Hot Hot Hot

Firestar of Marvel Comics

  It's so hot outside this whole week I had to turn the open oven on to cool down the house!  A little rain is coming over the mountains it seems, nice to rain ash-dirt on us. 

   At this point, I'm expecting antics from Super Mario Brothers The Motion Picture to start.

  Picked-up Becky's carb-cleaned Ninja 250 Special Edition at Rocky Mountain Cycle Plaza.  They had scratched the tank a bit but buffed it out pretty well.  Becky was none too pleased.  They offered to have it repainted and clear-coated (the scratch is about an inch or so) but they did a very decent rebuffing so it might be all-good.  Bike had to be driven under 50 mph (no more than 5k rpm) as it only had 12 miles on it (sat in the garage for 2 years).  I doubled the miles riding it home on the side streets.  Gave it some good acceleration pulls from stop to seat the rings.  Break-in process is vital for new vehicles, but most people don't do that, or bed the brakes either.  Proper break-in procedure usually results in better-than-posted mpg and slightly better horsepower after a year or so. 

I knew this guy who had a Ninja ZX-9 (no longer produced) who brought back his bike and revved it to redline the day he got it (clutch engaged) to show off the engine "sound".  He'd do this and a few burnouts in the driveway.  After a few months and 2000 miles I asked him if he had changed his oil yet from the "break-in" procedure, as he was complaining his engine sounded like marbles in a coffee can.  1000 miles later he did and out came chunks of aluminum.  His engine was shot.  Kawasaki gave him a new engine after 3 months as it was under warranty.

  Proper break-in of a car or bike is keep rpms under 4 or 5k and not a steady pace (so, city driving is good).  At about 500 to 1000 miles, change the oil and you're done.  Easy, yet so few adhere to this rule.  Ah, well.  I figure the way a guy treats his cars is how he'll treat his lady at home (though not always if he's simply obsessive-compulsive) and is a good judge of character overall.  Wax his car twice a year, clean inside and out?  Fine.  Wax every weekend?  This guy's got issues.  Never hand-wax?  This guy doesn't like his life as he's still searching for something better than what he's got.  Got a Prius?  He's a moron and voted Obama, then will vote Obama again to not admit he was wrong the first time.

Toyota Prius entering the Full-On Gay Rainbow Tunnel in California