Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | more bluedino's commentslogin

GM/Chevrolet are still making small-block 350 engines, they started in the 1950's

https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/parts/19433032.html


I have a feeling GM is going to keep making pushrod v8's until the eventual death of the internal combustion engine.


This comment made me question the specifics of my mental model pushrod vs overhead cam engine. I found this site that has three nice gif’s which was exactly what my visual brain wanted to see for comparing the differences - https://www.samarins.com/glossary/dohc.html

Thanks for the comment as it was the impetus for me to expand my engine knowledge today!


Thanks for the link. Like you, it really helped me understand what's going on with all three of the designs shown.


I used to view them with disdain - a clearly obsolete design GM kept using because they're cheap or lazy or some such.

I no longer hold that view. GM's pushrod V8s are considerably smaller than their competition, and lightweight relative to their displacement, for which there is famously no replacement.


Turbos are the replacement for displacement.


Ok, stick a huge turbo on a 100cc engine and power my 1 ton pickup please. Id like it to feel quick in traffic but also tow a few thousand lbs uphill without really noticing it.


No one buys a 1-ton to feel quick in traffic. A few thousand lbs going uphill can be easily done with a 1/2 ton, and the majority of them are now turbocharged.

Forced Induction has made its way tho. Not all, but a lot of modern turbo engines are great in all three aspects of reliability, performance, and efficiency.

I can see turbo'ed PHEV being the solution to heavy-duty use cases one day. Pretty stoked for the Ramcharger.


People don't buy 1 tons to feel quick. But they want their 1 tons to feel quick.

The examples you gave show that turbos are nice additions to a specific displacement size.

Op said turbos are a replacement for displacement. My example is there to show him they are not.


Does it need to last one trip up this hill or thousands of trips?


Someone will, because it's a useful form factor. And that someone is gonna be the people who are the experts in it, which is pretty strongly arguably GM.

There have been sooooo many SBCs shat out into the world in industrial applications that even if GM stops making them someone will keep making them. You can't make a compatible single replacement because you'll break a ton of applications. You can't make a ton of different replacements because that's not economical. Only makes sense to keep making them.


>Someone will, because it's a useful form factor.

Definitely, and the old carborated beasts just work and can be fixed with minimal tools and ran off of just a few wires.

I've been enjoying watching a coworker resurrect his M715 Military Truck (basically a government J-Series truck from Kaiser/Jeep) with a fresh blueprint SBC and a mix mash of GM and aftermarket drive train parts.

It may be the least efficient truck I've ever ridden in, but it can reliably pull tree stumps out of the ground.


> And that someone is gonna be the people who are the experts in it, which is pretty strongly arguably GM.

They were, at least.

Massive recall on the 6.2L versions of their V8 engines right now.

https://www.lemonfirm.com/blog/gm-6-2l-engine-recall-what-tr...


A lot of bigger engines are running right on the edge of oiling problems these days. With fuel economy rules being what they are it's just how it is. GM isn't special in this regard. Ford is killing a lot of cams and lifters (a problem GM fought through some years ago).

Meanwhile Toyota[1] is recalling blown up turbo v6s left and right (for problems that you can't just dump different oil in to solve) because they didn't invest in keeping a big v8 on the cutting like GM did and they didn't invest in making small turbo stuff last long like Ford did.

[1]Mentioned not because they have unique problems but because who if not a Toyota fanboy makes a comment like yours


To be fair Ford's small turbos are also notorious for shitting the bed, but mostly due to cooling system failures or the terrible choice of still running a timing belt. (1.0L Ecoboost engines)


Ford's big mistake with the 1.0L Ecoboost wasn't exclusively using a timing belt, it was using a timing belt submerged in oil. They did state that they engineered the rubber to withstand being submerged in oil, but ultimately it didn't really work out like they had hoped.


Lol. The most insane thing about the 1.0 is that they switched back to a timing chain due to the belt issues. But guess what? The fuxking oil pump is still driven by a rubber belt submerged in oil... And guess what happens to the oil pump belt? Just mind blowing that they would half ass this fix so badly.


>terrible choice of still running a timing belt. (1.0L Ecoboost engines)

3.0 Duramax says hold my beer (for the readers not familiar, it has a wet belt driving the oil pump and it's mounted in the back making proactive replacement prohibitively expensive).

My jaded take is that they're sticking with the wet belt on what's generally a europoor economy car engine in order to force planned obsolecense.


I’d love to read about how emissions / fuel economy is causing the oiling problems. Any articles?

Would putting an aftermarket oil pump in these modern engines protect them or is it a deeper design issue?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbEdr6Q6cKw

They spec the thinnest stuff they can get away with to add .0001mpg. Multiply that by all the Chevy 1500s GM makes or F150s Ford makes and you see the draw.

Sometimes it turns out that the thinnest stuff they can get away with just not quite thick enough at the margins or in transient conditions. And of course they stretch out the oil change interval to reduce on-paper TCO as well which doesn't help.

You can mitigate this with thicker oil (what GM did for the recall) by can go too far and create other oiling issues because thick oil drains back slower and going to some super high spec 0-W-<whatever> Euro oil may cause other problems related to soot and sludge so there's no silver bullet.

The "safe" advice most people give out is to use whatever the <nation with no emissions or fuel economy rules> version of your owners manual says to use for oil.

And if you have a high strung turbo engine you ought to take your oil change intervals seriously.


My daily driver is a '91 GMC, with a 350 (5.7L TBI). It's got 140k miles on it, burns no oil, and I fully expect it to outlive me.


I remember 15+ years ago reading about certain laptops (Dell?) that you could 'hear' scrolling on websites, somehow the video chip was interfering with the sound chips. I had one at the time it was pretty weird.


Pretty common problem on builtin sound cards, even now. It's just very close to the noise source.

Shouldn't really happen on USB DAC, it should have enough filtering to get any interference injected by power, and enough shielding (and just being far away enough from machine) for other EMI


Yeah this is the main reason to use a USB DAC. I guess you get marginally better sound quality (more noticeable on expensive studio headphones that need more power to drive them) but better isolation/removal from the noise source is the main reason I use them. Especially relevant because in my travel I'm often in countries that don't have ground plugs in their power sources.


Quite a flashback. I switched to optical TOSLINK maybe about 20 years ago, which solved all those issues obviously. It's a bit weird how rare optical outs are on motherboards even today -- clearly less than half have them -- when it is such a useful interface.

Just ordered a hat for my Raspberry Pi with optical out, with a plan to make that my main music streamer. Excited to see if that works out!


I wish Mini-TOSLINK[1] had been more successful. It's allows you to put an optical and electrical audio output on the same 3.5mm connector (i.e. headphone port), which is helpful for saving space on crowded panels.

The trick is that your 3.5mm connector only needs to connect on the sides, so the end of the jack can be open for light to be transmitted.

This was seen pretty frequently on laptops for a while, but I think two things doomed it. One, most people just don't use optical. Two, there's nothing to advertise its existence. If you do have one of these ports, you probably don't even know you could plug an optical connector in there.

---

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSLINK#Mini-TOSLINK


I remember when all MacBooks had it. "What is this red light for?" used to be a common post on forums.


Ditto. It’s is hard to find non-wifi motherboards with toslink.

All the cheap boards have neither. Most of the high end boards have both


I updated my computer this year, and didn't find anything without wifi either. So it seems it's a small tax you just have to pay now.


I've at least found that the wifi+Bluetooth chips seem to be significantly more robust than the standalone bt ones.


I don't foresee any Bluetooth need either for my desktop setup. But yeah I do see that many buyers would want that for headphones if nothing else, so it makes sense to include the chip.


I hear my second hand dell XPS laptop running fedora when I scroll through dropdown lists.

It sounds exactly like the reads on a physical hdd, which is silly because it has an SSD. Haven’t figured out what it is yet.


My XPS does something similar. Faint 50Hz chirping (coil whine?) when I move objects in Blender. Never encountered audio interference though.


Maybe I have sensitive hearing, but I encounter this frequently on machines from all manufacturers. It is very much still a problem today.


Yep, my 2019ish Dell XPS 13 makes hissy static noises on its speakers, even when system audio is muted.

I remember the BBC Micro doing the same thing when I was a little kid during certain operations, it always sounded to me like it was "thinking". :)


I can hear when my Dell laptop uses the flash drive heavily. It sounds kind of like a hard drive, so I actually had to verify that I have a flash chip. Apparently it's a known issue; I've assumed that something in it vibrates due to EMF.


Noise is caused by changes in current. Any pulse of current will ultimately create EMF.

If power lines run anywhere near the sound lines, you are just asking to pick up interference whenever the computer does basically anything. It doesn't take too much of a pulse to be picked up. For a 3.5 jack, the voltage is anywhere from 0.002 to 0.5V. Even a pretty small induced voltage will be audible.


Happens to my Lenovo X390, specially with disks writes...


I get this on my MacBook M1, I "hear" some websites "static"


I get fairly audiable coil whine when scrolling websites.


In the 90's only drug dealers had pagers and cell phones, at least in the eyes of the board of education. If you were caught with one you'd be expelled.


> I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most.

Or you end up with the lone coder problem.


According to most big companies these days, "lone coder" is the peak of business efficiency!


It is. If you have defined end goal.

But to define that end goal to align with business needs you need some more people involved.

day in week in office works well for us because of that. Enough to talk about what's going on and what needs to be done, and plenty of time for mostly uninterrupted work


You're basically restating exactly what he's saying.


> I can’t think of too many other professional jobs where the line between hobby and work blends, for so many of its workers.

I would argue that the majority of rank and file programmers are not coding outside of work.


Anecdotally, this is my perception as well- I'd say maybe 5% of the people I've worked with are the "finish software dev workday, then go home and jump right back on the computer" type. Personally, when I'm done my workday, the last thing I want to do is sit back down at a computer (with rare exceptions for inspiration spikes).


My dad has one of these in the garage. Hasn't driven it in a few years because some of the parts are hard to find.

I always thought it was a weird car compared to the 240 or 300 since it was a 2+2. I'm not sure if I've even driven it.

One day I'll probably do a V8 or turbo I6 transplant...


The best selling car in 1981 (450,000 sold) was the Oldsmobile Cutlass, with 110 or 180 HP V6/V8 engines and a three speed automatic


If you were my dad, the V6 in your Gutless Supreme was the normally aspirated diesel, clocking 85 horsepower, and required new head gaskets approx every 20,000 miles.

But at least the rich luxury of the crushed orange velour interior could keep you comfortable while you waited for the tow truck.


They had gotten rid of the V6 diesel by 1981, and then they used the infamous 350 diesel

https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automot...


From your link:

“The 4.3 L V6 that came out in 1982 did have a denser head bolt arrangement, and did not suffer the catastrophic head sealing failures of the V8.”

V6 diesels were put in Cutlass’ until at least 1984:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile_Diesel_engine#V6


But not in 1981 which is the year we're talking about


Ah, just 1981, got it.


Whatever. It got sent to the crusher and we never bought an American-made car ever again.


Sounds about right. Those engines ruined diesels for Americans.

A friend of mine had one as his high school car, but his dad converted it to gasoline. I think it was in an Olds 88


I was always taking noodle bowls to work. Fill with water, microwave, enjoy at my desk. A dollar or two.

Couldn't believe how many people would go to the sushi restaurant at the base of the building and spend $25 on lunch a couple days a week. Yikes.


Noodle bowls are usually pretty high in saturated fat (between 8-15 grams on average). I can't imagine eating them daily.

At the very least you should consider steaming some vegetables (also very cheap), slice them up, and mix'em in to get some moderate nutritional value from it.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/whats-your-daily...


Saturated fat is not the problem. Fat with carbohydrates in the same meal is.

The problem with ramen is the amount of carbs and little nutrition which only spikes your insulin and makes you hungry 2 hours later if your metabolism is not great, not saturated fat in a vacuum. I wish popular knowledge about food had moved on from the misguided research of Ancel Keys already.


We're talking about budgets here. Not health. I think everyone knows that pre-packaged ramen noodles aren't the healthiest thing for you but they aren't any worse than half the other takeout crap you can eat. At least they are low in calories and cheap.


I've been seeing "air dried" noodles recently, which have way less sat fat -- still tons of salt, but these have been my go to.


Wheat in a watery soup flavoured with monosodium glutamate isn't very nutritious compared to rice and fresh fish. There's a reason ramen costs a dollar or two compared to sushi.


What about fried shrimp, bbq sauce imitation crab, mayonnaise and cream cheese? Because that's what most of the 'sushi' is at that place.


Unless you're making them yourself or at least customizing them a good bit, noodle bowls are pretty unhealthy food.

Nothing fresh in them, high sodium, freeze-dried ramen or noodle bowls were originally survival food and should be treated as such.

Not saying don't eat them, and I don't know your socioeconomic background or anything, but if you want to eat them or have to eat them, try to add a little something extra into them.

A cup of shredded cabbage and/or a few cherry tomatoes and/or a half cup of onion slices and/or an egg, things like that should be cheap and easy to add and will help dilute the sodium and add a healthy component to the meal, and your kidneys and heart will thank you for it.


I don't disagree with a lot of what you said (need to really dress up the ramen to make it even close to healthy) but FWIW ramen isn't usually freeze dried it's just fried until fully dried out.


A few years ago when I started WFH full-time I attempted to make "healthy" noodle bowls using Indomie ramen as a base. Indomie packets are smaller than Top Ramen, so they have less carbs / salt. I'd stir fry the noodles with a bunch of veggies like shredded cabbage, onions, and peppers, and toss in some protein (leftover chicken, cubed tofu, etc). Seemed pretty healthy!

Until my blood sugar (A1C) and blood pressure numbers started climbing...


> I don't know your socioeconomic background or anything

It sounds like a habit drawn from poverty, but frankly, you'd have to be really poor to reach for something like this daily (I'm talking extreme survival situations that even the homeless don't typically face). Those with low income can still get much better food at a reasonable price. They don't need to shop at Whole Foods.

I'm not sure you can even eat like this for very long either. The malnutrition is that bad. Expect high medical care costs or an early death down the line.

Penny wise, pound foolish.


If they're eating a reasonable breakfast and dinner, having instant ramen for lunch isn't anything close to a death sentence, it's simply not ideal.

But, odds are, the person who eats instant ramen 5 lunches a week isn't going home to a balanced dinner and likely eats fast food or frozen dinners most nights, which is why I suggested adding a few inexpensive extras.

A cup of pre-shredded bagged cabbage would add ~$0.50 to a ramen meal. If they do 30 minutes of meal prep on a sunday they could pre-portion a full portable soup container with all of the extras for the week and be ready to go for maybe an extra dollar a day.


You don't have to spend $25, of course, and you can make lunch. But microwavable noodle bowls, especially at your price point, are terrible for your health.

Why do people cheap out on food, but spend that money on less important things? We're talking about your health here! It's even worse when people with high incomes do it.


> Fill with water, microwave, enjoy at my desk

Getting lunch with coworkers once in a while doesn’t hurt


Sure. And there's also shared lunchroom areas you can take your own lunch to.


It's not nearly as filling, but I saw a character on TV smashing up their noodles and pouring in the powder, shaking the bag, and eating them like popcorn. I've become incredibly addicted.


Ramen noodle chips are definitely a thing. Quite tasty too. Very crunchy.

https://www.heb.com/product-detail/15219522?shoppingStore=79...


Prepare it and eat it per the instructions and it's infinitely more filling.

Also there's fairly wide variance in calorie count brand to brand for the same size square, not sure why.


I believe ramen noodles are made by frying noodles to make them crisp and dry for packaging. That and noodle thickness probably matter a lot?


That was originally prison food because prisoners could buy ramen but they didn't have ready access to a microwave or stove to cook it.


Are they doing it on company time? Because it might just be true that both you and your sushi eaters get net result 0 from this meal.


You don't get an hour lunch?


"Hey, I heard you like eating sushi. Have you ever tried having a bowl of par-cooked microwaved noodles, instead? It's basically the same thing!"

Edit: The last time I worked in an office building, I had a limited time for lunch. I could have brought in ramen, or purchased something from the decently-stocked break room coolers. I could have sat at my desk or gone outside or eaten in the break room.

And sometimes, I did do those things.

But what I quickly discovered was that what I wanted on my lunch break was primarily a break.

I wanted to get the hell away from that place, surround myself with something completely different, and spend time relaxing my brain before getting through the second half of the day.

So I often went out to get lunch.

But because time was limited, it had to be nearby, and my options were thus very limited.

So I ate a lot of bargain-menu Wendys and tacos from Qdoba because I could get there, and eat, and relax a bit, and be back on time.

If there were instead a sushi place right downstairs, I'd have probably hit that once or twice a week, too. It would have had a higher monetary expense, but my brain would have thanked me for the extra time to unwind and I'd have had a better and more-productive rest of my day and come home in a better mood than I might have otherwise.


I feel you man. I had a lot of lunches alone at a McDonalds walking distance from the office having a quarter pounder with a side salad streaming shows on my Windows Phone through a Slingbox back in the day. Just gotta get out and disconnect for a half hour to reset my mind from the problems of the day.

That was the same year where I was homeless while technically having a "tech" job.


Somewhere around 2011 when I switched my MBP to an SSD (back when you could upgrade the drives, and memory, yourself), Chrome opened in 1-2 bounces of the dock icon instead of 12-14 second.

People used to make YouTube videos of their Mac opening 15 different programs in 4/5 seconds

Now, my Apple Silicon MacBook Air is very, very fast but at times it takes like 8-9 seconds to open a browser again.


I loved the MBP’s from that era. That was my first (easy) upgrade as well in addition to more memory. Those 5400 RPM hard drives were horrible. Also another slick upgrade you could do back then is to swap out the super drive with a caddy to have a second SSD/HDD.

It still works fine today, though I had install Linux on it to keep it up to date.


Honestly though HN really is just as bad.


Having participated in both sites for over a decade, I disagree.

Lobste.rs was pitched as having more open moderation with a public moderation log, but in practice it's mostly one moderator running the show and deleting comments they don't like. There have been some notable incidents over the years where relatively benign comments were used as justification to ban people, the original comments deleted, and then the moderators come in to provide an alternate story of what happened. If you step out of line and question that narrative, you could find yourself silenced as well. Long term users know how and where to toe the line, as well as which topics to avoid completely unless you want to get that famous pop-up that shames you for having your comments downvoted and ends with an invitation to delete your account.

The moderators on Lobste.rs also weave their narrative into the fabric of the site in unavoidable ways. For example, you can't post anything related to LLMs without tagging it "vibecoding". Most of the articles are not about vibecoding, but they've decided that everything related to LLMs is "vibecoding" and therefore that tag is your only option. Don't think you can tag those stories as "AI" because that's wrong and they'll change it to "vibecoding". It's a silly decision that users have been carefully complaining about for a long time but the message from on top is that LLMs are to be sneered at as "vibecoding" and therefore that's the only permissible narrative. You don't see anything like that coming out of HN, for all it's imperfections.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: