Hi vuohi,
Mostly long runs at a constant speed as I live outside Toronto in a semi-rural community. Fuel is in imperial gallons. EPA rated the 5.7 L engine option at 33 mpg, the 5.0 L option at 34 mpg for highway. That represents most of the driving we did. If we got into Mississauga or Toronto, then fuel economy dropped. The worst case was the 80 km zones with lots of stop lights (Mississauga). I did check the economy several times and it averaged out to 29 mpg. I was very happy to see this so close the the EPA ratings. We used premium gas as well. You could really feel the difference between grades. High test made the Buick think it was a race car. Low grade was rather disappointing in performance.
That car was one of my favorite cars of all time. It had many wonderful features and automatic everything. Even ride leveling which kept the body sitting at the correct angle. My earlier Chev. Caprice was also good on gas (5.0 L), but it had softer suspension and less good fuel economy than the Buick. Both were excellent cars. I would happily drive either today if a time machine existed.
Another aspect of a GM drive line is that it decouples and coasts when you take your foot off the gas. You have to use the brakes more, but you lose a lot less energy than most other cars where the car doesn't coast very well. If you're driving at a constant speed, the transmission goes into overdrive, then it locks the torque converter. This also saves a lot of energy. Yes, it was very aerodynamic also.
Most of the GM "B body" cars were excellent on gas, and they lasted easily into the 300,000 + km range if you did basic maintenance on it. Changing the oil was key. In fact, rust from Ontario's salt laden roads were the chief reason why people had to change cars. Having a heated garage made this at least 10X worse.
-Chris
Mostly long runs at a constant speed as I live outside Toronto in a semi-rural community. Fuel is in imperial gallons. EPA rated the 5.7 L engine option at 33 mpg, the 5.0 L option at 34 mpg for highway. That represents most of the driving we did. If we got into Mississauga or Toronto, then fuel economy dropped. The worst case was the 80 km zones with lots of stop lights (Mississauga). I did check the economy several times and it averaged out to 29 mpg. I was very happy to see this so close the the EPA ratings. We used premium gas as well. You could really feel the difference between grades. High test made the Buick think it was a race car. Low grade was rather disappointing in performance.
That car was one of my favorite cars of all time. It had many wonderful features and automatic everything. Even ride leveling which kept the body sitting at the correct angle. My earlier Chev. Caprice was also good on gas (5.0 L), but it had softer suspension and less good fuel economy than the Buick. Both were excellent cars. I would happily drive either today if a time machine existed.
Another aspect of a GM drive line is that it decouples and coasts when you take your foot off the gas. You have to use the brakes more, but you lose a lot less energy than most other cars where the car doesn't coast very well. If you're driving at a constant speed, the transmission goes into overdrive, then it locks the torque converter. This also saves a lot of energy. Yes, it was very aerodynamic also.
Most of the GM "B body" cars were excellent on gas, and they lasted easily into the 300,000 + km range if you did basic maintenance on it. Changing the oil was key. In fact, rust from Ontario's salt laden roads were the chief reason why people had to change cars. Having a heated garage made this at least 10X worse.
-Chris
Hi vuohi,
Mostly long runs at a constant speed as I live outside Toronto in a semi-rural community. Fuel is in imperial gallons. EPA rated the 5.7 L engine option at 33 mpg, the 5.0 L option at 34 mpg for highway. That represents most of the driving we did. If we got into Mississauga or Toronto, then fuel economy dropped. The worst case was the 80 km zones with lots of stop lights (Mississauga). I did check the economy several times and it averaged out to 29 mpg. I was very happy to see this so close the the EPA ratings. We used premium gas as well. You could really feel the difference between grades. High test made the Buick think it was a race car. Low grade was rather disappointing in performance.
That car was one of my favorite cars of all time. It had many wonderful features and automatic everything. Even ride leveling which kept the body sitting at the correct angle. My earlier Chev. Caprice was also good on gas (5.0 L), but it had softer suspension and less good fuel economy than the Buick. Both were excellent cars. I would happily drive either today if a time machine existed.
Another aspect of a GM drive line is that it decouples and coasts when you take your foot off the gas. You have to use the brakes more, but you lose a lot less energy than most other cars where the car doesn't coast very well. If you're driving at a constant speed, the transmission goes into overdrive, then it locks the torque converter. This also saves a lot of energy. Yes, it was very aerodynamic also.
Most of the GM "B body" cars were excellent on gas, and they lasted easily into the 300,000 + km range if you did basic maintenance on it. Changing the oil was key. In fact, rust from Ontario's salt laden roads were the chief reason why people had to change cars. Having a heated garage made this at least 10X worse.
-Chris
OK, highway driving and imperial gallons... I'm willing to believe that. Didn't even know you use imperial gallons in Canada.
Just seeing the US government numbers like 25MPG highway and the appalling 16MPG city, 29MPG didn't seem very credible as combined city/highway. But 29 MPG imperial is 24 MPG US, seems legit. But yeah, conversions, gotta love 'em. And I'm pretty sure I've made some mistake in this post as well. Did I mention I hate math?
Just out of interest, where did that 33 MPG EPA come from? I didn't find that anywhere.
Hi vuohi,
That was the figure quoted in sales literature and ads at the show. It was a beautiful car. The one we saw was black with tan leather interior and a full gauge package (including tachometer). Odd in a luxury car. Later we bought the same car optioned identically just off commercial lease. Once behind the wheel, we discovered that the gauge package was practical and useful. It was the perfect car for me at the time and I'll remember it fondly forever. The stiff suspension was a surprise as you would normally expect a mush-mallow mobile. This car meant business. The only things faster were cars like the Camero (we could keep up to them on the highway) and other cars designed for sport. I don't know how that engine got put into a land yacht, but it really ruined the expectations of younger guys driving cars that were supposed to be fast. They couldn't square that wagon loaded with stuff, family and the dog as it pulled away from them and they couldn't catch it. I was asked what engine was in it several times over the years.
So don't discount those large luxury vehicles as non-performers. Some, if pushed, can really move out at surprising speeds. Yup, I miss my Buick Roadmaster wagon.
I hate math too. That's why I just can't get liters per 100 km. Mpg is so straight forward. As for the difference between the 5.0 L and the 5.7 L, going to the larger engine is a no-brainer. Maybe it matters more in city driving?
Anyway, mix a very aerodynamic body with an efficient drive chain and you do get that level of performance. I should mention that it was throttle body injection, not direct fuel injection into the cylinders. A mechanic told me that throttle body injection was more fuel efficient. Don't know if it was true, but I wasn't complaining.
-Chris
That was the figure quoted in sales literature and ads at the show. It was a beautiful car. The one we saw was black with tan leather interior and a full gauge package (including tachometer). Odd in a luxury car. Later we bought the same car optioned identically just off commercial lease. Once behind the wheel, we discovered that the gauge package was practical and useful. It was the perfect car for me at the time and I'll remember it fondly forever. The stiff suspension was a surprise as you would normally expect a mush-mallow mobile. This car meant business. The only things faster were cars like the Camero (we could keep up to them on the highway) and other cars designed for sport. I don't know how that engine got put into a land yacht, but it really ruined the expectations of younger guys driving cars that were supposed to be fast. They couldn't square that wagon loaded with stuff, family and the dog as it pulled away from them and they couldn't catch it. I was asked what engine was in it several times over the years.
So don't discount those large luxury vehicles as non-performers. Some, if pushed, can really move out at surprising speeds. Yup, I miss my Buick Roadmaster wagon.
I hate math too. That's why I just can't get liters per 100 km. Mpg is so straight forward. As for the difference between the 5.0 L and the 5.7 L, going to the larger engine is a no-brainer. Maybe it matters more in city driving?
Anyway, mix a very aerodynamic body with an efficient drive chain and you do get that level of performance. I should mention that it was throttle body injection, not direct fuel injection into the cylinders. A mechanic told me that throttle body injection was more fuel efficient. Don't know if it was true, but I wasn't complaining.
-Chris
Sharpness and depth of focus (or depth of field) are two different animals.
If you're making images from slides it's helpful to get a USAF projection slide and see which aperture yields the largest number of line pairs.
Unsharp masking helps quite a bit, but the jazzed up/hyper contrast images rarely imitate reality. (30 years ago I was making unsharp masks for view camera negatives.)
A small collection of electronic music synthesizer chips. They should be here when I get back from a upcoming road trip. There are several companies that are currently making reissues of popular chips used in 70's and 80's music synthesizers, but Alfa Rpar has taken it one step further by combining most of the stuff needed to make a complete analog synth on a single chip. I have some on their way to me....experiments to follow.
I can do that without a synthesizer. Some of the "amplifiers" that I created, especially in the early years were unconditionally unstable.
I started making my own guitar amps out of junk at a young age. That age depends on how you define "make" and "amp."
I had built some attempts at DIY synthesizers in my teens, but the real fun started when I bought the original PAIA 2700 synthesizer kit in 1971. It had little shirt buttons for keys and drifted in and out of tune as the room temp and line voltage changed, but it started the tinkering that never stopped.
Speaking about "young age", I built my first tube amp 51 years ago at age 15.
Sounded great too, hooked up a turntable (ceramic cartridge) to it and had a blast.
It used a 50C5 output, 35W4 rectifier, and 12AT6 preamp.
George, I remember salivating at that article in Radio-Electronics magazine! By the time I had some money saved up, I was able to order a 2700 system with the Pratt-Read keyboard upgrade. You're right about the tuning on that stuff. The later 4700 series was much better - you could hook up a CV to a pair of those VCOs and sweep them to the moon and back with nary a beat between them! But of course that was linear CV response, so they were a lot more difficult to work with, but it made me appreciate just how tricky it is to design an accurate exponential converter.
Speaking of Pratt-Read, I just got a new set of key bushings for the old Aries keyboard today (pre-lubed, heh). Still need a set of those little PC standoffs for the key contact boards (all those rubber parts are shot), but they're so damn expensive for what they are, I'm thinking of MacGyvering something for that.
I had the money from working in a TV repair shop when the article appeared, and promptly sent a money order. It seemed like a year or so before I got my kit. It's stability and usability with that shirt button keyboard (the buttons broke and the wires easily bent) was a disappointment, so I ripped the keyboard from a dead organ at the trash dump and wired it in. I tinkered with the PAiA off and on, but wound up building better stuff. In 1973 I started working at Motorola and by the mid 70's I could afford a dead Odyssey (I fixed it), so I bought the first of many synths.
That would put us at the same age. My first "DIY guitar amp" was made by connecting a guitar cord where the cartridge went in a Magnavox mono HiFi at age 8 or 9. Not "real DIY" but it started the insanity that never ended.
I started making "real DIY" guitar amps with parts retrieved from trashed TV's radios and Hifi sets a few years later. Some were given away, and some were sold for cheap $5 to $10.
I just checked the USPS web site, and in a miracle of postal efficiency, the synth chips are "out for delivery" today.
Do you have a spare Moog/Radio-Schack MG1 to sell cheaply??!! I'm coming to USA in early November and could have one back home.
Do you dare share the address to USPS with us ... I mean the seller of the chips?
Unicorn-Electronics have some, FlatKeys in UK have TOGs and dividers and I have bookmarked (somewhere
) a company in Germany that sells loads of unobtainium electronics.There was a guy in the Netherlands that had LOADS of IC, but he got fed up by everyone that just wanted chat and closed the shop.
Anyway, the Moog Realistic MG-1 had been a great machine to have but having paid 3 times more for the car repair today, than I would have IF my repair shop had been open. The just had to get a new exthaust system in place - three bolts and two rubber fastenings. So no synth today ...