iMatt :: The Blog of Matt Clare

My presentation went really well.

Here’s a picture Mathieu took of me about to burp

I appreciated all the positive feedback in the session and via Twitter.

During my presentation I warned the individuals in the room that “your faculty are Google’ing Sakai help and ending up at our wiki right now because MediaWiki has such good SEO”. After the session someone confirmed that a faculty member had indeed told him that he found help for “this Isaak, but it worked with Sakai”.

I updated the original blog posting the presentation was based on to include the presentation slides and the video. It is at mattclare.ca/blog/2009/11/23/using-a-wiki-to-document-isaak-brock-universitys-sakai-based-lms/

I might post some of my notes and reflections here later.

Here’s a few of my pictures from the 2010 Canadian Grand Prix.

Great race! Congratulations to Lewis Hamilton – I knew he had Canadian a pole and win in him!

During lunch with Don Cherry in Philadelphia Ron MacLean responded to someone looking for help to save a drowning man by jumping into the Delaware to save the man who was apparently trying to take his life. Written up here: www.theprovince.com/mobile/story.html?id=3108588

My response was to make fun of this man who is national treasure:

1. Ron MacLean jumps into the Delaware river to save a man while Don Cherry stands on shore and signals rescue aircraft with his jacket.
2. Ron MacLean was able to rescue that guy because he is used to working with dead weight.
3. Ron MacLean was able to be cool under pressure because he’s used to working with the man beside him complaining that he’s running out of time.
4. Run MacLean asked the man he pulled out of the river in Philadelphia if he received a “brotherly shove”. The man asked to be thrown back.
5. Run MacLean saved this mans life, but he was trying to take his life. Bud Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball, has ruled “too bad” he still has to die.

Here are Lindsay’s pictures from when we were in Ottawa this week:

I’ve been looking for a modification for my new-to-me car to help make it my own. I searched around the forums that deal with the Acura CSX and the Honda Civic and quickly realized that the simple “bolt-on” modifications available for the Honda Civic don’t work with the CSX as it has a slightly larger engine that was borrowed from the Acura RSX.

I started to home in on the engine’s air intake as a good place to focus my efforts. An air intake that allows more air to pass into the engine can increase the power (a little bit), this is done by decreasing the amount of effort to draw air into the engine and ensure there’s always enough. Less restricted air intakes also tend to improve the sound of the engine by allowing more induction noise to be heard.

Some Acura CSX owners had tried applying other Honda Civic-intended air intakes, but they would tend to trip the Check Engine light. The solution a lot of owners were coming to was modifying the airbox top cover to fit a generic cone-type air filter. The modifications involved trimming away most of the cover’s plastic and attaching a standard 3′ flange cone-type air filter to the now exposed tube. This not only involves a better filter but allows air to be drawn from more locations than the restrictive tube that leads to the front of the car – this could be the cause of the cars not-so-great throttle response.

Many Acura/CSX forums detail this DIY process, CSX DRIVER (login required – probably the best how-to), Acura Forum and this YouTube video of an obnoxious kid.

I ordered a new airbox cover from Acura and when it arrived I sat in the backyard with my Dremel rotary tool and my jig saw and trimmed away the majority of the cover. I retained the collar that clips to the lower part of the old air box, with the exception of about most of the collar directly across from where the filter attaches to the intake tube. This was to give the filter enough space so as not to rub the plastic collar.

After all the little plastic bits had been cleaned up and I was happy with the work I installed it on the car. The original intake cover was unclipped and old filter removed – and saved. The new intake added was slipped down with the remnants of its collar and the actual intake tube attached. The air sensor had to be removed from the original and installed on the new one, which only involved two screws and transferring one wire clip.

Once the new intake was installed I made sure to rev the engine a few times. Here’s the video, you’ll notice that the engine note is a lot raspier and louder on wide open throttle. A quick drive rewarded me with way better sound on wide open throttle (sorry if that was your country home I went by at 70Km in 2nd gear) and whats more is the improved throttle response. This is what I really appreciate, as it helps when I’m matching revs on a downshifts.

That’s my upgrade. I’d recommend it to anyone with the interest and knowhow.