Premium gas in my 94 V6 Camry since it was brand new. The owners manual says that it will run on 87 octane, but suggests using premium for better performance. My question is this... If a certain car can get by on lesser octane, is it a waste to spend the extra money to burn premium? The Camry doesn't ping on regular gas, but I just feel better by putting in the Premium fuel. It was my understanding that the premium had better additives to help it run cleaner over the long run, etc. Is that correct? or is it just marketing to suck me into buying the higher grade fuel? The Camry now has 80,000 miles on it and still runs/idles as smooth as day one. Either the premium has helped, or it's just a good engine. I've never put any injector cleaner in with it or even changed the fuel filter. Just regualar oil changes along with the air filter. I just replaced the timing belt and spark plugs, and they all looked clean. Just wondering what your thoughts of using premium gasoline are when the car could get by on regular? Am I wasting my money, or am I prolonging the life of the engine and maintaining its smooth operation?

Thanks!

Glad to have you back, Iggy... Thanks for the Hello!
Southy

PAW

You might see if the ski bag from an Accord will fit the TL's beer hole. When I get a TL I plan on explorering this option. Else, use your own, regular, thin ski bag. They also make ski rack that fit a trailer hitch. Easy on, easy off.

Get the clear bra to avoid the rock chips. My '91 Legend is beat up bad from them. My next car will definately have this.

If the car doesn't need premium and doesn't ping on regular gas, your wasting you $ on premium. I used Chevron Techtron fuel cleaner on my '91 with 150K miles. It seemed to have a little more power afterwards.

heyrandy

SB -

I'm not sure how complex the engine is in your Camry? Does it have a knock sensor? If it doesn't and it doesn't ping with 87 (or at least very seldom), it is a total waste to use higher.

The knock sensor will retard timing and possibly other performance-robbing things to prevent high compression cars like our TL-S's or my old MX-6 Turbo from pinging.

Every oil company that I know of uses the same additives for each grade. Yes marketing is very prevalent in getting people to use the grade with the highest margin. My brother-in-law had been using mid-grade for years in his Chrysler minivans until I clued him in.

With my MX-6 Turbo, I used both regular and premium depending on what type of driving I was going to do. It never pinged with 87. I sold it with 187k miles with no internal engine work ever done and it still ran very smooth. I changed oil every 3k and at the end it was a quart low when I changed it.

However, doing it over, I would have used synthetic oil in it as the turbo bearings were getting pretty noisey the last 6 months when the engine was cold. When I bought that car, an oil expert at the Conoco refinery where I worked suggested I use Mobil 1 since the turbo gets pretty hot and the turbo spins for awhile after the car shuts off (with no coolant or oil circulation). The net result is possible coking of the oil and bearing damage. I thought that I was OK since I always let the engine idle for a couple of minutes after a hot run and changed the oil so often. But I would guess that the engine and turbo would have been in a little better shape after all of those miles with synthetic in it. Even changing the oil half as often since the synthetics don't coke or thermally decompose like conventionals.

I'm planning to use Amsoil 5W20 changed every 6 months for my TL-S. I'll continue to use conventional oil changed every 4k miles for my minivan since I probably won't keep it much past 140k miles. Of course I only use 87 octane in the van.

Southbound

heyrandy,

Thanks for your great post and for saving me future money at the gas pump!

I've been doing trial and error mods on the POLK tweeters this weekend. THE RESULTS ARE VERY PLEASING!!! I'll be posting more, once I really determine what combination of resistors and caps worked best for me. In the meantime, you might want to read a recent response to the thread "Iggy/SB need your help"... or it's called something like that. I just finished some testing and posted my preliminary results there.

I'll have more to follow and then we will have a really nice DX6 FIX!

Southbound