Old Car and Bike rambling

The family van is now approaching what some would consider old car status. Though it's a 2002 MPV and reasonably high tech, she has not treated me very well the past few months. 118k miles for the first tune-up is really very nice until you have to find the spark plugs hidden under the intake manifold. The OBD2 system is a great idea on the surface. I was getting a check engine light and an error code that told me I had a misfire on cylinder 6 even though I had changed the spark plugs and another error code pointing to a bad O2 sensor that was not heating up properly. A new ignition coil on plug part, 1 new O2 sensor and a clearing of the offending check engine light resulted in a failed emissions inspection a week later. Note to self: don't change your battery or reset your OBD2 diagnostics right before you get your car inspected if you can help it. There are "drive cycles" that happen automatically as you drive your car that eventually reset the sensors that are rea...

After spending the 2011 riding season with the GSXR750 carbs on my cb750 I'm planning on going back to the stock carbs and airbox. I have also returned the bike to the OEM oil filter after it seemed like I needed more oil cooling capacity in the original finned oil filter cover. I've already written about the advantages of the bst36ss carbs and now I will provide a summary of the dis-advantages of the carbs for me and why I'm going back to stock. After spending a few weeks tweaking the fuel mix, the insulators and the lines, I found that the carbs would get rich after the bike warmed up on hot days, but would run just fine on cooler days. After a nice run on the highway she would start idling lower at stop lights and then die out without throttle or choke (but only on the warm days). I was a bit surprised to find in the last ride I took in cold weather, she wasn't running right either. I don't want to spend much more on this bike in 2012 so I can save a few...