Lonewolf Online

Road signs ‘lost’ on many drivers

Friday 8th June 2007  

According to a new survey, many British motorists are lost when it comes to understanding common road signs. Some 67% of the 2,500 people polled did not recognise “no through road” signs, and one-third could not identify the sign for “no motor vehicles”. Fewer than 33% knew what a “no cycling” sign looked like and one-third were confused by height restriction signs.

Vauxhall’s poll found drivers would like to see signs such as “cash machine nearby” and “urban foxes crossing”.

Full Story: BBC News Website

Is it any wonder that Britans roads are chaos? We live in a time where, it seems, anything goes. As far as I am concerned, these drivers should be taken off the road to study the highway code and then take the driving tests again. Do these people know what the national speed limit is I wonder? or for that matter a circular sign with a large 30 inside?

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This post is filed under Cars, What is the World coming to? by Lonewolf at 8:04am

VeilSide Titanium Teardrop Exhaust

Wednesday 23rd May 2007  

I bought a VeilSide exhaust at Japfest last Saturday from Nemesis Performance trade stand (with a huge reduction in price) and it has just arrived.

We spent this evening fitting and testing it, we had a little problem with one of the hangers being not high enough but we got around that easily enough. It has a loud, deep burble on idle which I love, it sounds great on full throttle and the overrun is fantastic (pop, pop, bang!, pop, bang!) however for a daily driven car the normal cruising speed is defining inside the car :(. I am looking at getting a silencer insert for it as will as sound deadening in the boot (which I will first have to make water tight as it leaks - what is it with Jap cars and boot leaks :roll:)

Just waiting for a dry day where the engine is cold to install the VeilSide Exhaust Temperature Gauge.

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This post is filed under Nissan Skyline by Lonewolf at 10:46pm

Thrills and Spills at Japfest 2007

Sunday 20th May 2007  

Japfest is one of the UK’s largest gathering of Japanese Performance vehicles, and this year was set to be the biggest Japfest ever. There were plenty of high performance cars on show, including Ten of the Best, Driftworks and loads of other power cars.

I have only previously been to one other Japfest in 2005, in which car clubs were the main emphasis, however this time it seemed to be more on the tuning companies and track shows. Not that I’m complaining mind you, we all love to see the Driftworks gang tearing up the tarmac!

A few spills this year, the first I saw was a Honda NSX spinning into the tyre wall then rolling over. Good job Honda’s are safe as it was a fast impact. Car is a write-off but luckily the driver walked away seemingly uninjured.

Zen performance were looking very fast on track until the scooby engine blew up in flames, not sure what happened as we only saw the smoke. Everybody looked OK though which is the main thing. Only a few minutes after they had cleared that up another car decided to catch fire in exactly the same place - this time it was the Whifbitz RX7. Shortly after that another one went up in the pit lane. We don’t know what that was though.

Trade stands were packed all out, but I did get a load of Meguiars stuff and I managed to secure a VeilSide Titanium “Tear Drop” exhaust for my GTR as well as a VeilSide Exhaust Gas Temperature gauge to replace my faulty Blitz gauge. Now I have no money

With all this action going on, plus all the show cars I took over 900 photographs on the day, filling up four CF cards. Took all of Saturday evening and most of Sunday to process them! So head over to the gallery NOW to see my Japfest 2007 Photos.

 

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This post is filed under Events, Nissan Skyline, Trackdays by Lonewolf at 5:13pm

Strange Lights in GTR (Part 2)

Monday 30th April 2007  

The light in the roof of my Skyline remains a mystery. So far the best idea is that it is some kind of map light or pace notes light. This was suggested by Jim from the GTR owners club.

The red light is for night vision, the green light aids visual enhancement to see map details and the mirrors create a polarizing effect so that the light does not reflect off the dash or windscreen.
You can Read the full post on gtr.co.uk.

I have finally had chance to test this theory, and I can say that as a map light this is very impractical. The light is barely bright enough and is in totally the wrong position.

The light is bright enough when it leaves the slots, but by the time it reaches the mirror it would be too faint to see whilst driving. I have been outside for about 2 hours so my eyes were pretty accustomed to the light by then.

The beam of light is also far to narrow, it is like looking through a letterbox. The position of the dash and the windscreen rule out some kind of map holder there, as there is not enough space.

The position of the beam of light is also wrong, you have to look up to see the map.

The mirror can be adjusted up and down, however you can’t adjust it much or the light gets stopped by the slats and breaks up.

I used my proper camera (Canon 350d dSLR) for these pictures as it is far superior to the little one at low light levels and one thing I did notice on the pictures is that the green/red are split, not combined. The red only accounts for a small fraction of the beam.

 

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This post is filed under Nissan Skyline by Lonewolf at 11:44pm

Strange Lights in GTR

Wednesday 25th April 2007  

I have in my Nissan Skyline GTR a strange light cluster mounted onto the ceiling, and I cannot see any useful purpose for it (or ANY purpose for that matter!).

I have been racking my brains trying to work out just what this thing is. All I can work out is that it is some kind of projector onto the lower central part of the windscreen… but nothing is projected and I can only see it when the windscreen is misted up at night.

The cluster has slots in it at an angle so that you can’t easy see in, except if you put your head up against it. Inside I can see what looks like a mirror and prisms with a red light and a green light.

The best suggestion I have had so far is Cylon related! (compare the first picture with the Cylon from classic Battlestar Galactica)

If anybody can tell me what this is please do!!!

UPDATE Number 1: 26-04-2007 08:10

This morning in the light I decided to take off the cover to this strange device to see what was in there. The switch panel has Nissan on it which would indicate that this is a optional accessory/dealer/factory fitted. It is a substantial piece of kit as it is bolted through the head liner to the roof (not just stuck on by after market). With the switch panel removed I can see a circuit panel but there is no part numbers to identify it. When I removed the cover with the slots in, I can see a little more, there seems to be two lights and an array of mirrors in side, but I still have no idea what this thing is.

UPDATE Number 2: 26-04-2007 21:49

I took the cover off when I got back from work, and found that everything was still under wraps. The headlining has been cut away, you can see where it was marked out. It has been done very professionally. Still no observed part numbers. The unit is bolted to the actual roof of the car, through what look like factory mount points.

I checked the number on the circuit board and its an inverter. This will transform the 12V car supply to whatever voltage that the lamp would require.

I cleaned the mirrors as well because they were thick with dust. Maybe this will increase the light intensity a bit. The whole unit is coated with optical quality matte back paint - which isn’t cheap. Its the same stuff that the inside of my telescope is coated with.

As the tree said to the lumberjack: “I’m Stumped!”

You can read more discussion about this thing on the GTR Owners Club Forum

 

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This post is filed under Nissan Skyline by Lonewolf at 10:34pm

Trackday at RAF Colerne

Saturday 14th April 2007  

My Brother-in-law and a couple of good friends went to RAF Colerne today as they were hosting a trackday. We were having a look to see what was going on, what sort of cars were there and how it was run as we have plans to take our cars on track in the near future.

The event was organised by by Motorsport Events and they hold track sessions around the country. They seemed to have setup the event well, and everybody had their own section of track as they would only allow out a certain number of cars at a time. Most of the cars were either Honda Integra Type-R, Caterham or Lotus, however there was also a Porsche 911 GT3, Opel Manta, MR2 Turbo and many more.

If we can all get our cars ready for track use in time for the next event I think we will all be on track next time! In the mean time why not have a look at my event photographs in the trackday gallery.

 

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This post is filed under Events, Photography, Trackdays by Lonewolf at 8:00pm