Cam's Garage

April 28, 2023 Currently there are five automotive manufacturers with a large international presence from Japan. Each one of these manufacturers are recognized either by their brand presence or specific vehicles that serve as the pinnacle of their brand, except one. Honda/Acura Honda has long produced one of the most reliable 4-cylinder engines available and is known to have the best feeling manual transmissions (clutch specifically) available in any car Honda also produces one of the greatest, budget sports cars ever built with the past two generations of Civic Type R Mazda Mazda engineers cars to feel "fun" and is clearly beginning to target luxury vehicles with their newer releases Mazda's identity can perfectly be shown by any ones of its Miata's, which is the most sold sports car ever made Subaru Subaru has long been recognized as a market leader in terms of safety and capability especially in poor road conditions with its great all-wheel drive system (standard ...

April 25, 2023 First and foremost, what is rallycross. As defined by Wikipedia , rallycross "is a form of sprint style automobile racing, held on a closed mixed-surface racing circuit, with modified production or specially built road cars." Just based on the description and image above with limited context on the sport, rallycross looks like a very interesting and dirt(y) sport that realistically is questionable in terms of safety and regulations. So like most logical people, my friend (Jake) and I decided that while we did not have multi-millions to drop on a vehicle capable of doing what these beautiful specimen could, we could build something for a race day on an extreme budget. The year is 2018. COVID hadn't occurred yet, so vehicle prices were still relatively low comparatively to now (2023). At this time I was living in Huntsville, AL (truly an amazing place if you have never had the opportunity to go) for work and Jake decided he would come in for a weekend to visi...

April 23, 2023 Everyone has an aspirational dream car. If you just go on Google and type in "Dream Car," you will find all kinds of images. For some it's a multi-million dollar Koenigsegg with a hybrid automatic/manual transmission (that I just can't understand), for some it's a Mclaren P1  that was flooded in a hurricane, and for others it's a Jeep Wagoneer they grew up riding in during the 80's that isn't rusted to bits (like this one). With so many options out there, how can you even figure out what a dream car should be? Fortunately for me, I was able to narrow it down a bit based on my preferences. So what do I like? Newer vehicles (2010+) Lightweight, sports cars focused around handling Japanese products Manual transmission Reliable Modifiable Based on the criteria above, there are really only a few options: 2018+ ND2 Miata - as much as I love the Miata, I've already had 3 and actually prefer the NC because of the additional space and how i...

April 20, 2023 Upon purchasing the 4Runner  about a month ago, I found that I had 3 key issues that essentially prevented me from driving it. Those issues were: Temperature creeping up at idle when sitting for more than 3-5 minutes Coolant leak directly underneath radiator Brakes so shaky that it can only be compared to riding my jet ski during a busy day at the lake Neither of those issues are terrible, however the 2UZ-FE is somewhat notorious for blowing head gaskets if overheated (even once). With that knowledge, I decided to essentially keep the car parked and limit my use to avoid causing any kind of catastrophic failure. I did some inspections on the car to identify what the two failure points were. Here's what I found: Overheating issue at idle can be caused by a bad fan clutch in the 2UZ-FE. To test the fan clutch, I followed the below video (no it's not a V8, but the Tacoma is very similar in a lot of ways and figured this should be pretty accurate). My findings (espec...

  April 13, 2022 The NC Miata (or third generation of the Miata produced from 2006 to 2015) is often referred to as the ugly duckling of the Miata world. Personally I love the NC Miata and this is actually my third one. A common question is why is the NC considered the ugly duckling of the Miata community. There are two primary reasons for the hate: Weight.  The Miata was designed to be a light-weight, relatively low-power, and inexpensive sportscar. In general, the less weight there is the better potential handling characteristics can be; this is true for any sportscar The NC is the heaviest and largest Miata ever produced. It weighed in at 2,450lbs  The NA (first generation) and NB (second generation) weighed in at 2,100lbs The ND (fourth and current generation) is what replaced the NC and weighed in at 2,330lbs Design.  The front-end design that Mazda was going for when designing the NC can only be compared to a baby's face that is mid-cry. Even to me who loves th...

April 14, 2023 A couple of days ago, I made a post showing the failure point of the early stock 200 Series Land Cruiser (or LX570 like mine) radiator and the other parts/components (with part numbers) that I intend to replace while doing it. My LX570 is at 150K miles on the dot at the time of doing this maintenance. I was able to find several videos about replacing the radiator, but some of the other maintenance items that I was trying to tackle (specifically the fan assembly bracket) were pretty hard to find information on. Removing the Fan and and Radiator This is probably the best documented part of the entire process. Below is the video that I followed to remove it (remember that the Tundra is essentially the same car as the 200 series underneath) Here were a couple of notes from the process that I experienced: You will have to disconnect transmission lines from the radiator and will therefore lose a little transmission fluid (not to mention what is actually in the radiator at tim...