Lesson Learned Tonight

Injen Intake

Well folks a lesson was learned tonight, if you plan on going to the drag strip make sure it is actually opened.  A few of us were planning on going to the strip tonight but it turned out when we got there it was closed.  I spent the afternoon checking my fluid levels, making sure my brake calipers were torqued down correctly and adjusting air pressure in my tires.  One interesting thing that a friend and I decided to do was remove my driver side fog light.  The light sits directly in front of my intake filter (Injen Intake to the right)

It actually did effect my fuel trim levels (long term).  I usually run at around -3% to -5% however by removing the fog light and allowing more air into the filter the fuel trims seemed to lean out, no surprise there.  Current fuel trim levels are around -1% to 3.5%.  I'll continue to monitor the fuel trims as the computer continues to adjust for it.

Clearly this isn't something that you want to do everyday.  Especially since rain would be forced straight into the filter, not to mention other things would be directly hitting the filter such as rocks and bugs.

I'll take some pictures over the weekend and post them.

GM signs new contract with UAW workers

Today's copy of The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article found on page B3 called "GM: Contract Protects Us."  The summary is below.

Dan Akerson (GM CEO) claims that with the new labor contract with the United Auto Workers union (UAW) GM will maintain profitable in North America even if U.S. auto sales sink to lows seen during the height of the economic meltdown in 2008.  Essentially the deal raises the pay for GM's lowest paid factory workers, however it will be making its labor costs more variable and linking them to profitability and quality of the company.  Also, the plan will open up the Spring Hill, Tennessee factory and thus creating up to 6,400 new jobs.  Under this new deal, factory workers would receive a combination of one time payment and profit sharing pay that would range from $12,500-25,000 over the life of the contract.  The UAW is still in talks with Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC.

In other news Japan's auto maker Toyota reported its first increase in monthly sales since the earthquake and tsunami in March.  However all is not well with Japanese auto makers.  Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. reported 17% and 2.5% drops in domestic output in August respectively, compared to last year of the same time.

First Entry

After a lot of time on forums and other similar media sites I've decided to create this blog.  The blog will primarily be dedicated to automotive related things.  I plan on posting a lot about my car and what I'm doing, along with other things going on in the automotive world.