Mallard

I'm sure this could be true, but I have not found that situation in any of the vehicles I worked on. I'm not sure if I correctly understood your scenario so let me clarify. You were entering a roundabout in the outside lane, which was icy. The car understeered, so you turned in deeper and hit the gas in order to kick the rear end out and drift through the corner? It doesn't know the geometry or the road ahead so it could bring you under more control than necessary for a given corner, like your roundabout. However, understeer is very hard for ESC to correct for, compared to oversteer. Actually, it expects you to be turning the direction you want to go. Doesn't matter where the front end is pointed. This is why you can spin a car with ESC out it you slowly and continually turn in. Once you counter steer you will very easily be over your entry threshold. Counter steer slowly and ESC may enter gradually. Saw at the wheel it it will come in harder and faster. It's very easy to drift a RWD or AWD with ESC, but the AWD's are much more fun. The directional control doesn't care how fast your going, while torque control may hold you back a bit, depending on the estimated surface friction and curve radius.

Didn't the GTR just take 3rd place in Motor Trend's "Best Driver's Car" showdown in the November issue?

470whp was a MASSIVE number. in 2003.

That's because the TCS is the Camaro sucks. Yes. They don't design them to be this way, but as with any tune there are compromises made, and every surface is different. Until someone invents something that can read the friction available on the surface in front of the tire there will never be a perfectly tuned system. It's a reactionary system, so there will always be some delay in the control. However, a lot of steps are taken in order to feed torque back quickly when a surface transition is made. (go drive a BMW 335i on a snow or ice surface and you'll see a car eager to give torque back) I have driven cars that do this poorly, and patchy surfaces are the most difficult to tune for. The ABS/ESC/TCS ECU commands torque to the engine ECU, but it's the engine ECU's job to fulfill that request as it sees fit. That's done through changing spark, fuel, cam phasing, or pulling throttle. Typically, the OEM tunes this so as much as possible is done with fuel/spark before closing the throttle, since using the throttle is a 'slow' pathway to giving torque back. Cordell - I don't want you to think I was picking on you, but in my first response where I quoted you, the first line was in response to you (about the DBW systems being better). The rest was the generic response I give every year when this topic comes up. That said, I think your Cobalt's issue is that with the wheel turned the inside tire is flaring up very quickly, and the system is trying to bring that under control and transfer torque to the other side. A lot of people say that these systems reward smooth driving, and what I think they're referring to is what the system is using as it's main control signal and how it reacts to this. The severity of the TC's intervention is going to get higher as the rate of change of wheel slip increases. What this means is, if your wheel slip crosses an entry threshold with a very large slope the system will react hard and fast. If your wheel slip crosses an entry threshold with a very gradual slope the system will intervene much more smoothly, and possibly be undetectable to the driver. Hopefully that's still not too technical. Bringing this back to your situation, if accelerating from a stop and the inside wheel spins up the rate of change of wheel slip is going to be very high, causing you to enter a more abrupt control. Is your Cobalt a 2008+ model?

I don't know about you guys, but I can't wait to watch the televised baby shower sponsored by every major company know to man. Hopefully when I check out at Macy's they'll ask me to donate $1 so we can shower them with gifts.

6 million hours of CFD and in 10 minutes some guy will pull it off to build a custom intake and exhaust in his garage.

Actually, GM doesn't do any of the calibration on thier traction control systems, the supplier does (Bosch, Conti, TRW, etc.). The GM engineers have to sign off on the tune though, and have input on how it should feel, but I can guarantee you that performance like that is not specified. The bottom line is, the same guy tuning your Cobalt has tuned Solstice's, Toyota's, Acura's, etc., and the control logic is the same as used in everything from a Veyron, Audi, and BMW as used on the Cobalt. (Of course, there are additional features added for different vehicles unique features, but the base software is pretty much the same). The condition you are talking about could be due to a couple things. 1) The loss of longitudinal g-force due to slowing acceleration. This is going to happen with TC on or off, and it probably happens before TC even does anything. 2) A tire change cause bad stick-slip characteristics, meaning the TC is tuned for the stock tire and now it may be cutting too much torque, allowing the tire to trasition from slipping to sticking very abruptly. 3) You turn the wheel a lot before hitting the gas, causing the inside tire to overspin. The brake should apply on this wheel in order to transfer torque to the other side and it will cut torque. 4) You encounter a condition that engineers did not encounter in 2+ years of tuning - OR - this condition was a known compromise in order to preserve stability in something deemed more dangerous. As with any tune, there are compromises, but I can say that what you experience is always tried to be avoided.

Traction control on cable operated throttles sucks ass. It makes a lot more sense on drive-by-wire systems. I drive with it on all the time, unless I'm in deep snow. I stand by my previous comments that if you are getting into traction and stability control on a daily basis on a public road you either have something wrong with your car or you are driving way too hard on the street. All the poorly tuned systems I've driven are on cars you have no business driving hard anyway.

I hear ya. Traveling is the most difficult thing for my wife. Every meal has to be pre-planned, which is difficult depending on where you are going. However, if you're doing it for health reasons and not because your body reacts to it (diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, celiac, autism, IBS, etc.), you can "cheat" if you have to, cross-contamination isn't an issue, etc. The one thing you see that's common through most, if not all, of the low-carb diets is they eliminate wheat. Even South Beach Diet does it, but they tell you to reintroduce it after a few weeks. I think the Dr. Oz segment with Dr. Davis (Wheat Belly author) was good for getting his message out, but I wasn't happy that Dr. Oz seemed to continually push it for the weight loss aspect, when that's not what it's all about. There are a large number of health benefits, as well as weight loss, that come with it. Good luck. I hope it goes well for you. I'm not large by any means, but when I quit wheat I lost ~10 pounds in 2-3 weeks without doing anything else, I didn't have afternoon-long food cravings anymore, my acne cleared up, I slept better (debateable with a baby though), I didn't get tired in the afternoon, and the best reason of all: my wife can't say I don't understand what she goes through to fiind food any more. Sounds like you have everything under control, but if you have any questions on brands of food or restaurants feel free to PM me. I know there are other's on here that were paleo (that thread went well a few months ago), which is close to the Wheat Belly Diet, except paleo says no peanuts and no grains (or certain grains infrequently), while Wheat Belly allows peanuts and some grains. For bread I would recommend Udi's or Kinnikinnik, and I've had homemade bread from Pamela's mix that was good. Although, these probably don't adhere to the Wheat Belly rules since I think they are full of "junk carbs and starches." They don't sell it in our area, but I hear Paleo Bread is good. (http://www.julianbakery.com/bread/paleo/) You can get it at these two places in Columbus. You'll have to tell me how this is too. Great Lakes Wellness Center (starting 7/26) 6797 N. High St. Worthington, OH. 43085 US 419 872 5343 Fitness and Nutrition Center 803 Bethel Rd. Columbus, OH. 43214 US 614 459 2378

Agree 100% although I never knew about starting a line of credit in order to get comps. I've gone several times and stayed at Bally's three times, Luxor twice, Hilton Vacation Club once, and Embassy Suites (off strip) once. I think if I were to go again I would stay closer to the center or north side of the strip; between Paris/Bellagio and TI/Wynn. The buffet at Paris is good too. If you hit the buffet's at the right time you can get in for the price of breakfast (or lunch) and be inside when it changes to lunch (or dinner) in order to save some cash. Dinner at the Eifel Tower restaurant is nice too, as you can watch the Bellagio fountain from above. I went to a Cirque du Soleil show (Mystere) and had a great time. There's also Second City Comedy Club (once was good, second time was ok), as well as the other shows people mentioned. Go to the half price ticket booths on the strip and get tickets the day of the show. You aren't guaranteed to get a ticket to the very busy shows, but most everything is there.

Definitely keep me posted. The "good" thing about his book is it stays away from the other "junk carbs" most marketed gluten free foods use, which actually can spike your blood sugar even more. The downside is the ingredients may be more expensive (almond meal, coconut flour, etc.) although I haven't researched enough to see if it's much different from the other gluten free mixes. Did you decide to try it after seeing him on Dr. Oz? Or were there other motivations?

Found the article online. http://www.livingwithout.com/issues/4_23/Types-of-Casein-3143-1.html Tim, sounds like you're a Wheat Belly convert. I gave it all up around April this year. With my wife's condition I have been reading all types of material for the last ~2 years, trying to understand why it came about all of a sudden. I came to the same conclusion, that even if I don't have any of the direct side effects commonly talked about I should not be eating it, and probably no one should. As a nice side effect, my acne has finally started clearing up, which I've batteled since my early teens. If I eat something with wheat I'll have at least one new pimple within a day or so. I also have more energy and don't feel tired in the middle of the afternoon. I'm thinking about getting the Wheat Belly Cookbook, which was just released last week. There are some decent breads out there, but a lot are gross.

I feel for ya. My wife can't eat gluten and wheat is in almost everything too. Is your son allergic to cooked eggs too? I was just reading an article in Living Without Magazine where a study found ~80% of children allergic to eggs could eat cooked products with eggs as an ingredient without a reaction. The down side is that the only way to find out is to feed it to them and stand by with an Epi-pen. There was also an article in the mag about dairy allergies and there are two different caisen proteins produced by cows. Almost all of US cows are one type, but milk in France, India, and a few other Euro nations are mostly the other type. The result is some people with dairy allergies in the US can drink milk overseas without issue. They named a couple brands in the US that have the different protein, as well as goats milk. The magazine is worth a read and some library's carry it (Upper Arlington for sure).

Close, but supposedly a little short. Done, but it sounds like the first year cars will have a different auto than the following years. Done. Done. This is where they failed.

Thanks guys. Any slight congestion he would get would immediately result in an ear infection, since his ears couldn't drain. Hopefully the tubes solved this. It's extremely rare for a 4 month old to have a severe penicillin allergy and strep pneumonia. We were in contact with an infectious disease specialist the whole, but we don't know what caused it. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that that day in March when I had him on my lap in the ER was my 30th birthday.

This has been a crazy year full of stress, I'm ready for this year to be over. I need a moment to vent, so here's the rundown: January. My son was just over 4 months old and on medication for an ear infection. On the 6th day of taking the meds he developed hives. We took him to the doctor and they obviously said to stop the meds and keep him on Benedryl for a couple days (since he had already been taking the drug for 6 days it would take a while to get out of his system). The next day at work I get a phone call from my wife, who had just been called by day care. He was swelling, turning blue, having trouble breathing, and an ambulance was on the way and we needed to meet them at the hospital. I ran from the vehicle I was working in back to the office, grabbed my keys and ran to my car. I had the farthest drive of anyone (by quite a bit) but I managed to beat my wife and the ambulance to the hospital (whew, no cops). I walk in to see him sitting on a bed, crying, and surrounded by no less than 12 doctors and nurses. He was covered in rashes and hives criss-crossing his entire body. He looked like a red and white giraffe. I'll never forget this image, as it scared the hell out of me. It took a while, but they got the reaction under control. He spent 3 days in the hospital. March. My son was congested and we were doing things to treat his cold, but this night was different. Around his bed time he was "grunting," which is the term the doctor used to characterize his struggling to get a breath. My wife was really scared, and he didn't look comfortable. We called 911 and he got to take his second ambulance ride to the hospital. His breathing got calmed down and was no longer labored, but for all the tests they ran they didn't find anything. Three days later (we were doing daily visits that week) I'm at the doctor for a follow-up and he says, he's developed pneumonia wrote a script for meds and sent us on our way. I dropped him off at home with my MIL and started to get ready for work. I come out of my bedroom to see my MIL watching daytime TV with my son asleep in her arms...except he's "grunting" again. When I asked how long he'd been breathing like that she said, "I don't know...30 or 40 minutes...pretty much ever since you left." Every time I take his temperature it reads higher and his breathing seemed to be getting worse. I made the call to drive him to the hospital myself. The entire ride to the hospital was a steady decline. His breathing was increasingly labored and now I'm running red lights when possible. My MIL is now crying in the back seat. We get to the ER and his temp is 105* and they start giving him meds and running tests while I sit on a bed with him on my lap. The lady drawing blood couldn't find a vein, so she poked him 4 times before getting a blood sample (twice in each arm). She comes back 5 minutes later and says the lab won't accept the sample because she put it in the wrong color bottle. FUCK. Four more needle sticks before she finds it again. He is not happy, but it gets worse. They needed a urine sample, so 3 nurses and I held him down while a 4th inserted a catheter. Again, I will never forget this moment. I've never heard him scream like that and it brought a tear to my eye. Results came in, strep pneumonia and over half of his lung was filled with fluid. He spent 4 days in the hospital and was on a crazy expensive antibiotic since they didn't want to mess with possible cross-reactivity of his previous allergic reaction. This was on my 30th birthday. Through the rest of the year he got ear infections every 4-6 weeks. Finally, in November, he got tubes in his ears. Four weeks later, the pediatrician says he has a double ear infection and insists on putting him on the medication that has a 10% cross-reactivity with his allergy and gives us an epi-pen. At this point he's sleeping in our room, we're waking up every couple hours to check on him, and we keep the epi-pen on the night stand. We didn't get much sleep. His fever wasn't getting better so we took him to a different doc only to find that he has no ear infection, just a virus, and we shouldn't be giving him that medication. Now I'm ready to kill people. All through this, my wife continues to have troubles with food sensitivity's. She can't eat gluten and now we think dairy is causing problems. Besides gastrointestinal issues and weight fluctuations she also has mood swings, so it hasn't been easy. When she's not having a reaction to something everything is great. Topping it off, just after Christmas I was in Columbus to see my family and celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday. My wife/son/I return home from shopping to see an ambulance and fire truck following us down the street and stopping at my parents house. I go in to find my dad sitting on the bed saying he had intense chest pain and he thought he was having a heat attack. My grandma is freaking out (my grandpa died of a heart attack in front of her) and now I'm holding her in my arms. Everything turned out ok (wasn't a heat attack, but he'll need surgery), but it was a pretty dreadful couple of hours taking care of my grandma and waiting for word from the hospital. Let's get this year over with.

I've seen quite a few camo'd cars in person and my initial reaction was the same as Jalopnik to the SSC Tautera...except the Vette has four. http://jalopnik.com/5633212/ssc-ultimate-aero-ii-has-alien-balls

I like everything but the rear. We'll see what it looks like in person.

GT-Arrrrrr

WOW! This thread took an unexpected turn. Great choice. BTW, how was the new Fantasyland?

I don't think so, but if it's important I can ask, or contact him through the link I posted.

Posting for a friend. The car is currently located around Los Angeles, but it's priced well. He looked up shipping for a friend and it was $905 to Michigan. He just got married and he's looking to just have it paid off. The ad shows the price as $16,950, but he just emailed me and said he's looking for $16.7k. 2007 BMW 335i ~83k miles Black ext / Black int Manual Trans From his ad: CPO till 12/29/12, buy with confidence! Fresh Oil Change Smogd Fresh Plugs 2k miles ago (spare set included with sale, bought 2 sets a while ago) Optoins per dealer sheet: Premium Pkg iDrive Sport Pkg Mtech Aero Heated Seats Rain Sensor and Auto Headlight Dynamic Cruise Control Sat Radio prep Real Time Traffic Voice Command Logic7 Sound System Moonroof Power Front Seats Dark Burl Walnut Trim Xenon Lights Auto Climate Ambiance Lighting Mod:135i Brembo Front Brakes, all new rotors front/rear, carbotech front xp10s with good life left included with purchase, new stoptech performance street pads rear, and new oe replacement pads installed front now (xp10s can be noisy http://www.cars.com/go/search/detail.jsp?tracktype=usedcc&csDlId=&csDgId=&listingId=101275334&listingRecNum=4&criteria=sf1Dir%3DASC%26mkId%3D20005%26stkTyp%3DU%26mdId%3D20445%26rd%3D500%26crSrtFlds%3DstkTypId-feedSegId-mkId-mdId%26zc%3D91702%26rn%3D0%26PMmt%3D1-1-0%26stkTypId%3D28881%26sf2Dir%3DASC%26sf1Nm%3Dprice%26sf2Nm%3Dmiles%26isDealerGrouping%3Dfalse%26rpp%3D50%26feedSegId%3D28705&aff=national&listType=3

MOTHERFU@%#R!!!! This always happens on the day I'm supposed to drive to Ohio!

The variable vane turbo should help that a lot. The car sounds interesting, but I'm not too keen on the looks or the estimated price. I would be interested in seeing a comparison test with this A-class against a Caddy ATS. Optioned out they're in the same price range, the Caddy can be had RWD or AWD, 320 HP V6 vs 350HP I-4... P.S. The German's naming convensions of their models is f'd. Nothing makes sense amymore.

You got the tattoo on the wrong shoulder. If you put it on the left everyone could see it while your driving. http://img88.exs.cx/img88/2359/mountaindew1xd.jpg