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Everyone I know who drives a manual transmission car is in their 20s or 30s. Even so, it's near impossible to learn when there are none for sale outside of the sports car segment, so it's impossible to pin the death of the manual trans on any one group like the sensationalized headlines like to say.

Jerky shifts, rough starts, some have even reported a check engine light and failure to go into gear. I imagine the sudden change in viscosity and/or friction characteristics from switching oil brands would upset it, but if you're staying with the same oil it's probably not a huge deal. I'll...

I think the most compelling application is a high-strung supersport that lacks shove at low RPM. People rave about torquey bikes - why not have the best of both worlds? The problem I see is that while bigger engines are heavier, it's easy enough to keep that weight low, especially on a Goldwing...

I was doing some poking around and Kawasaki's software and readers (KVCS) are totally unavailable, no real third-party solutions for it either. Just this morning someone in the Facebook group posted a python script to activate the clutch relearn process that's supposedly required after every...

Yes, it's absolutely ridiculous. I'm a little bit numb to the anti-consumer practices from working on BMWs, but often forget how good we have it with the amount of independent reverse-engineered software solutions and documentation. Not so with motorcycles. I did see in a group that someone...

It's slightly better than the Ninja 500, which it borrows its engine from (451cc parallel twin). People report around 70 MPG average. Ninja 500 gets around 65. Main benefit of the hybrid, besides being able to sneak off to visit your side piece or whatever (couldn't think of any other...

Probably the biggest oversight to me is that there's no way to externally charge the HV battery. Given that you can get 10 miles or more of electric riding on a full battery, it would be brilliant for my short commute to work. The usable capacity of the battery is only 15ah, so it would cost...

Kawasaki's engineers were definitely on something when they decided to make a hybrid motorcycle (did they really think sportbike riders would be interested in this?), and as someone who likes hybrids and oddball stuff, I was completely fascinated by the Ninja 7 Hybrid when it came out. However...

I thought so too, but a couple of weeks ago I was grabbing an oil level sensor from a U-Pull, and imagine my disappointment when I pulled out a damaged sensor and 7 quarts of oil came out with it. I went over to another car to try again. Thankfully, that sensor was good and the sump was empty...

A guy I know in the sticks who parts out BMWs, I paid $40 for it. I just poured a little oil out and made sure it was clean before I bought it. Would ideally hit the U-Pull but the only good one near me shut down. All of the aftermarket compressors are highly suspect in my mind, and the only...

I did my first A/C job, a compressor replacement, a few months ago. I just used the loaner gauges and vacuum pump they allow you to buy and return for a full refund w/in 90 days at AutoZone; those work fine for DIY jobs. Considering I spent a total of $75 for the compressor, refrigerant, and...

Plugs look okay to me.

The big concern is that running higher flow injectors than stock requires injector scaling in the tune, as they'll deliver more fuel for the same pulse width. Essentially what you're seeing here (I think you understand this) is that the higher flow of the injectors and the greater fuel demand...

Apart from the noise concern of the engine practically banging redline with moderate acceleration, I do think they did a great job with the TCU programming. It makes 180hp feel pretty acceptable with how responsive it is.

Just swapped the CVTF out in the 2021 Outback. As much as I wish there were still a dipstick, Subaru makes the process pretty easy. Old 45k mile fluid came out pretty dark with a tinge of green (apparently the blue dyed fluid tends to do that). IIRC, I ended up pumping in a little less than a...

I will always sing the praises of MGFlasher. Their customer support is amazing, the tunes are very refined, and $425 total for an extra 100hp is a pretty solid deal. https://shop.mgflasher.com/b48b46-f-and-g-series Since your car's pre-2020, it should be plug and play with the phone app and...

I'm assuming the mechanical engine water pump and not the series electric pumps for the auxiliary circuit? So far so good here too, no issues since I got the car with 60k miles. If you haven't already, consider an OTS tune... the engines in these are software capped at 184bhp, despite being...

Would almost certainly say it's just residual factory fill. I took an 8600 mile sample of the same oil last month and its viscosity retention was outstanding at 11.7cSt.

It's a hybrid. The engine is decoupled and off and, battery charge allowing, it kicks over to electric mode below 70. If I have it in eco mode, it'll kill the engine after about 5 seconds at any speed, but I usually drive in hybrid mode which follows the above routine. The other thing people...

My daily driver shuts off the engine at 70mph when I'm taking a highway off-ramp. Couldn't tell you how fast the turbo is spinning at that point, but there's less than 10 seconds between taking my foot off the gas at 85mph and the ECU killing the engine. 120,000 miles and the turbo's still fine...