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Hello From Italy!
I'm your subscriber from Italy with a '03 Tahoe with the LM7 (5.3L) engine. I read your magazine every month. I'd like to see any articles on SUVs. Is there a reason you don't talk about the Tahoe, Trailblazer, and so on? How about just touching base on them a little every month?
Stefano Lazzarino
via email
Thanks for writing in. We dig getting letters from other countries. We're known for muscle cars. However, we have been dipping into late-model territory lately, as is obvious from this month's cover car. Just keep in mind that when it comes to engines, everything we do will apply to your 5.3L. As for Trailblazer tech, that's not a bad idea. Associate Editor Sean Haggai's brother has one, and it would be easy enough to twist his arm to let us play with it.
Lemony Fresh
I'm sure that I'm not the only one to have put more thought than necessary into answering your rhetorical question (Shop Talk, June '09), but due to the complete lack of anything better to do at the moment, I hope that I am the first to email you with an answer!
You had mentioned that the winner of the 24 Hours of LeMons is awarded a ridiculously large sum of money: $1,500 in nickels. Just after that breathtaking fact you then ask the question that is bound to be answered by someone with entirely too much time on his or her hands: What does that weigh? Well, sir, I, unfortunately, am that someone and am proud to present to you my findings.
First of all, the U.S. nickel weighs a full 5 grams, not 0.5 gram as you mentioned in your article. The only reason I know this is because I actually looked it up on the U.S. Mint website just for giggles! Then, with the aid of the calculator on my PC (because I, as well as the vast majority of the society we live in, am too lazy to use pen and paper), I determined that $1,500 corresponds to 30,000 nickels. Also due to the ease of online information, I have learned that there is approximately 453.59237 grams in 1 pound. So...30,000 nickels weighing 5.0 grams each adds up to 150,000 grams, which is a staggering 330.69 pounds!
I hope that you can find more use for this than I.
Bigmarv!
via email
This had to be one of the more memorable emails I've received. Thank you for taking the time to put the numbers in perspective. Also, thanks for the snarky response, as it gave all of us a good laugh. How does that go...? Something to the notion of "The more you know..."? You just left out one thing, your address. Be sure to hit us back up so I can send out your CHP goodies!
PQA Follow-Up
Many years ago I took a job driving a Ford tilt-cab delivery truck that had been in storage for six months. After working the job for a while (45 minutes), I backed up to the dock and the brake pedal went to the floor as I slammed into the dock. In fact every car that I have taken out of storage has had a break failure within two days. Your May issue answered a question about taking a car out of storage ("Rip Van Winkle," Performance Q&A). In fact, this is the second such article I remember (perhaps the other was in your sister publication). Neither one mentioned rebuilding the wheel cylinders. The problem seems to be with drum brakes. I have never had such a problem with disc brakes.
By the way, I sometimes read other magazines-mostly your sister magazines, of course-and none of them come close to you, even when they duplicate the same article. I love the emphasis on real cars that we drive, not the megabuck show cars. Keep up the good work.
Dan Johnson
via email
Got School?
I bought the Apr. '09 issue for the cover story on out-of-the-box performance ("Make Gains"). Pages 5-8 are shifted toward the cover and trimmed off and completely unreadable. Also, I would like to see an article regarding the courses required to becoming a machinist, as I'm focused on becoming an engine builder.
Preston Griffiths
via email