Square Holes Made Easy

A machine that drills square holes? Be still, my heart!

Good morning Hoons.

I have a profound love of tools of all kinds, especially those tools that make a difficult or nasty job much less so. One common nasty task that I encounter on a regular basis, so I’m sure that everyone else does too, is the need to make square holes in parts for whatever device that I’m currently constructing. It’s a true pain in the butt and I dislike it with a passion. It takes an inordinate amount of time to complete a clean job of it, and it’s far too easy to muck up the sizing and alignment of the sides of the holes.

So imagine my delight when I came across this ad from a Japanese company for a tool that drills square holes in metal. It’s about bloody time I say, and I want one that I can hang from a tool belt and drop on my foot.

There are two short videos after the jump that demonstrate this rather nifty device.

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The Truth About Cars breaks down the Tesla Roadster bricking story

Can you really turn your $100,000+ electric sports car into an unusable brick? Yes… and no. The Truth About Cars did some digging into the recent story regarding a few unhappy Tesla owners that’ve turned their cars into lovely lawn ornaments. The story broke when it was found that Roadster owner Max Drucker found out he would have to shell out $40,000 to replace the “bricked” battery in his car.

It seems that leaving your electric vehicle unplugged is a major no-no, as a completely drained battery is not readily willing to spring back to life simply by being plugged back in. As a fail safe against completely drained batteries, a Tesla Roadster will alert the driver that the car has a range of zero miles remaining, when in fact there will likely be at least five percent battery life left. That’s not a lot, but it’s typically enough warning for a Tesla owner to get his or her car hooked back into the grid, and slurping down delicious electrons. By contrast, the battery readout in a Chevrolet Volt registers as having zero miles remaining when that system may in fact have one-half to one-third of its battery capacity waiting in the wings.

Still, don’t feel bad for Mr. Drucker just yet.

Tesla constantly works to inform its customers that leaving their electric vehicles unplugged is a very unwise practice. Sales and service staff go over this fact with the people who buy the cars, and it’s constantly brought up throughout the owner’s manual. Additionally, new owners are forced to sign an agreement that states they understand leaving their car unplugged for a long time can result in a battery with a zero state of charge.

I reached out to our own resident Tesla owner from AtomicToasters.com, Mr. David Wegmuller, to get some more insight on the issue of Roadster ownership as it relates to charge states. Per David, “In almost every interaction I’ve had with Tesla Motors, they’ve mentioned the need to keep the Roadster plugged when not in use. After one service they even left a flyer that read: A plugged Roadster is a happy Roadster.“

I also turned to the Tesla owners forum, which ran a poll of its readers to see how many know about the dangers of leaving the car unplugged for a long time. They know, all right.

[Source: The Truth About Cars.com]

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The Police Crookhook, Designed to Stop Hoons

Cue the stereotypical cheesy line from Wolrd’s Wildest Police Videos: “I’m Sherriff John Bunnell, when a police officer is in pursuit, the stakes are raised when a crook is on the loose. His driving behavior is not just sloppy and dangerous….but fishy…looks like we’re gonna have to hook him him up”…” lalalalalala.

Ladies and gentleman, hoons and hoonesses, cops and speeders, take a look at patent 5,839,759: the CrookHook.

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Why It’s a Good Idea to Have a Dash Camera

Those nifty little dash cameras have given the world some pretty amazing pieces of footage over the years. Whether it’s a avoiding an accident with a truck that hit black ice or catching a hit and run driver red handed, these cameras have proven to be a useful thing to have. In this case, it just so happened to prevent possible insurance fraud. See the look on their faces? That’s the look of shock when they realized they’ll have a hard time lying to the police about this.

Source: Reddit

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Shelby Drop, Roller Spring Perches, a Monte Carlo Bar and other Oddly Named things that Prep a Falcon for Road Rallying

A little while ago, I filled you in on the experience of roughly 10,000 miles of commuting in my ’64 Falcon. The Falcon proved itself to be a worthy commuter, but phase two of the operation was to transform it from a highway cruiser to a proper(ish) sporting car that might just hold its own on a windy country back road.

As it turns out, the modifications to do so are relatively cheap and straightforward. Hit the jump to see what it took to turn an economy car on a 61 year old chassis into a halfway decent canyon carver.

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Gran Turismo 5: 1 Year Later, It’s Still Getting Better

November 24^th, 2010 was the day the long awaited and much anticipated Gran Turismo 5 finally hit the shelves. November 25th, 2010 was the day that GT fans cried a collective “WTF”! The general consensus amongst GT fans the next day is that it felt a bit unfinished and it was lacking features that many of us were hoping to get. Simply put, it just wasn’t the second coming of Christ we were expecting. However, GT creator Kazunori Yamauchi described Gran Turismo 5 as a dynamic game – one that is constantly being updated and hopefully improved with bug fixes and new content. Over a year after the game’s launch, it has received 14 free updates, including a major overhaul dubbed “2.0”, and about 20 new cars and two new tracks through DLC with much, much more DLC on its way. This is only the beginning of what’s to come.

Here is a quick recap of how one of the most anticipated games in recent memory has changed for the better and why you should be interested in it again. By this time next year, Gran Turismo 5 will be as awesome as it was supposed to be at launch. Even just 1 year later it’s become much more attractive.

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“GPS Track Day Unit” Coming Soon to Gran Turismo 5

Back when Gran Turismo 5’s release was still an aggravating waiting game, rumors surfaced that the game’s developers, Polyphony Digital, were collaboration to produce a “data logger”, which would turn real hot laps into digital laps on your PlayStation 3. It may seem like science fiction, but such a technology actually exists, it isn’t going to be delayed for 5 years (yet) and it’s coming to the market very soon.

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Motor Trend shows us the Science of Speed with a 2011 Porsche 911 GT2 RS

There is a science to speed, and it’s a whole lot more involved than lots of horsepower and a heavy throttle foot. Motor Trend has decided to take a closer look at what’s going on when the going on is going fast. The specimen chosen for testing? A 2011 Porsche 911 GT2 RS. MT trekked down to the empty asphalt ribbons of El Toro in Irvine, California with their cameras and nerds engineers in tow. The resulting footage is a delight to those of us who like to stare at pretty things moving quickly, and those that like to know how things can move so quickly.

Click past the break for the video.

[Source: Motor Trend's YouTube Channel]

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Jay Leno takes a look at a Universal Steering System

Australian parts maker Mario Iadarola recently spent a bit of time in Jay Leno’s garage. Not to hand Leno the keys to the latest drool-worthy hyper exotic, but instead to show Jay a rather unique universal steering system that he’s devised. Basically, the system allows you to add a rack-and-pinion setup to… anything.

Since I’m brainless when it comes to explaining items of technical merit, I’m going to let Mr. Iadarola do the work for me. Check out the video posted after the jump.

[Source: Jay Leno's Garage]

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Own a Valentine One radar detector? You’ll know when you’re near an Audi

The Valentine One Radar Locator is a popular accessory for enthusiasts that like to know when they come across hidden Po-Po. Occasionally, the units might pick up the odd signal from automatic doors as the driver passes by a mall or store. Now, however, there may be another false positive signal being transmitted into the cabins of V1 owners.

Someone on YouTube has posted video of their V1 going batty, and the person blames the Audi in front of them. Why? The Audi Side Assist System is supposedly sending out a K-band radar sweep that’s exactly the type of signal the V1 is designed to pick up.

Click past the break to watch the clip.

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