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Why the USA has an archaic system of weights and measures

and using archaic measures caused no issue, at least not until later:

From 1999

Wasn't the first time a math error caused a launch failure. It happened once because a decimal point was transposed one digit.
 
my wife has a 2017 Chrysler Pacifica minivan with a 3.6L Pentastar V6 (that's 219 cubic inches!) that will smoke a BMW 325i off the line and keep leaving it in the dust till about 90 mph.
I find that incredibly hard to believe unless you've modded your wife's minivan's engine.
Though I've bought many a BMW -- each of my four kids (2 years apart) got a 3er of some stripe (328 or 330) for graduation, and my daily driver is an E92 -- I've never owned a 325i, so I really have no first-hand sense of just how fast one is or isn't, but slower than a minivan is hard to imagine, but it's been a long time since BMW produced a 325i, so it's possible, but "smoke off the line" and "leave in the dust" seems implausible.

Absolutely no question about it, we're getting a lot more power out of a lot less iron, or in this case, aluminum.
When I was a kid, a 12 second quarter mile was impressive for a stock muscle car.
Karen's minivan clocks in at 13.2...a stupid minivan. View attachment 67232923
Now, that is a set of sentiments that I can fully "get with."

As far as appearance, I sure would like it if they'd get rid of the giant plastic cover-pieces that obscure literally everything. It's like looking at a lawnmower when you open the hood. Of course, instead of wrenches, break out the laptop.
Yes. I'm not keen on the covers, but mainly because they're superfluous and I know I'm paying for them. As a practical matter, I don't care about their being there as the only thing I ever do under the hood of the car is refill the windshield washer fluid reservoir. Hell, on the two cars I've bought for myself since 2007, I haven't even had to open the hood to top off the oil.


Laptop: Yeah....one of my sons did some sort of tinkering with his car. He used a laptop to do it.

And of course, a hundred thousand miles on a typical beater V8 from the 60's without major repairs was considered pretty good back in the day.
We retired our last minivan, a 2004 Caravan, at 236 thousand miles with ZERO major repairs and it is still running.
I expect we'll get way more than that out of "Miss Ruby".

View attachment 67232924

The markedly improved hassle-free longevity of modern cars is something I truly enjoy. As much as I like having/driving a nice car, I don't much like replacing cars. I'm an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" man. That, the increased longevity, and my car usage pattern being one that consists overwhelmingly of three kinds of trips -- mostly riding in someone else's car, occasionally driving my own car on ten mile or shorter round trips, and even less frequent 100-300 mile round trips -- suggests that I may actually only buy one more car before I die....And I'm loving the prospect of that being so!
 
I'm talking about having tools for repair, maintenance and re-purpose in a combat zone.

Oh....Thanks for the clarification.


I'm talking about having tools for repair, maintenance and re-purpose in a combat zone.
I understand now.


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I find that incredibly hard to believe unless you've modded your wife's minivan's engine.

No mods.
The Pacifica's 9 speed slushbox is programmed to take off in 2nd or 3rd gear most of the time.
It's a minivan, don't forget. I can only think of one instance where it did find 1st gear off the line, so you have to use the knob, which I dislike and start in Low and then pop it back into Drive. That will lop off somewhere between a quarter and a half a second if you're lucky.
If you turn off traction control, you might even slow your 0-60 roll because it will spin the tires, so for best results, start in L and leave the TC on.

The knob, I'm sure a lot of people think it's neat because some Euro sedans adopted it but I really wish they'd have left a shifter, even though it's not really mechanically connected to anything.

A side note about the Pentastar engine.
In stock Chrysler trim with normally aspirated FI, it's putting out about 280-290 HP if I remember correctly.
Maserati is using a three liter version of the same Pentastar and gifting it with two turbos and getting 435 HP out of it.
Not kidding, if you pop the hood on a Maserati Ghibli, the valve covers will say Maserati, but it's a Chrysler Pentastar V6.

It's a very impressive piece of machinery, certainly for an American vehicle.
I think the official ET for 0-60 is either 7.5 or 7.3 but I've clocked it at 7.1 after spinning the tires three different times and getting very disappointing 7.8 and 8+ efforts. I really hate traction control and all the other modern nanny-tech but it turns out I'm a slow learner.
 
and there's a good reason to call it that.

Finding the right wrench is easy in metric. If a 10 is too small, and a 12 is too big, go for an 11. In Imperial, if a 1/4 is too small and 3/8 is too big, you have to calculate fractions to come up with 5/16, or do what most people do, and rely on trial and error.



You just said what I failed at, thanks. Yeah.

My Dad was a super machinist, a tool and die maker who could tell you the size of the head of a very rusted nut on a tractor from 300 yards; often working with tolerances of 1 1,000th of an inch.

Consequently I am hopeless with anything metal on metal, but an artist with wood.

It changed when I got my first motor cycle, a Honda 90S - all metric but they gave you a tool kit under the seat that was enough to re-build the whole bike.
 
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