i have a newer honda, try to not use honda filters, marginal quality...tend towards the German guys, Mann and Mahle
Neet but I would like to see a bunch of filters like the k&n Cut as well just to see if the k&n
is as good
We use a Car Quest Premium oil filter, which is better made than the stock US Subaru filter and rated at 10k miles. It is on par with the Japan filter, if not better.
@DannyP yes we are making a Boxster-esque bowl and access plate to check and fill oil.
I forgot who asked, but Joe's red oil cap and dipstick are simply a plastic primer paint and the body shop used a plastic adhesion promoter also. Seems to have held up better than i expected...
I’m pretty simple and don’t want to have to run around to different stores for different filters for the Subaru, Nissan and Speedster, so I just go to the NAPA store and get NAPA Gold (made by Wix) filters for everything and drive home.
If it’s not the best available on Planet Earth, I’m OK with that.
Neither are the cars.
My Nissan won’t start with the gas pedal floored, either, nor can you accelerate with one foot on the brake (as in trying to bed brake pads). Nope...... Can’t do that!
I’m gratified that I am so well protected From myself in our modern cars. 
Do any of yours have the forward collision protection stuff? Pam's Outback has caught me by surprise a couple of times when it slammed on the brake because the guy in front was slooooowly turning into a drive. Luckily the folks behind me were paying attention. Seemed a bit premature to me.
No, ours are pre-Big Brother-Driver so none of the lane changing or watch out up ahead warnings for us (yet). I’m sure the next car will have them and that’s the first thing I’ll be asking how to turn off.
I’m very happy with a backup camera or rear proximity sensors for parking, and maybe a blind spot warning, but that’s about it.
We bought the Crosstrek because it was the only one available with a MANUAL transmission. It doesn't have any of that fancy crap on it.
It does have "hill assist" which is pretty convenient for around here.
One thing annoying about modern manual trannyed cars is the "rev hang" when changing gears. When you push in the clutch, the revs hang where you were at for a second or two. They're trying to make it easier for morons to drive manuals. This feature also makes using the engine to slow down less effective. They're always trying to fix sheat that ain't broke.
The guy in the video mentioned above by @Carlos G is a factory-trained Subaru tech with a YouTube channel dedicated to Subaru maintenance. Some good stuff there.
I drove a 2019 911T (factory lightweight, more street version of the GT3) a few weeks ago and it automatically rev matches when you down shift. I eventually was able to let go and let the computer do it for me (which was weird) but I'm a "heel/toe" guy and my instinct has my foot rocking whether it did something or not...
@chines1 posted:I drove a 2019 911T (factory lightweight, more street version of the GT3) a few weeks ago and it automatically rev matches when you down shift.
I can't tell you how badly I would hate that. All the magazines gush about this driver's aid/ "launch control" garbage, then campaign to "save the manuals". If the "manual" car is taking control of throttle/gear-change functions, then no wonder people just buy the paddle-shifted car.
It's a sportscar for crying out loud-- let me do something.
I can kinda' understand the push towards autonomous pods (I guess), in that so very many people live in people-piles, whereby "driving" means "sitting in stop-and-go traffic". What I'll never understand is sportscars taking driver involvement and numbing it or dumbing it to the point where the car says, "hands off, you moron-- I've got this".
I have no desire to drive HAL2000 for pleasure, no matter how much better HAL is than me. As I've said before, George Clooney would probably make a better dinner date for my wife than an orangutan in a polo shirt, but I'm not likely to hire him to take her out for me.
Does anyone else keep an imaginary scoresheet in your head as you motor down that favorite twisty bit of road?
How many times did you get the revs wrong by just a little?
How many times did you nail it?
Are you working the corners smooth enough that your wife isn't reaching for the grab handle?
Or picking the shift points so the engine never sounds like it's working too hard?
Nah, it must be just me.
@Stan Galat posted:I can't tell you how badly I would hate that. All the magazines gush about this driver's aid/ "launch control" garbage, then campaign to "save the manuals". If the "manual" car is taking control of throttle/gear-change functions, then no wonder people just buy the paddle-shifted car.
It's a sportscar for crying out loud-- let me do something.
What I'll never understand is sportscars taking driver involvement and numbing it or dumbing it to the point where the car says, "hands off, you moron-- I've got this".
I have no desire to drive HAL2000 for pleasure, no matter how much better HAL is than me.
I never learned how to heel/toe or double clutch, but I do love driving a manual. Learning them would undoubtedly make things smoother and probably extend the life of the drive train. I'll work on that. I do love to blip the throttle in between gears though just for the sound. THE SOUND! Mechanical music it is.
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Carlos, if you've never, the hardest thing today may be finding someone local to show you how.
On a recent test drive at a Honda dealer, the sales lady kept staring at my feet, wondering how I was doing that. A few years earlier, at a Mazda dealer, I told the sales dude the pedals (on a Miata) were set up just right for heel and toe. I might as well have been speaking Mandarin.
It is well worth the effort to learn. The first time you get it just right, you are hooked for life.
And your synchros will be forever grateful.
That’s a skill I hope to learn in the Coupe, especially since I want take it to the track at least once.
You will like the powertrain on that car Lane the ratios are pretty nice on Subie tranny.
I remember Jay Leno saying click click click and your doing 100mph, it just gets boring.
@Carlos G posted:I never learned how to heel/toe or double clutch, but I do love driving a manual. Learning them would undoubtedly make things smoother and probably extend the life of the drive train. I'll work on that. I do love to blip the throttle in between gears though just for the sound. THE SOUND! Mechanical music it is.
@Lane Anderson posted:That’s a skill I hope to learn in the Coupe, especially since I want take it to the track at least once.
It's not an ideal video, but it's 2 minutes long. If you are "blipping" the throttle on downshifts, you're 95% of the way there.
It presupposes in that video that you come to a corner and brake then slide your heel/foot on the throttle while you ate finishing with your toe on the brake and with the clutch in changed gears as let the clutch put... heel and toe
i wonder if @Marty Grzynkowicz’s shoes and gloves are needed 
What is the benefit of that if you don’t actually double clutch?
@Lane Anderson posted:What is the benefit of that if you don’t actually double clutch?
The cigar goes to Mr. Anderson.
You DO get the engine spinning up where it needs to be for the downshift but methinks you're still doing a disservice to the synchros.
So, here's how I learned it in the middle of the last century:
When the clutch pedal is down (clutch released), the engine is not connected to the gearbox. You can rev the engine all you want then and nothing will spin up in the tranny.
The whole point of rev-matching is to get the next gear down spinning at the speed it will need to be at when you engage the gears.
So, clutch pedal down, shift to neutral, clutch pedal up, rev the engine (and the now-attached gearbox), quick-like-a-bunny depress clutch pedal a second time (thus double-clutching), and then shift down while the bits in the gearbox are still spinning at the speed they will need to be after the shift. Then, finally, clutch pedal up to engage gears.
Some of the comments in the video suggest modern gearboxes don't need to be down-shifted this way any more. True? Myth?
Have I mythed something?
In any case (see what I did there?), I suspect our VW gearboxes are old enough to need to be shifted the way I learned.
You do need a really good alignment of the stars sometimes get a quiet type I gearbox . Just saying
@Sacto Mitch posted:Have I mythed something?
Yes. Synchros and helical-cut gears. BMC had non-synchro, straight cut 1st gears that required double clutching 2-1 well into the 60's. Racing transmissions had straight cut gears requiring double clutching because straight cut gears transfer 5%-10% more power than helical cut gears do. (That's misleading. Straight cut gears LOSE LESS power in transmission than helical gears do)
As we discussed a few months ago wrt broken clutch cables, you don't really even need a clutch in a synchronized, helical cut gear transmission, except to get underway. Shift into neutral, match the rpm, and a gentle nudge in the shifter and the Synchros will do the rest.
@IaM-Ray posted:You do need a really good alignment of the stars sometimes get a quiet type I gearbox . Just saying
Motul Gearbox 300. Just saying.
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@dlearl476 posted:...and the Synchros will do the rest...
So maybe synchros are just stronger than they used to be?
I think one of the arguments for double-clutching was to save the synchros, especially at higher rpms. And this was on road cars with full-synchro and all helical gears.
I do notice that downshifts and upshifts on my car almost require rev matching to go smoothly (upshifting, I pause in neutral a bit to let the revs drop). And I'm so used to double-clutching down that I never try rev matching any other way.
Old dog, new tricks.
@Sacto Mitch posted:
Some of the comments in the video suggest modern gearboxes don't need to be down-shifted this way any more. True? Myth?
Have I mythed something?
In any case (see what I did there?), I suspect our VW gearboxes are old enough to need to be shifted the way I learned.
Meh. Maybe a 901 or 915. The Porsche synchro design(brake-band style) cannot be rushed or pushed. There is always a pause to a well-shifted Porsche trans. In 1985, Porsche switched to the G50 which used the Borg-Warner style synchro, and is basically still in use today with lots of evolution.
However, 99% of us have a VW Beetle transmisiion. They used cone synchronizers and shift like butter if assembled with proper clearances. Up or down.
Damn.
So all along I've had a 901 and never knew.
So let's see if I get this right:
- Doing the heel-and-toe technique allows you to smoothly downshift and brake simultaneously, but doesn't necessarily provide any aid to the synchronizers unless maybe you allow for a little clutch drag will blipping the throttle. I would suppose de-clutching slowly might support that.
- A true double clutch technique can be mastered only by the superhuman, but does add the extra benefit of easing the load on the synchros.
I'm only partially kidding here as these are questions I've wondered about for a while. If I take the car (or any manual car) to the track I need to master at least #1.
I have seen 6 toe feet & 6 fingered hands They have a little extra... all in gest of course.
BTW I had a type I tranny that was so slick and smooth and quiet that I know what DannyP means by well built.
The concern for the syncros is touching. SAVE THE SYNCROS!
They cost about $5 each, and will last for 10s of thousands of miles even abused-- if the transaxle was assembled with care.
So I think I'm comfortable mastering a basic heel-and-toe. 
Now back to my car. It's all about me, you know.
Whatever you choose to master, Lane, it's no 'superhuman' task. It can't be if I figured it out. Like riding a bike, once you get it, you get it and don't think about it much after that.
But, back to your car, the pedal setup and the brake feel will make all the difference in how easy it is to get. I didn't realize it at the time, but the first car I learned it on had pedals that were perfectly set up for it - a BMW 2002.
Besides the spacing between the brake and gas, another factor is how far down the brake pedal is before the brakes start to grab. If this leaves your heel about even with the gas at that point (with your toe on the brake), heel-and-toe is easy.
My MINI Cooper is a great driver's car, but the pedals are all wrong for heel and toe, so I don't even try in that car.
Also, brakes that are too touchy can screw things up. You want to maintain even pressure on the brakes while you're kicking the gas. Overly-sensitive brakes make that hard. Since most of our cars have unassisted brakes, that's usually not an issue.
You may want to touch base with Carey about this.
Mine has Wilwood pedals, I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong, @chines1, but I know it doesn't have the standard Beetle cluster, which would make heel-and-toeing almost impossible. See pic below when Carey installed the brake and clutch. Not sure how the accelerator will be mounted, but I'm sure Carey has my back.
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@Lane Anderson posted:Mine has Wilwood pedals, I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong, @chines1, but I know it doesn't have the standard Beetle cluster, which would make heel-and-toeing almost impossible.
Well... not quite.
A VW pedal cluster can be massaged to be quite good as a heel/toe setup.
In our cars with tiny foot-boxes, most often it's big toe-little toe rather than heel-toe.
On most Spyders, the relation of the brake pedal when on the brakes to the throttle is exactly adjacent and maybe just behind the brake. It is such that you can keep even pressure or modulate the brake whilst rolling your ankle and blipping the throttle with your little toes. My Cayman works that way too.
I brake with about two-thirds of my foot letting my little toes hang near the gas. Don't wear big clod work boots when attempting this.
I guess it matters if you're a 9B or a 12EEE and whether you're in flip-flops or Dr. Martens. One of the reasons for driving shoes is that they're small to fit in a cramped pedal box, and soft-sided to help with fancy footwork.
For me, the stock VW pedal box is one of the best I've tried. Toe on the brake, heel on the gas.
Same with the old BMW.
With the (first gen) Miata, though, I had to learn to roll and use the side of my foot to hit the gas.
And like I said, the MINI's stock pedals don't work at all for me. Same for Hondas and Toyotas I've had.
If you're at all concerned about doing this, now is probably the time to let Carey know.
@DannyP posted:In our cars with tiny foot-boxes, most often it's big toe-little toe rather than heel-toe.
On most Spyders, the relation of the brake pedal when on the brakes to the throttle is exactly adjacent and maybe just behind the brake. It is such that you can keep even pressure or modulate the brake whilst rolling your ankle and blipping the throttle with your little toes. My Cayman works that way too.
I brake with about two-thirds of my foot letting my little toes hang near the gas. Don't wear big clod work boots when attempting this.
Since I replaced my VW cluster with CNC pedals, this is how it works for me. Just a roll of the ankle and I can blip the throttle with the outside of my foot. The bad news? I pretty much have to wear driving shoes in the Spyder now. And I have to be careful I get my foot square on the brake during panic stops, otherwise I'm pressing the gas, too.
I learned heel&toe on my first car, a crappy 69 beetle that had 4 different tires in two different sizes on it when purchased. You can imagine how well it was set up. Anyway, armed with a copy of an article by LJK Setright, and the conviction I had more in common with Jimmy Clark than the average bear, I managed to learn it. Once I mastered it on that pig pretty much everything else has been pretty easy. Later experience with a friend's 2002 was revelatory, damn. Then when I got into old British iron with their straight cut 1st gears I learned double clutching. At the moment my MINI has a really good set up for me with the exception of modern car rev hanging, but I've ranted about that before, so never mind about that. Can't wait for my coupe to get back to basics.
Lane, you are gonna have soooooo much fun!!!
@dlearl476 posted:Since I replaced my VW cluster with CNC pedals, this is how it works for me. Just a roll of the ankle and I can blip the throttle with the outside of my foot. The bad news? I pretty much have to wear driving shoes in the Spyder now. And I have to be careful I get my foot square on the brake during panic stops, otherwise I'm pressing the gas, too.
I have size 10.5 to 11 feet, not too wide. I prefer driving the Spyder barefoot if it's warm enough. If it's not, I'll wear some nice lightweight sneakers.
One time I was driving the Spyder home from work wearing my full-armor lineman Red Wings: steel toe and steel shank with those logger-looking lug soles. A traffic light was changing in a 55 mph zone. The person in front of me did just about a panic stop, so I had to as well. Those big soles got the brake pedal and the gas pedal too. A real pucker moment with the front brakes slowing me down as I was roasting the rear tires with the throttle! I got it slowed down enough to take my foot off and re-position fully on the brake and stop. NEVER AGAIN did I wear large shoes in the Spyder!
“If you're at all concerned about doing this, now is probably the time to let Carey know.“
Did that some time ago, so I’m covered.
And for someone who wants something other than Piloti. Marty highly recommends Snakes. they are much lighter weight for everyday use. The regular snake not the .2.
https://www.geox.com/en-US/sea...nakes&lang=en_US
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Yes, wilwood brake/clutch pedals and a 911 throttle pedal. We haven't used VW pedals on anything in many years, quality just went to $h!t and I got tired of dealing with it. Pedal are all set for maximum spacing is a small pedal box and throttle is set nicely for "hell/toe" although Danny's description of a foot/ankle roll is certainly more accurate to my style as I find that much easier and more comfortable for me.
On driving shoes; several years ago Porsche Design partnered with Adidas on a series of driving shoes. I had the CF "original's" and the 917's. Both amazingly comfortable and skinny where it counts. Not sure if they still make them or not...