Saturday, 9th of October, 1999
Friday, 8th of October, 1999
Thursday, 7th of October, 1999
I learned that the 2000 Volvo V70 is going to come with a new trim level called the R, and it comes with stick shift! And it's AWD. This is a tight car. Ok, it's $41395, but this is still awesome value for a luxury car. It's got Side Impact Protection, Traction Control (better be able to turn that off to spin tyres a bit sometimes), and all your good Volvo safety features (fuel tank is in front of rear axle, wow what a neat design, except my 1987 Cavalier is also designed that way). The 2.4L I5 (woah, inline-five) is intercooled and high-pressure turbocharged with continuous variable valve timing, 20 valves, Bosch electronic fuel management system, and dual exhaust, and produces 216 hp. The suspension is sport tuned and has low profile 16" tyres. It has a whopping 37.2 cubic feet of cargo space, which is more than the Subaru Legacy Outback. Other goodies include alloy wheels, whiplash protection, security system, climate control, HomeLink, fog lamps, rear fog light (!!), power everything, heated mirrors, CD player, leather seats, and a power sunroof. Drag coefficient is a nice .32. This thing has the same ideas as Subaru, but made in Sweden (higher quality). This engine gets the thing from 0-60 in 8.5 seconds. Not bad. However, I was peeking at the stats for the V70 T5, which uses the same engine but heavier turbo that gets 236 hp, and it does it in 5.8 seconds. Woah!!! Time to modify the engine to get that kind of performace. Hehe, the steering ratio is quite high too... good for racing. The stock speaker positions for the sound system are great too, the stock audio system is nice to begin with, and probably nice to upgrade. Ooh, the instrument panel is nice, it's blue illuminated. As for the AWD system... it has viscous coupling (nice) and locking differential, so it's not as good as Subaru's system.
Tuesday, 5th of October, 1999
Monday, 4th of October, 1999
The first rehearsal for the St. Louis Symphony Music School's Young People's Symphonic Orchestra was today. We're playing the Tchaikovsky's 2nd Symphony. The fourth movement is really cool.
Sunday, 3rd of October, 1999