Tag: Chrysler 300S

That has to be it. It’s the only thing I can think of that explains the propensity for people to completely miss the fact that my bright white four door rocket barge with the crazy loud race car exhaust is sitting in the spot they wish to occupy at that moment.

Here’s today’s example…

I drive super defensively because of stuff like this, so I kinda knew the guy in the truck was just going to ‘come on over’ right about the time he merged onto Parker road (the road in the video). So there wasn’t any real danger – just more annoyance that people behind the wheel are generally oblivious these days.

Listening to "Good Times Roll" by The Cars

Another day, another curious example of why everyone’s car insurance costs so much…

The police officer who pulled up into the opposite turn lane just as the space cadet ran the light and pulled out in front of the silver SUV – resulting in blaring horns – was apparently as dumbfounded as everyone else was and just let it go.

I guess it was just too damn early in the morning for this kind of stupid.

Listening to "Tears" by FM-84

Just passed 2000 miles.

I’ve had the 300 for about 7 months, so about 285 miles a month.

Listening to "Land Locked Heart" by The Midnight

Just to show how prevalent the crazies are now, this is three days after the last post, which also happens to be the next time I left the house…

And people ask why I never leave the house…

The best bet these days is to assume everyone around you will simply drive into you if given the chance. This is why I tend to leave huge distances between me and the car in front of me so that when they ‘have an episode’ and drive into something I’m clear of the carnage (and get good footage).

Listing to "Play It (On the Radio)" by At 1980

A while back I wrote about the dash-cam I installed and the reasons why – because it’s kind of a daily thing where someone does something boneheaded in the 5 miles between the house and the office.

I figure’d I’d post one from this morning, as an example…

People ask why I head to work at 0600; because there’s only one or two of these people on the road at that hour. 🙂

(I got a note that the video wasn’t playing for someone. I’m guessing it’s because I exported the video as HEVC (h.265), which tends to only work with new(er) hardware. I’ve re-uploaded the clip as h.264, which is bigger but should be more compatible)

Listening to "Lightyears" by Dream Fiend

The final piece of my vehicular mod-list was completed today; I think I’m done for the foreseeable future now.

• Looks: Limousine-grade tint all the way around.
• Performance: Unlocking the computers in the car to enable the SRT stuff.
• Sound: the stock exhaust is designed for people who don’t want to know the car is running.

Today that last item was completed.

I took the car over to the local speed shop and had the four ultra-silent mufflers cut off of it, everything replaced with 2.5″ stainless steel, and added a couple of Flowmaster 40’s.

See, I’m old – so I come from a time where a ‘hot rod’ at idle tended to sound like a large boat – and if you got on the throttle they were loud enough that any discussion was reserved for the next stoplight. Fast cars were a total sensory package that included the smell of high-test exhaust, acres of brilliantly painted steel to look at, the feel of gravity moving from under you to behind you, and an incredible soundtrack powered by literal explosions.

Cars nowadays tend to have one or two of the listed items, but never the full package… Well, unless you spend six figures on something rare, exotic, and a pain in the butt to work on.

So, with the 300 I wanted to get as much 80’s teenager petrolhead-ness as possible out of it while still being a responsible adult… The car is extremely quick and has a 160MPH speedo for a reason, but never gets outside of the safety envelope for public streets where other people are being road hazards. The tint is pretty dark, but still has excellent visibility so it’s safe to drive even at night. And now it’s rumblier and louder, but (probably) won’t wake up the neighborhood when I leave for work at 6am.

There are a few more things I’d like to do to the car, such as lowering springs to take an inch out of the stance and some 305’s for the rear… But the roads are generally bad for being lowered and pulling into the average parking-lot is already as close to the front air-dam as is practical, and I think I’ll burn the tread off of the current (new) tires first before investing in newer ones.

See? Adult! 😀

Listening to "Lost Highway" by Marvel83'

Back in the 80’s cars were very analog; carburetors and chokes and points and manual steering and mechanical everything including the windows. Back then the Lamborghini Countach, the space-age dream car that festooned the walls of every red-blooded teenaged boy, had a whopping 370 horsepower from twelve cylinders of high-tech supercar engine…

In the 80’s, while the Lambo ruled hearts and minds, I was playing a lot of Cyberpunk with friends…

As far as Cyberpunk was concerned though, to make the science fiction setting of Cyberpunk more science fiction the cars were electro-mechanical marvels of electronics and computers. You could even ‘hack’ a car to do things to it like steal it or increase performance.

It was all very futuristic.

Last night I got to relive those late 80’s vibes by hacking the computers in my 300 to enable a lot of locked features.

See, the car I bought is essentially an SRT (Street and Racing Technology) without the SRT badging. It’s an “executive saloon” and not a “race car” according to Chrysler… Even though it’s the “S” model so it has all of the sporty bits, and I got it with the big hemi V8 instead of the V6.

But, in the interest of propping up the actual race cars like the Hellcats and whatnot, what Chrysler does is simply set all of the sporty bits to “automatic” in the computers, and then disables the owner’s access to the controls to make the car a not-SRT. So the stuff is in there, and the computers know how to interface with all of the stuff on the car, I just needed to get access to the controls.

It turns out that the user interface system in the car runs JAVA and all of the UX is handled through .jar applications, and all of the SRT .jar files were in the system but not in the boot-loader.

So I put on my hackerman pants and got to work…

I’ll not bore you with the details, but it’s a car full of computers and I’m kind of a car guy who has been into computers since the literal dawn of time.

The up-side is the car even more fun to drive now; it holds gears longer, the throttle response is better, and the drivetrain has been de-civilized which really livens up the “executive saloon”. And I can turn it back into a cushy highway cruiser with the press of a few buttons, so I didn’t really loose anything.

The down-side is I can’t really take the car to the dealership now as I’m sure they wouldn’t be impressed with my hackery. And while I can back out all of my changes, I’m not sure if I left footprints in the system…

That’s not too big of a deal as I get my oil changed at a local mechanic’s shop and, in theory, the car won’t need dealership attention until after the warranty is up.

Listening to "Falling" by Timecop1983

So the notice regarding the county having my title work done came in a few weeks back, so I set up an appointment at the DMV to get my old plates switched to the new car and pay the laundry list of fees and taxes associated with doing that.

Yes, an appointment, because for government offices zombies are apparently still a thing and they don’t want anyone inside the building if at all possible. And the first available 15 minute appointment was this afternoon – a mere two weeks after the notice.

Anyway, I left work a bit early today and wandered over to the local DMV, where I once again arrived early and the robot wouldn’t let me in the building until 15 minutes before the appointment… So I hung out on a nearby bench and ogled all of the cars with temp tags – of which about a dozen were new Teslas of various flavors.

Everyone is apparently doing as instructed and buying new $70,000 electric cars. This is fine as it means more gas for my planet-destroying hemi. 🙂

I also noticed that Tesla people, by and large, are the sort who wear a mask, in the car, alone, because apparently zombies are still a thing for them too.

Eventually the appointed time arrived and the robot let me into the building, gave me a ticket, and I commenced to wait another hour and a half to talk to a human.

Said human was really very nice, probably because I had my shit together and wasn’t missing paperwork, had an expired license, didn’t have insurance, didn’t speak English, had a sketchy bill of sale, or any of the other things I saw during my 1.5 hour wait.

And this is where things got weird.

See, here in Colorado we used to be able to just transfer plates from the old car to the new car for free; we had already paid for the plates, so all we had to do was pay the taxes, fees, and have the state update the database for the new make, model, and VIN.

But now the county has determined that they weren’t making enough money on this deal, so as of January you must get new plates printed and mailed to you for the low, low fee of $65.

So, the process is now:

1. Purchase car
2. Get a temp tag and title
3. Wait a month for the paperwork to complete
4. Wait a couple of weeks for a DMV appointment
5. Take some time off and go to the DMV because they are only open from 10-4 on weekdays
6. Get another temp tag and title
7. Wait 2-3 more weeks for plates
8. And finally install plates

I’m sure it makes perfect sense to someone, but for me it’s just another example of procedural B.S. clogging up the system and yet another reason I need to get out of the Denver Metro area; the bureaucracy is getting deep.

Overall it only took about five minutes to get everything done and pay my nearly $1000 in taxes and fees for having the audacity to buy a nice car; and now I get to wait 2-3 more weeks for actual plates.

Listening to "A Million Miles Away" by FM Attack

This morning I decided I would top off the gas tank and go for a drive…

The route was an old favorite; up Deer Creek Canyon to High Grade Road, and then take the back way into Conifer via Pleasant Park. From there I’d get on US 285 for a bit before getting off the highway onto Turkey Creek, which I would follow to the fire station where Deer Creek meets up and then back home.

The route looks a bit like this:

I was hopeful that by leaving the house at 8am that I would miss most of the bicycle people, but no such luck… They love to park a couple hundred cars at the bottom of Deer Creek Canyon Rd, and then ride 3-4 abreast up to Conifer at like 3mph.

Normally this is just annoying, but on the hundred or so blind corners going up and down they become a menace because there is guaranteed to be an oncoming car any time you try to get past them. And they have zero self-preservation instinct that says “the oncoming two-ton vehicle will kill me”, so they do some truly boneheaded things… Like passing on the inside while you’re trying to not run some other bicyclist over…

But if you can ignore the cycle-rats, it’s a beautiful drive.

And one more picture from the fire station at the junction of Turkey Creek and Deer Creek…

All in all it was nice to get out of the house for a bit and get up into the hills – even with the slow moving herds of bicycle-people all over the place.

Listening to "Breeze" by Mitch Murder

Given how bad the ‘imports’ are these days – and by import I mean someone from out of state who decided Colorado is the place to be – a dash cam is pretty much a necessity.

So, I got myself a cheap little Garmin camera, hacked some 5volt USB from the 12volt power running my auto-dimming mirror, and presto! Dash Cam.

The 300 has a steeply raked windshield and I have tint on it now, so gluing a camera to it wasn’t going to work. Ultimately I stuck the camera to the plastic housing for the sensor suite above the rear view mirror – which is the black thing at the top of the picture.

Given what I see daily on the roads now, this should not only offer some insurance protection, but also provide an endless stream of ‘people being dumb in cars’ for entertainment.

Listening to "Ship of Fools" by Robert Plant

Just got the 300 back from the tint shop, and they did an amazing job.

Xpel 15% ceramic tint all the way around. From inside it’s a bit like wearing sunglasses – which is nice as I wear glasses and don’t normally see a reason to invest in prescription shades. The tint is polarized as well, so headlights no longer make me squint.

It rained buckets this afternoon, so the car was delayed a couple of hours from the shop having to play car Tetris with everything they’re working on… It looked like hail, so they got everything indoors asap.

But they put in some O/T to get the 300 done this evening, and I got it home no problem… I was a bit worried about the standing water everywhere, but the car did pretty good; no hydroplaning to speak of, even with no-season racing radials on it.

So, I can check off ‘exterior’ now. Next on the list? Exhaust.

Listening to "Magic Power" by Triumph

Been a couple of days now with the 300, and just passed 100 miles – and had the first trip to the gas station…

One quarter of a tank of 91 octane: $27.76.

Basically I spent more in gas in two days than the Kicks cost in two weeks, but the 300 is infinitely more fun to tool around in.

I’ll be in the break-in period until 500 miles, so I’m taking it relatively easy on the car (no real digs from a stop, nothing over 55-60, only short bursts of acceleration, etc) – which is pretty easy as it’s such a nice cruiser and it’s just a nice place to spend some time.

After 500 miles I need to do another hundred miles or so in manual mode to run the engine in the upper RPM bands to properly seat the rings. But after that things should be suitably worn a bit and more fun can be had.

I drove down to Parker this morning to get a quote on window tint: 15% limo tint, the ceramic 3M stuff, all the way around – $800. But the place I’m having it done at does all of the rare and expensive cars in Denver, so it’s probably a fair price for the best work possible.

I’m having the windshield done as well, which isn’t exactly ‘legal’ here in Colorado, but with the rest of the windows tinted you won’t really be able to tell – which is why everyone does it. And if I get pulled over for some reason it will undoubtedly be for something more impressive than a tinted windshield. 😀

Car-wise I’m really, really happy with the 300 and as you can tell by the hundred miles in two days; I’ve been looking for reasons to drive somewhere. I have all of the tech in the car set up and configured, so my phone has a constant readout of the car’s situation (fuel, oil condition, systems checks, etc.) and all of the creature comforts work (weather reports, live traffic on the map, etc).

My CFO gave me a little guff over buying it, as he always does when I pick up a new car. He’s a real-estate mogul and buys houses like I buy sandwiches – and keeps telling me I need to save my breadline chits and buy a house. I keep mentioning that whatever car I just bought is less than the required down payment on a house right now, and when I shuffle off this mortal coil I don’t have anyone to give the house to – so the gub’mint gets a free house and that kinda sucks.

He has millions, and sweats every penny (which is probably why he has millions)… A mattress stuffed full of money is nice, but it’s not as fun as a fire-breathing muscle-barge, and I’d rather have fun with my money.

No matter what you do, no one gets to take the money with them. So have a good time while you can!

At least that’s my take on it. 🙂

Listening to "Avalanche" by The Midnight