Quantum Leaps

[Grumpy Bear]

Count. Calculation. Statistic. Parameter. Which of these can I analyze? More importantly, why would I want too? Simple answer? To scratch an itch.

 

I like to scratch an itch. It feels good. It edifies me. It entertains me. But as much as I like a good scratch I don’t like to put allot of effort into it. No more than I absolutely need to get the result I seek and answering the question in bold in the first paragraph goes a long way toward that end.

 

I buy a new truck and I want to know what kind of mileage I can expect from it. That is a major itch. To scratch that itch I will need a ‘count’ of the miles driven and a ‘count’ of the gallons used to cover those miles.

 

Not much to analyze. Nothing in fact. They are both just numbers in thin air until I perform a ‘calculation’, dividing the miles by the gallons to obtain my answer. Anything there that can be analyzed? Nope. Just a result. It told me what it did…that time. Is that useful? Maybe if that is all I wished to know but nothing there one can hang their life or their hat on if my questions are larger.

 

You don’t have to be long for this world to know that that number can and will vary according to circumstances and to the general health or state of tune of the machine.

 

If I were to keep a record of every tank of fuel for the entire life of the machine up to the day it goes in the compactor at the scrapyard I would have a record of the machines life time operating ‘parameter’. That is, the entire data set. Can I analyze that? Yes I can and what it will tell me is past performance in the broadest possible strokes.

 

But what if I want a tool that can predict the future with a degree of certainty that is acceptable or a tool that tells me when ‘baby’ has a mechanical issue that is not readily apparent? How about if I want a tool that predicts the results of the next tank based on some third value of input such as…weather…wind….speed…load? What do I need then?

 

I need a ‘statistic’ and a statistic is a sampling of multiple calculations or determinations performed on a count within or under the influence of a qualified or defined set of conditions. Can I analyze a statistic? You bet. Doing so is the best way to scratch that itch you have for your answer to the unseen and previously unknowable.

 

You do it all the time. You’re in the store and want to know if this bag of green seedless grapes is sweet? What do you do? You take a sample, eat a few and perform a subjective determination on a pass/fail basis qualifying the result against your expectations for the quality you call ‘sweet’.

 

You didn’t have to eat the entire bag. Just a sample and that sample told you what the remaining uneaten grapes were most likely to taste like. Probability.

 

Question. Did that guarantee that every grape was sweet? No. I provided an expectation they were. Question. To what degree of certainty? Good question? Depends on the size of the sample statistic vs the size of the parameter. That is, it should be obvious that if you ate the entire bag before you make the register your result is 100% certain. Is that a probability? Actually it is the result. The probability that after eating 99 grapes that the last of a 100 is good is highly probable. If I ate one in a ten million, I’m not quite as certain.

 

The analysis of statistics is a very old science and so we don’t need to redefine the wheel to know what the probability of a result on the parameter will be when we subject a statistic to standard analysis or mathematical inquiry. And almost anything can be subject to this exercise.

 

Let’s say I expect 250,000 miles out of my truck. Each fill is roughly 18.5 gallons and I expect 25 mpg. How many miles do I need to drive to obtain a 95% probability of reaching a result that has no more than a 10% error?

 

You can find these calculators on line. 40,000 miles or 82 samples (tanks) is the rough answer. Whew, that’s a bunch, eh? Especially when I know the result is that I will be within, at best, 2.5 mpg of my target with only a 95% degree of certainty.

 

There has to be a quicker and easier method than this. And there is. Treat it like a process control problem. I accept the fact that there will be a degree of variation and track the trend instead of searching for the conclusion which in reality can only be know after the fact when seeking 0% error and 100% probability.

 

For that I only need a six point moving average over 21 tanks and the third sigma standard deviation for a 99.7% probability of knowing the next result. Near certainty. Why such a difference? Because it is a predictor of the next statistic not then result of the parameter. A target shift from knowing the final result of an entire data set to knowing the just the next data point.

 

Your tracking a trend. Not a result. Trends are more useful when attempting to ‘see’ the health of the truck or the anticipated result of some set of known operating situations. When controlling a process or tracking things like quality.

 

I really don’t care today what the lifetime fuel average was after I junk it. I want to know how much fuel I need to plan for my 2500 mile trip next week. I need to know if the 2.5 mpg drop in fuel usage is a result of filling station variation or a trend that is telling me I have a mechanical issue. I need to know if the factory rep that is telling me that “this is normal” it telling me the truth. If not, can I prove with a high degree of certainty he’s full gray air? Do I have leverage to force a repair? What is my seasonal variation? What is normal and what is an alarm going off I should not ignore.

 

Granted this isn’t everyone’s cuppa tea. But it isn’t a waste of time either for those that can or those willing to learn. Knowing provides confidence. Enough so that when someone tells you a topic, such as average speed deduced from total engine hours and logged miles is not subject to this exercise or you don’t need to know or it can’t be known you can pull the BS trigger with a high degree of probability.

 

You know that the data, all inclusive, reflects the truest picture of reality.

Edited March 9, 2017 by Grumpy Bear

[Grumpy Bear]

Your ambling along rural North America on some state four lane highway. Moderately heavy traffic and you’ve been watching in your rearview for some time now this fella/gal doing the dodge and weave looking for the fast lane trying to get home what will in the end be but 3 seconds earlier. You know this because they eventually pass you and half an hour later you’re right behind them at the first stop light in town. Maybe even beside them.

 

Picture this person lives next door to you. You’re in the front yard one fine spring day kick’n back and he starts a conversation with you about how lousy the fuel efficiency is on his new half ton. The one he bought just a few months after you bought yours. Perhaps he mentions that he bought it partly on a conversation you had with him about how good the fuel mileage was on yours and now he’s calling BULL on the buy and who’s to blame?

 

Let’s do the math because the argument is going to be ridiculous.

 

100 mile trip at 60 mph takes 1.67 hours. Done at 55 mph it takes 1.82 hours. The difference is 15% of an hour or NINE minutes. What did that cost you in fuel? More is about all that can be said with certainty without doing some trips to find your particular answer. For me it cost about 7-10% more fuel. For most this will be the low end of the scale. I drive pretty conservative. Wife calls it something else.

 

The opening paragraph is over a much shorter distance, like the drive home from work in a neighboring town. You arrive at the same time, give or take a minute, and use 20% more fuel. The shorter the distance and the more aggressively you drive it, the worse the scenario becomes and the less time you save. The more risk you place on yourself and everyone around you and the higher the wear rate of every part of that machine.

 

Wife makes this drive every week to Moline Illinois for work. She makes the trip in about two hours. It’s a 116 miles. She drives about 75 mph but nets 58 mph. Traffic. In and out of town to and from the freeway. Her Terrain delivers 22 mpg. I make the drive at 60 mph making it in 2 hours and 7 minutes and the Terrain delivers 28 mpg. I averaged 55 mph. Yep she saved 7 minutes driving 15 mph faster and used 2.24 gallon more fuel round trip. Let’s put some perspective on that. In a year….

 

She uses 116.5 gallons more fuel wasting almost $300 and saves about 6 hours A YEAR. She needs to make $50/hr. to break even.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Grumpy Bear

[Grumpy Bear]

What do you suppose the viscosity of 50W oil is at 260F? I’ll tell you what it isn’t. It isn’t as thick as 5W30 at 160 F. A simple little secret most don’t know that haven’t had some seat time in a refinery making this stuff.

 

Your motor hasn’t a care one bit what the viscosity is in the bottle or on some spec sheet. It cares what the viscosity is at the temperature is it is operating at.

 

Story for you. Yep a true one. My buddy Tom and I rode the Dragon. Deals Gap on our Glides. I ride a 2005 Classic that is stone cold stock other than some oil system modifications. High volume oil pumps. Twin coolers in series AFTER filtration on a custom mount I made myself. This bike runs Redline 10W40 Automotive oil and carries about a half quart more than stock due to the extra cooler and a larger automotive filter I can mount because of my custom mount. If I run both coolers wide open I can add 90 degrees to the air temperature and that boys girls will be the tank temperature.

 

Tom rides a 2006 Ultra. Single cooler, factory mount and filter and Redline 20W50. His oil temperature will run about 40 F hotter than mine.

 

So say it’s a 90 degree day. I’m running along at 180 F and Tom will be close to 220 F. Got that?

 

The day we run the Dragon we pick up a third rider on another 2005 Ultra with no cooler and running 20W50 Black Bottle Harley oil. I’ll get back to him.

 

When we ride this ride it isn’t like a drive to church. I drop Oliver in a lower gear and twisting the wick and dragging both the brake and the running boards with the tach between 3000 and 5000. I’m on the hunt. Yep a bagger in a road race.

 

This particular day it is 92F AND there is little air through the coolers when the bike is held under 45 mph so a thirteen mile beating creates some heat we don’t normally see. These are the tank temperatures at the end of the 13 mile trip.

 

I’m 205F. Tom is 245F and the other fella is…hang on to your hat 305F!

 

True tech. Every 20 degrees over 220 F cuts your oil life in half. He’s coking. Thick as tar and smelly. Only take minutes at those temperatures.

 

I also own a 2002 883 Sportster. Run Redline 10W40 in her too. Single cooler with a 180F thermostat to bypass the cooler. Also filter before cooler. Stock pumps. There has NEVER been oil in the cooler. Tank sits right at 160F. 60F or 110F outside temp. No, it didn’t behave this way with 20W50 whatever oil in it. Ran about 215-220 F.

 

When you’re playing with different viscosity oils or different types of oils there are two basic things to watch. Temperature and pressure. 10 psi per thousand is a good guide. If the oil gets too thin you will lose pressure.

 

The second, temperature should be intuitive but isn’t for some. The lower the friction the lower the temperature. If you fill with a lighter oil and loose oil temperature…well….there’s a hint there if you are listening to it. Of course the opposite is true. It isn’t heavy enough if a heavier oil gives a lower temperature.

 

So some say if you don’t get your oil over 212F (100C) you can’t boil off the entrained water from the combustion process. Every hear of a little thing called the Law of Partial Pressures? Never mind. Try this instead to make the point. It will mean more to you.

 

Put a half a pot of water on the stove with a candy thermometer and regulate the temperature to @ 160F and observe how long it takes to evaporate all the water in the pot. Takes only about a hours running at 160F to remove all the water from the oil pan. It’s a few ounces not a few gallons and you quit condensing it once up to temp. Fact is water will evaporate at room temperature. You know this.

[Grumpy Bear]

You wake up one day and just feel different. A difference that will remain with you for a very long time. How long I don’t know for sure. Just long. I remember this as a child. Waking one morning and putting my feet on the floor just a little differently than I did all those mornings before and I somehow knew I was no longer an adolescent. I actually remember than morning like it was yesterday. That was a shift in thought. Nothing had really changed since last night but I saw it differently and I felt it differently. And it will happen to you many times over a lifetime.

 

A shift in thought always brings a shift in response, a change in your routine your method your mechanics and your thinking. Some of the more notable shifts were the day I knew my daughter was no longer a baby. The day I knew I would never wake up again with the vigor and strength I had at thirty. The day I was forced to retire before I was ready at any level.

 

Feeling it and accepting it are two very different things. Some I did eagerly and some I fought tooth fang and claw. That morning as a child for instance I bounced into the kitchen fully embracing my new normal. My parents screaming “Who are you and what have you done with our son?” Shelly not being a little girl took a few years and aging…well I’m still fighting that one.

 

Some come to you as the above did, naturally, and others are thrust upon you, like a forced retirement or a divorce or the death of someone you have a connection with or a prognosis of some terminal illness. Major accidents will change things in hurry. Any of the these will get your attention differently, eagerly, sorrowfully, painfully.

 

There are also those changes that don’t happen to you but happen around you and yet affect you greatly that you have to fit into one of those boxes of your new reality. Like the way new things are being made without regard to quality seeking only profitability. Instant gratification. Fame.

 

We want to see things unchanged and forever and stable and safe. It is how we are designed but change things do. Sometimes in an instant, sometimes over a life time and never with our permission. The only thing we can change is our response…or not…as you choose.

 

Here’s one I’m just starting to appreciate. The way older folks, like myself drive, slow and deliberate. If you’re not old you’re thinking it is a result of fear and a loss of reflexes and/or a loss of physical ability. For some that is absolutely true and for all, in time, it will be. But not always is that the case.

 

At least not at first. More in the sense of playing chicken with your mortality. At sixty three I can see the end of my road pretty clearly. I don’t have any idea when but I know that certain things are now on the last lap. For instance I love cats as does my wife and I know being a lifelong cat lover that they live about fifteen to twenty years in the home if well taken care of. I also know how cruel it is to take on the responsibility of becoming an animals charge and not completing the task you signed up for. This set of four we now have will be the last so I enjoy them more and I pamper them more and I fret over them more.

 

I know this as well. This new truck I’ve bought, without any thoughtful care, could last five to eight years and become a leaking squeaking rust bucket by the time I’m sixty five or seventy and without the resources to replace it in like and kind OR I could take care of it like my grandfather did his Studebaker and have it serve me the remainder of my life time and still looking pretty good. Maybe pass it to one of the grandkids as a ‘first truck’.

 

Bigger point is…for me being forced into retirement, and too old to be gainfully employed at the level that would allow the purchase of a ‘death truck’ in my twilight…this one is the last one in just about any terms that can be seen or explained. It is also my first one. Happy me.

 

I don’t drive like I drive because I’m frightened of traffic although an accident could at any time end the dream. I drive like I drive because it’s just good common sense. It just isn’t good common sense to anyone who hasn’t accepted reality. Darn few will end with enough resources to be thoughtless about how it’s spent.

 

SO…like the cats, this one we now have will be the last so I will enjoy it more and I will pamper it more and I will fret over it more.

 

I have mixed feeling about those too young and inexperienced or just to brash and haughty to understand any of this. In one sense I am jealous of their ignorant abandon. I miss that. In another I feel bad about the day they get the lights turned on.

 

Or maybe I’ll just sell it and go fishing….

Edited March 21, 2017 by Grumpy Bear

[Grumpy Bear]

Fuelly.com quotes in red italics:

 

Based on data from 12 vehicles, 548 fuel-ups and 171,702 miles of driving, the 2015 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 gets a combined average MPG of 17.00 with a 0.29 MPG margin of error. (Graph Below).

 

I plucked the above data for just the 4.3 Ecotec3 Flex Fuel motor for all cab/bed/drive type configurations. The remainder reads...

 

Based on data from 179 vehicles, 9,219 fuel-ups and 2,877,857 miles of driving, the 2015 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 gets a combined average MPG of 16.58 with a 0.06 MPG margin of error.

 

That is 313 miles per tank for the 4.3. Based on their mpg data the average fill is 18.41 gallons per fill.

 

Peppers current record shows 475 miles per tank for 42 fills with an average fill of 18.66 gallons for 25.5 mpg.

 

That is to say this truck is returning 150% better fuel efficiency than the public record. That’s like buying gas at a 33% discount and getting over a hundred miles per tank more range as a bonus.

 

I was disappointed based on the EPA numbers of 17 city/ 22 highway the Scan Gauge II wasn’t delivering the 33% advertised improvement. Car and Driver instrument tested this motor in 2014 in a crew cab at 16 mpg.

 

Actually Linear Logic gives this data for fuel savings.

33% using the gauge to learn your most efficient usage.

17% removing excess weight and drag

14% Observing the speed limit.

2% avoiding excessive idling.

 

Add Scan Gauge use + Speed + reduced idling and what do you get? 49%.

 

Not exactly my mix but close. I do avoid excessive idling like the plague. I use my gauge like a religion. I do what I can and continue to look for drag and weight reductions. Speed however is a large mixed bag of tricks not many would be interested in. How do I know that? The public data makes that pretty clear.

Edited March 27, 2017 by Grumpy Bear

[Grumpy Bear]

A Quantum Leap worthy of the title: (Finally)

 

Sonder. That’s an interesting word. Recently coined I understand. Sounds like saunter and thus how I found it. Embarrassed myself actually but that’s a story for another time.

 

Sonder I read on the ‘dictionary of obscure sorrows’ means, and I quote:

 

the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

 

Creepy right? But interesting too. Evidently it is a noun one can ‘have but once’ per person. Once you’ve realized it…well…ya can’t unknow what ya know.

 

It’s more pointed than an epiphany. Sharper than an awakening. Both broadaxes compared to the surgical precision of a sonder.

Oxford English Dictionary contains 171,476 words in current use. another 47,156 obsolete words.

 

Did I read that right? Obsolete words? And…we are making new ones that say the same thing the retired word or words do. Hum.

 

“Hey Bob, I need a driver for my ego car. Let’s make up an new word and give ego a boost”.

 

That would be funny if the English language wasn’t in such a long term state of devolvement. The harder we try to be understood, the less we are. The less we are the harder we thrash to be seen until we’ve lost all modesty.

 

Ouch, a morality word. It just means knowing the limits of your abilities. Yes, keep your pants up to.

 

How did I make that jump? We make crap up to be seen; like new words. Over esteem and overestimate our abilities and knowledge. Hold opinions as facts and dismiss laws as opinion. Ignore the lives of the other ants in anthill we live on.

 

Pretty sure we have enough words. Even enough of the right words. What we lack is the understanding of those words and…their impact on others. Maybe the need isn’t more words to speak but rather a more concerted effort to understand more clearly the words of others we hear.

 

We need a Sonder. Now that IS funny.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Grumpy Bear

[Grumpy Bear]

I am a car nut with a capital N. I’ve read and studied cars since I was old enough to pull up my own pants. Car Craft might actually be the first thing I ever read cover to cover. Hot Rod was second. I’m sure of it. Father had me sitting on the floor under some truck holding the light and handing him wrenches as soon as I could sit up straight. I’ve spilt enough blood over the rough horn like edges of cast iron to count as the Levitical blood sacrifice of bulls. This father bred love of cars is likely what peeked my interest in all things math and science honing my analytical side to a razors edge even though he didn’t do it for love…he did it for money. His second of three jobs. Children was his third. Parenting is a full time job.

 

I’m sure my parents fought over me. Mother, the artistic type saw beauty in nearly everything. We were her full time job until we were on our own. Then she taught art which she actually regretted. “Make what you love your living and you will come to hate it”. Countered the idea that “If you do what you love you will never work a day in your life”. Maybe both are true. I’m sure she could have explained it if I would have asked.

 

She could be painting, planting, writing, doing the dishes or folding a bed sheet and explain the beauty not only in the work but in the act of doing it.

 

These two people instilled self-worth and a proper level of self-esteem in their five sons not by handing them a trophy or indulging or buying their every desire but by verbally coaching and hands on instructing them to understand their gifts and skills and how to step back from a task and really take note of what was accomplished. How to be self-analytical. Bootstrap yourself to your next level of excellence without regretting the current accomplishment. Pretty nifty skill I’d say if asked.

 

Mother also made sure the third book I read was a Bible. No man accomplishes a single thing of his own accord or of his own effort. You don’t enjoy the taste of your food because you skillfully grew it and artfully prepared it and spent a life time honing those skills. You enjoy it because your creator gave you taste buds the and the mental discernment to differentiate shades of subtle differences that allow you that pleasure. The mental capacity to learn and the physical attributes to manipulate tools, ideas and dreams into something tangible. Your pride comes from developing what you were gifted with and not from taking credit for being gifted. That glory is Gods and it’s a far grander accomplishment than anything of men.

 

My parents did not build with bricks of undeserved confidence by handing out participation trophies shielding the chicks from their own failures. I am so thankful for that.

 

[Grumpy Bear]

Almost feel like I’m hammering a nail that’s been driven home. But I think it’s more like the frog that jumps half way to the wall each time it jumps. It can never reach the wall yet it continues to try.

 

I’m one who looks at an EPA sticker and says it’s conservative. I’ve beaten that number with every vehicle I’ve owned since they started putting them in new windows. This isn’t the only nail I hammer. I made a living out of it. Tuning process and instrumented control loops and plant procedures. Wringing every last gram of worth out of whatever it was I set my site upon. This I know. You can work at a thing for a decade and never perfect it but boy can you make it better and still…even with all the time, study and record keeping you may not be comfortable in a an attempt to explain what it is you did or do.

 

Partly because each year or decade technology creeps up on you. For instance. Before EPA stickers we knew that most Harley riders got between 32 and 35 mpg touring the big motors. I bought my first in 1976 and before it was six months old had it in buckets in the dining room. Every last nut and bolt. The I reassembled that bike bolt by bolt perfecting every surface I touched and applying my then 20 years of knowledge against it to a result that surprised even me. I had a bike that would go all day and all night five over the double nickel and return 60 mpg like punching a time clock in any weather, on any rode. It would also outrun anything in the county and make the Kawasaki 903 think twice about biting off a piece. But that isn’t the real story in this. Technology followed almost every trick I knew and today the factory big motors will deliver 50 mpg pretty easy and are much more powerful than my 77 inch shovel was. Why is that important?

 

Because the science I used then to deliver a result is now every day and main stream. Meaning that those methods now longer work when employed on newer equipment. Truth is I didn’t know something no one else knew. I knew things that:

 

1.) No one else generally outside engineering believed.

2.) I knew things no one generally knew how to apply.

3.) That no one else had reason to promote

4.) That no one else was willing to try in a production environment.

 

Example is ignition. In my youth there was a ton of room for improvement. We had distributors with points, condensers and coils too week to generate a spark hot enough and reliably enough to fire every combustion event. If fact Detroit accepted and used to their monetary advantage that as a human cannot detect a misfire rate less than 15% it didn’t need to be more efficient than 85%.

 

There was a great deal of knowledge revolving around timing curves but the simple distributor didn’t lend itself well to applying it in a cost effective way. I became expert in the use of a Sun Distributor Machine and looked like the Wizard of Oz to most. I got just as good with a Holley and a Bendix.

 

I generated results like 25 mpg from a 14 mpg 200 cid Mustang. 23 mpg from a 15 mpg 350 76 Corvette. 92 mpg from a 70 mpg Royal Enfield 500. Every one much more powerful when sorted.

 

In 1998 I bought a Honda Civic HX which has a coil over plug and a computer generated virtual distributor and a bunch of engineers than know how to program them. Boy howdy. I hadn’t learned yet how good they really were.

 

I bought a Jacobson system to ride piggy back to boost the spark energy. Did it work? Yep, jacked the current at the plug up a bunch. Problem was that Honda had the HX 1.6 liter motor hitting 99.9% of the combustion cycles already. Zero net fuel or drivability improvement.

 

Their product did what it said it would do. I paid the price and they played on my ignorance in the advancement of technology to make a profit.

 

There is little low hanging fruit left mechanically or electrically in modern road worthy machines that YOU don’t control with a simple choice.

 

Caveat Emptor.

 

[Grumpy Bear]

When you’re the slowest dog in the pack the view is always the same. While that is normally said as a slam tisn’t necessarily so. It has its advantages. Ask a Canada goose if always being in the lead is good. Nascar drivers often find second place the best place to win from on the last lap. The air is calmer in second place and it takes less power to hold your spot. Geese change places to provide rest for the front runners based on this drafting principle.

 

Drafting lowers the pressure gradient between the front and rear surfaces of the truck reducing the pressure drag. It’s what it is called in engineering circles.

 

Put your hand out the window of your truck at 60 mph palm to the wind and note the difference in pressures between the windward an leeward sides. The faster you go the higher the pressure difference and the more fuel it takes to maintain your speed. But there is a practical problem with drafting. Beats the paint off your truck. Rock chip city. It takes about a 165 feet at 60 mph to clear the rock chip zone. Drafting effectively is much closer. So…I don’t draft. There is even a plan in the works for autonomous driving that packs cars in a blocking draft.

 

Another more practical way to lower the pressure gradient is to slow down. Most are not a huge fan of this strategy. Wife hates it. Me I play it to the nines. She hasn’t caught on to the headwind/tail wind strategy. I did years ago while I was still smoking and riding motorcycles. I smoked on the motorcycle. I noted one day that the smoke from my cigarette was rising unaffected by my speed straight up and I was ridding 45 mph. I also had a 45 mph tailwind. I would speed up and the smoke came back and if I slowed down the smoke would travel forward. Coolest thing I’d seen in years. Stagnate air. I could have been in the cab of the truck and it would have been just as calm.

 

I make this same note today observing the Scan Gauge II. On a windless day at 55 mph the mileage meter is ticking away about 26 mpg. Catch a head wind and it drops hard.

 

Depending on the strength of that wind and its exact direction to mine I can slow enough to bring it right back to 26 mpg. Never below 45 mph. If I catch a tailwind I can, and do, speed up. On a trip yesterday I was tooling up I-39 with a strong tailwind doing 60 mph and clicking off 32 mpg. I could have driven 70 mph and stayed above 26. If you play this effectively your average speed is quite high and your fuel usage is lowered nicely.

 

I’ve almost taken the adopting the attitude of a sailor.

 

“It’s an ill wind that does not benefit the sails of some ship”.

[CadillacLuke24]

Boy howdy you notice that tailwind. Clyde sure is stable in the crosswind, but you can feel the extra torque required to charge the stiff air

[Grumpy Bear]

Boy howdy you notice that tailwind. Clyde sure is stable in the crosswind, but you can feel the extra torque required to charge the stiff air

 

Cd is pretty good on these trucks but the frontal area is HUGE. Pepper is a rock in a crosswind but takes a beating in a head wind of only 20 mph. Flying boxcars is what they are. That said, it's workable.

[Grumpy Bear]

Why do you suppose we call anything different an ‘upgrade’. Not actually true is it? Sometimes different is just that, different and sometimes it a major loss of ground. Kind of like the washing detergent advertisements that say ‘new and improved’. Really.

 

Decades ago we lost TSP in laundry detergents to federal regulations and got the ‘new and improved’ logo on our TIDE boxes and whites were no longer white. Was it a plus for the environment? Likely but it was not for cleanliness of clothing.

 

I’m a Levis man. 517’s for decades. Heavy, blue and tough as nails and for almost the entire production life available in waste and length by the inch. Nice NEAT fit. Not skin tight. No poopy butt either. Haven’t seen a pair locally for about five years.

 

Wranglers it is. Cowboy cut they call it. Hum. About 1/3 the denim weight. Slovenly fit and about twice to five times the money. I laugh. What they call designer we use to toss to the curb. Ripped. Half worn and faded silly. New and improved thinking. Upgrade your wardrobe with the latest landfill pickings. I thought the first pair I tried on were girls they were so low wasted. Hip hugger types that show five inches of your crack. Those were $80.

 

Local business lady and friend runs a small dinner and is having a real hard time finding help that is helpful. New hire says, “I don’t do floors”. Seriously? Who does them at home? That line of people they always told us was waiting in line for our jobs is still a line. It just doesn’t want to work. If you can walk and chew gum you have a job.

 

I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to retire. Afford it that is. Looks like that isn’t going to be a problem. I don’t buy what doesn’t work and I don’t hire that attitude. Oh yea, I get clipped now and again. I don’t have special vision that looks into the heart and can filter out the liars and cheats but shame on me if I get bit by the same snake twice. That said. I won’t be buying much of anything that doesn’t support life functions or fulfill the law.

[Grumpy Bear]

I get a card from the office says I have a patient at a nursing home that needs seeing. He’s in a state home for the elderly and he really isn’t all that old. They want an evaluation.

 

I know this place. It’s an old hospital from the 30’s. Small rooms. No windows. Not much larger than the average jail cell. Single bed along one wall with a full length dressing mirror at the foot on the same wall. On the next wall a three drawer chest of drawers. At the head of the bead a single simple and plain night stand with a photo a comb and a pack of gum. The opposite wall, the entry door, a small chair and the closet. A single bare bulb hangs from the ceiling. Not a picture in site. I knock and enter the room.

 

I find this nicely groomed and well-dressed man sitting in the chair, back to me, staring into the mirror intently. He moves his right hand and observes. Nods his head and smiles. Quietly he mummers a hello in my general direction as he continues focused on the image in the mirror.

 

“Hello”, I answer back then start to introduce myself…

 

“Why does he do that?”, he interrupts me in mid-sentence.

 

“Do what?” I ask.

 

“Copy exactly my every move?” His tone is mildly annoyed by my query like I should have known better but his focus remains unbroken.

 

I pause and offer, “It’s a mirror”.

 

“I know that. I’m not an idiot but why do you think he does this?” His tone a bit sharper this time.

 

I measure my words. “A mirror reflects images” I state flatly in a calm tone. No need to set him off.

 

“I know what a mirror does. But what I want to know is, do you think he’s making fun of me?”, concern in his voice mounting and now he shifts his gaze to my reflection which he seems to note for the first time. “Hey…there’s another fellow doing the same thing to you”!

 

“I see”.

 

“Do you think they ever get bored doing this?”

 

It might be a good idea to play along so I ask, “Oh I don’t know. How long has he been doing this?”

 

“For months”! I’m shocked to silence and remain quite long enough for him to continue, “But your guy is new…I’ve never seen him before”, puzzlement comes over his face.

 

“Well”, I offer, “Ever think the maybe this is all they know how to do?” almost as an afterthought I add, “Poor fellas, it might be their only entertainment”.

 

“Yea,…maybe”. He looks directly at me for the first time, “Man this would bore me to death. It’s kind of unsettling the way he’s there every morning as I peer over the end of my bed”.

 

After a moment he asks, “You think the room on his side is bigger than mine…looks the same to me…but…maybe…” his voice trails off and he returns his gaze to the mirror as I excuse myself unnoticed.

 

This true story was related to me by a friend in the mental health field and I choose to relay it in the first person, so no…I’m not a shrink. I am, however thoughtful.

 

​Pay attention and you will notice his thought process is about on par with what is accepted today as normal. I'm just say'n.

 

Creepy!

 

[Grumpy Bear]

Boss says, “Problem with common sense is, it isn’t commonly used”.

 

You decide to change your oil viscosity grade. Motor runs cooler. What happened? If you used the same brand and type a lower viscosity resulted in less pumping friction. Friction is heat. If the change was to a higher viscosity then it is now preventing metal to metal contact. Drag is also heat.

What if instead you kept the viscosity grade but changed the oil type? Oil types all have differing thermal capacities. By type I mean base stock type. Naphtha, Paraffinic, Hydrocracked Dewaxed, POA (Poly Alpha Olefin), Esters / Diesters. Group 1 through 5 respectfully. Groups 1 & 2 have about the same capacity. Then after that each successive increase has an accompanying thermal capacity increase.

 

Thermal capacity is also influenced by the additive package so brand to brand changes do occur between similar base stocks. There are also blends of stocks with all sorts of differing results. So called ‘Semi-synthetics’.

 

It’s pretty easy to sort out with decent instrumentation and some experimentation and sound scientific approach. Record keeping and data mining those records. Your basic cluster gauges are not up to the task.

 

There are four ways your oil deteriorates to the point of failure or just in need of a change. Free radical oxidation. Thermal oxidation. Dilution/contamination. Additive depletion. For whatever reason most are simply willing to rely on marketing hyperbole. Because an oil company said so, it’s so or because a manufacture says so, it’s so. Not so much. They do pretty much what’s in their best interest. Not yours. But you knew that, right?

 

An oil with a high thermal capacity might lower temperature enough that one viscosity grade lower might actually provide more viscosity at the lower temperature than the higher viscosity grade did and the higher temperature. Just think on that a minute and it will kick in.

 

Oils are tested at specific temperatures. 540 Rat is such an independent tester. Look at his work and you will note some test he did at multiple temperatures to drive home the link between viscosity and film strength within the SAME oil. Here’s one of those common sense things not commonly used.

 

An oil that test lower in film strength at the same temperature as another oil Group type of a lower heat capacity is certainly capable of providing MORE film strength at the motors actual operation temperature as achieved by the use of the higher thermal capacity oil. Let’s play that out.

An ester test say 90,000 psi at 212 F while a competitors POA test at say 120,000 psi at 212 F in the lab on a lab apparatus. In a motor the POA runs say 230 F while the Ester runs 205 F. The POA lost film strength due the increased oil temperature attributed to a lower thermal capacity while the Ester GAINED film strength due it’s higher thermal capacity. Perhaps they even switched places. That is to say the Esters is now 120,000 psi @ 205 F and the POA 90,000 PSI at 230 F. Motors don’t run at lab conditions. They run at load and circumstance conditions. And what does common sense say? Don’t think that’s possible? There is a 15 PERCENT difference in thermal capacity between a Paraffin oil and an Polyol Ester. That you can Google.

 

The oil that provides the lowest possible operating temperature at the prevailing operating conditions is the oil that provides BOTH the lowest pumping friction while preventing all metal to metal friction.

 

Standardized test are meant to give an apples to apples comparison at a stable point of reference. The motors world is anything but standardized and highly owner/operator dependent. You still have to use your brain.

 

Common sense 2. “THEY” say that you can’t run a lower, or higher for that matter, viscosity oil because your AFM or VTEC is hydraulic and based on a specific viscosity to operate properly. Even by their own standards that means on an exceedingly hot day or track day your system will fail or on a cold winter day the same would be true. What is true is that if the system is clean and mechanically sound it will work just fine. ‘THEY” have these things running so hot now that the difference in Kinematic viscosity is a centistoke or two apart between oils of two grades difference at 240 F. While that may represent a 100% change in viscosity it is still one or two centistokes. It’s liars using numbers. The numbers don’t lie. In fact there is more difference that than between two manufactures oils of the SAME grade at that temperature depending on the viscosity INDEX difference between those two oils.

 

Common sense is indeed, not commonly used. But hey, those consumer reviews sure are popular.

 

Lowering temperature by these methods reduces load on the motor which again reduces temperature. Know what else it does? Keeps the AFM on a higher percentage of the time and even when not in play it lowers the TPS setting required for a given road speed and environmental load. Economy is 100% load driven. You can obtain abnormally high improvements in mileage verses non-AFM systems. As a nice little aside you can double your power train life.

 

There are two sources of load. Wind. Terrain and speed, etc. And then there is vicious drag and metal on metal friction. Internal and external. If you can mentally separate the two the light bulb will get brighter.

 

OR…you can ignore common sense and do what you’ve always done and get the results you’ve always gotten. Not my trucks, eh?

[Grumpy Bear]

To me preventive maintenance is more than just swapping parts or fluids out on scheduled intervals. It’s understanding why they need to be and doing something proactive about it. I have no illusions that the truth is; GM (place your favorite company in place of GM if you like) has their own best interest at heart and haven’t a clue or a care about who I am. How hard I worked for the money that bought this truck or how little I care about how much more of it they get. I’m not even a line on the balance sheet. More like a speck of dust on a scale they weigh profit an losses on. Individually, I don’t matter.

 

While I may not matter to them my truck matters a great deal to me and I have no intention of placing my trust in the company that considers me not.

 

Funny thing about a warranty. If you don’t do as they say…you have no claim and if you do as they say you have no truck. So here’s my guarantee to GM and about a thousand other companies. I have no prejudices.

 

IF I buy your product and it turns out to be a pile of crap…or you won’t stand by your product when I take better care of it that you wished I would thus differently than you require…I guarantee I’ll never by a scrap of anything associated with you again.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I have no issue with a company declining a claim when equipment is abused, misused and improperly maintained. I take issue when that same rule applies when I take better care of it that the warranty requires.

 

GM has absolutely no vested interest in my truck once it leaves the lot. In fact, best case for them is that they never see me again except to buy maintenance items or to purchase services until it wears out and it’s time to buy another one.

 

What they will do is their best effort at assuring the maintenance program they schedual will indeed make Ol girl survive just past the warranty and not a second longer. They will further assure that those parts and services will be needed as many times as possible between purchase and the grave. Additionally that they will require special tools available only from the dealer at prices absurd.

 

Some say I’m cynical and critical and I need to just stop it, “your bleeding all over people”.

 

Well honey bunches of oats. Here’s my second guarantee. When “they” stop punching me in the mouth (wallet) I’ll promise to quit bleeding on them. Fair enough?

 

You don’t get to operate like this and have me sit pretty and eat it like candy.

 

My cynicism is EARNED.

 

Here’s a hot example from another company. Exxon Mobil. Links for credits for sources.

 

http://crankydriver.com/word/oil-voodoo-that-you-do/

 

Regular Mobil 1 has apparently become a hydrocracked Group III oil,

 

http://www.upmpg.com/tech_articles/motoroil_viscosity/

 

How do I know what motor oil is a Group IV (4) based PAO synthetic motor oil?
As more and more large oil companies switched their "synthetic" motor oils to the less expensive/more profitable Group III (3) base stocks it has become much easier to identify which are PAO based true synthetic. Of the large oil companies, only Mobil 1 Extended Performance, as of this writing (12-16-2012), is still a PAO based true synthetic. The rest, including regular Mobil 1 and Castrol Edge have switched to the cheaper/more profitable Group III (3) petroleum based "synthetic" motor oil.