Mallard

Don't forget, John Heinricy has been a paid consultant at Hennessey for a few years now.

Yeah the link I posted has 3 attachments, which are the first responders guide with pics/drawings of everything.

You are correct. The disconnect is under the center console, however it's advised to cut the positive 12V line in order to disable all airbags. That resides in the rear of the vehicle. They claim the high voltage lines are protected and should not interfere with extraction. I would be interested to find out if they have some interal protections linked to the air bag sensor. (i.e. shut down of high voltage system in case high g-forces are detected.) Some good stuff here: http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?7621-EV-Safety-Training-Downloadable-materials-from-Chevrolet

Well that's just Toyota fail. I believe the Volt has access to wires emergency crews can cut near the passanger headlight/wheel well, but I can not confirm for sure.

FYI - during the week of mixed driving I could see an average of 22-25 mpg. The best I've ever gotten on average was a trip from Detroit to Columbus in the summer. I averaged over 27 mpg and I was doing 75-85 in Michigan and 68-75 in Ohio. And this is with an AWD.

All high voltage lines are supposed to be orange. I believe this is an industry standard, although you have to be careful when dealing with prototype vehicles. They SHOULD be labeled correctly, but there is no guarantee. An app like 00typeR mentioned would be good. All vehicles are supposed to have a "disconnect" so emergency crews can cut all the high voltage power before extracting people from a car.

LOL, my son was the complete opposite. If you wrapped him up he would scream and fight. Once his arms were free he would fall asleep. The first couple days after birth babies are pretty much in a daze. After 2-3 days they start to "wake up." The same thing happened to us, although my wife was on Vicoden and he was INSANE. We read that it gets past through breast milk and can cause those symptoms, so she quit taking it and he was normal within a few days.

It wasn't even an original idea.

They are a bit bigger then the Escape and the extra rear seat leg room is nice. We have a 2010 2LT AWD 2.4L. You can get a 2LT optioned out almost equal to an LTZ, minus the memory seat, Pioneer audio, and a few other odds and ends. We have had no problems with ours and it has 55k miles on it. The 2.4L is a little anemic at times, but it's only ~.1 second slower 0-60 than the 6 cylinder, due to the 6's crappy gearing. The 6 is really only good if you are towing. For us it wasn't worth the mileage difference. We also have 3 2011 LTZ AWD 4 cylinder's and one 2010 3.0L V6 LTZ at work and we haven't had any major problems with them. They get driven a lot, and usually get driven hard. A few of the 2011's already have ~30k miles. The only complaint we usually get is guys saying they think they're slow. Personally, I hate the gearing and the transmission calibration on the V6.

Can you shed some light on WTF you're talking about?

ERMAHGOD Must have.

Jason Castriota designed the P4/5, although it was when he worked at Pininfarina.

Very nice, aside from starting the video by driving live Vin Diesel.

:jerkit:

They're pretty decent drivers/off-roaders but they shake like a sunofabitch and are extremely loud. If it's not for emissions I'm sure they don't think the US market would accept that level of NVH. They come with start-stop too.

Nice work! Glad to hear someone tried it out and it's working for them. On a somewhat related note, Bill O'rielly has come out in favor of a no-wheat diet. He's lost weight and lowered his cholesterol just by eliminating wheat from his diet. The moment he said this on the air he was attacked by wheat lobbiest's.

Starting last December my workplace offered an optional biometric screening. You gave a blood sample and they screened it for a large number of factors, then you got an overall "health score." This December you can choose to do it again and if your score is above a 79 OR you have shown x points of improvement since last year you will pay a reduced premium. If you are below a 79, don't show imporvement, smoke, etc. you will have to pay a higher rate. Personally I like this, but I think I would prefer my old employers plan more. My old emplory had an HSA plan and they fund your HSA each year, almost covereing your entire deductable. Some of my co-workers have a lot saved up, which would come in handy. Even if I do the HSA plan at my current employer they won't fund your account at all. My point is, everyone's situation is different. All employers offer different levels of coverage to their employee's, some going far beyond the minimum. Saying that this bill will cause employers to offer less coverage is unfounded. Saying that you will have to pay a higher premium because of unhealthy people is not necessarily true either. In a sence, you already pay for those people now. There are some good things in this bill and it's clear that something needs to be done about health care costs in the US. I think the election will be interesting, seeing as how this was modeled off of Romney's Mass. health care he can't entirely trash talk it without making himself look bad.

+1. Hell yes.

Electric assist bikes are awesome. Smart showed one last year too that had iPhone integration, but there are a lot of aftermarket kits you can retrofit to your bike. I would love to try one, but the good kits are still a little pricey.

The fire was within 1/2 mile of my friends house, but moved the other direction. Luckily he just has some soot on his garage and was able to return home last night. He sent me a pic from his backyard and it was pretty crazy.

LOL, I think that's Kelly Clarkston. But yeah, I need to get off my ass and give it another try. One of my favorite reads is INC Magazine. It serves as good motivation, as well as advice on how to do things better/more successfully.

Yeah, not trying to re-invent the wheel. Just trying to keep from getting burned. A few years ago I entered business with a 'friend' and the results were disasterous. I invested a lot of money in the project and he basically did nothing, didn't listen to my idea's, and stole a few things from me. He eventually left town while in possession of my car. He called me while passing through Colorado on his way to Cali. The car was parked at a building 2+ hours from my house, but he had the keys in his pocket. Because of this I am not a very trusting person any more, which is a good thing, but it's also prevented me from investing in other idea's because I can't afford to throw away that kind of money again (now that I have a wife and a 10 month old). I may take you up on your offer, however to do it right I would have to pay someone up front for all the development and I don't think I can swing that right now. Or I post the project on the web and pay a guy in India to do it, lol.

Yeah, at the time the GM pump was one of the biggest on the market. I was in contact with APR at one time about the GM engine and learned that the VW and Mazda pump internals were the same, but the GM pump was quite different and had a larger bore. Also, the GM pump has a bypass valve inside that is used to control the pressure in the rail. A few tuners have hacked the ECU to allow control of this valve and allowing fuel pressure increases, which is needed over 400 HP. The VW/Mazda pump may (and probably does) have this type of valve too, but I don't kow if the tuners gained control of it, plus their pumps are smaller.

I don't think that rep knows what he's talking about. Sure, the compression ratio is higher but that's due to the direct injection allowing it to be, but not because of it. The fuel pressure is very high in the DI fuel rail and since the high pressure fuel pump is cam driven it means the fuel flow is linear, meaning the system may not be able to supply enough fuel if there is a high amount of airflow at low RPM's. However, the Toyota system also has a supplimental port injection fuel system that could be used to "fill in the gaps" when the DI system is not up to snuff. Then again, the GM 2.0L turbo Ecotec (260 HP/260 ft-lbs) is able to push 500 HP on the stock fuel system, so the Toyota engineers probably just suck.

That's actually a couple of the idea's I floated to my friends too, but none of us can write code and they were unwilling to take the plunge with me. One has since been developed by a foundation, and a couple of my others are close to some features that are coming out, but no one has put it all together. I even tried learning code and building the app myself with Titanium Appcellerator, but I was awful and don't have enough time to learn it properly.