AudiOn19s

Everyone, thank you again for the support and encouragement. One thing we've found about cancer is how many people's lives it's really touched in one way or the other. It's great to have a bunch of people like everyone here to rely on. Austin: She had other options but they all involved Chemo. and or Radiation treatments. Her personal preference was to avoid those treatments unless they were absolutely necessary parts of her treatment. As stated earlier she still may require an oral chemo pill but that will not be determined until after the post-surgery biopsies have been completed. She also chose to take the second (cancer free) breast for several reasons....mainly to not live in fear of the disease and constantly be faced with Dr.'s visits to make sure it hasn't come back. Had she kept her "good" breast she would have had to go in for mammograms every 6 months and MRI's Yearly to check for cancer for the remainder of her life. In taking both she's makeing sure she's taken every precaution possible to fully treat the disease and then move on with life. Andy

Small Lumps. Like a bb might be burried in there.

Something Ramsey pointed out which I did not mention is that Yasmin's cancer was caught at an early enough stage that she's got a 99% chance of coming through this with no worries of breast cancer downt he road based on the treatment we chose. She had the option to save her breasts and go through radiation. However in looking at the growth that was present, despite still being early it was considered agressive based on her age and the size of the growth(s) (There's two locations of cancerous growth on her left side). Because of that and the fear of radiation and chemo she elected to have both breasts taken. As long as things go as planned at this point with the complete removal of both breasts she will not have to go through radiation or chemo with a slight possibility of an oral chemo pill. However there will be further biopsies of the removed tissue prior to that being completely determined. Thank all of you for the support.

My wife, my best friend, my everything in life was recently diagnosed with Breats Cancer. She will be going through a bi-lateral Mastectomy on Monday at Riverside. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers as the coming weeks will be rough on her. Also, if you can take anything out of this please have your loved ones checked. Go feel some boobs tonight at home and if you find anything suspicious have it checked out by a professional. Yasmin is 31, lives a clean and healthy lifestyle, is a fitness nut and meets none of the criteria for women that would be at risk. No family history, genetic testing was done and she's not a carrier of gene mutations that lead to cancer. Nothing can explain it but none the less cancer is present. http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/ZainoDetail/Picture215.jpg Thanks Andy

Sitting in the garage while I work.

Good to hear things are coming along. Best of luck on a continued recovery. Andy

Do you ever drive your own cars to events? Notice this shot from the 5/30 meet...mysteriously my M3 was there but I was not. http://www.columbusracing.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=341&pictureid=2405

You're probably right that it won't come completely out...but if you get some touch-up we might be able to make it look nearly gone if we fill / wetsand / buff. Andy

Shitty deal. People like that can rot in Hell. My wife had the M3 parked in the parking lot at Limited on the end and someone cut the corner too close and caught the front bumper. Luckily, despite it looking like a disaster with paint transfer, the clear bra did it's job and took all of the damange. The paint under the clear bra was fine. You think it'll buff out???...you wanna try? I'd be more than willing to give it a go for you. Andy

Tim, how do you do the Colorized B/W editing. I've got Photoshop I just never learned to use anything but the basics with it. I think my camera will actually take the shots in that mode too but haven't dicked around with those yet either. Andy

When I worked for Maxton back in the day we had a horrible run of cars with clogged injectors and the only common link was they all used BP gas exclusively in their cars. Now this was 10+ years ago so alot may have changed with the quality of their product. However old habits die hard. I use Sunoco if it's available (and because I own stock), Shell otherwise. Andy

Looks like I missed a good time! Great pics Tim. Andy

Nice work. The Brembo's on the Porsche did the same thing...though not till they were 7 years old. I need to do something similar to bring them back.

The company I was speaking of prefers to do thier remote custom tunes live on a 3rd party dyno. They send out a laptop with their tuning software on it and a wireless card to connect and send data back real time. Granted you have to pay for local dyno time on top of the tune...but they get immediate updates / logs, etc. Saves you Time for the drive, money for gas and money for a possible overnight stay. Most tunes done in 1-2 hours. I won't get into the GIAC / APR debate or the debate over who you have to get them from. Both are good and the presence of APR surely wouldn't be a bad thing in the local market BUT...neither is really a custom tune either. Andy

wooden hammer handle if you're in a pinch. I have to say I've used the "real" (eastwood?) fender roller tool in the past and it's worth it's weight in gold. Great tool. That said, I took a wooden handle to the Audi fenders a couple days ago though as i was in desperate need

You drove to ECS when you could get the clearly superior GIAC locally? (I might be biased based on what's in my car though ). I agree with everyone that stated that there's a sever lack of custom tunes for european cars within a reasonable distance. When I eventually get around to doing more mods than the standard set that are already on the E55 the closest place to get a custom tune is Chicago. That said, I'd contact LET in Chicago about a possible central ohio partnership if any of you were looking to expand. They actually do remote custom tunes which is a pretty slick setup. There's lots of 55Kompressor motors running around in the various platform cars now with alot of potential for tuning and great gains. Still on the mercedes side there's LOTS of speculation that most of the changes to de-tune the C63 vs. the E and CLS cars with the same motor was all done in the Tune. I know Andy with MHP locally is already ahead of the game on this but could be something you guys look into as well. More and more heavily modified E46 M3's running around now that they're cheaper. Headers and cat deletes and Cam swaps are prooving to be great sources of power for the cars but without turning off the post-cat o2 monitoring a CEL is guaranteed AND to get the most power out of them it requires some custom tune. Mail order is still the only good option for that car for custom tunes. (Discovery Automotive seems to be THE source for custom tuning S54 cars.) Andy

You could apply a glaze by hand and partially fill them in. It'll make them less noticable and give it a really nice gloss. Put a nice paste wax over the top and it'll look nice but only for a short time until you wash off the glaze/wax or it bakes off in the sun. It's a decent short term solution though. 3M imperial hand glaze works pretty well for filling. It's a BITCH to work with though. Turns to concrete on the paint if you let it dry too long. You can find it locally though. Andy

You can spend very little money on products to keep and maintain a car in outstanding condition. Most of the damage actually comes from improper washing and drying technique or materials. Spend some money on a couple of quality wash mits, buckets, microfiber towels / applicators. etc. Pick a single wax of your choosing, maybe a spray detailer, and something for the interior and you should be set on the maintenance side. I'd say $75-100 could easily get you all of this. Here's a great article on the topic. http://www.autopia.org/publish/articles/6/1/--Wash-amp-Dry-Your-Car-Like-A-Pro/Page1.html However...once a car is swirled up and requires correction work that's where the numerous products and machines are required to get it back to where it needs to be. If you don't intend on using them on a regular basis the cost to acquire these is probably not worth it vs. having one of the detailers here correct the paint to a level where you can maintain it on your own. Andy

Long story short....We have a current situation in our household which has caused most spending / projects / etc to be cut. Derek knew about said situation and that I needed tires for the Audi. He went above and beyond...way beyond just a sponsor helping someone out. This was a true act of friendship. Audi's back on the road now thanks to him. Never hesitate to give this man your business. People like Derek that stand up and help in a time of need are what makes CR such a great place. Andy

Isopropyl alcohol from the cosmetic section of the grocery store is just as effective and cheaper than bug and tar remover. Put on a rag and let the rag sit over the spots for 10-30 seconds and then aggitate if the tar isn't already dissolved. Doing it in the warm sun helps too as previously stated. No vigorous rubbing. Wax when you're done.

wheel fitment info is weak on that page. I looked at TireRack quickly and they list several pages worth of 18' wheels for your car. Looke like you need 18 x 8 et35. Go back to your origional page and they have several 18x8 et35 wheels there that don't mention your application but should work fine based on what I see on TireRack's site. Andy

+1. Go big or go home. I'm 99% positive I recently saw an S6 up at Auto Assets that even had 19's on it. I have a hard time thinking the 18's wouldn't fit. As a matter of fact I think they have an A6 of your same vintage up there with 18" ASA AR1's on it. Andy

It's hiding somewhere up there!. We could make a game...First one to find 5 CR members cars in the parking lot wins.

Brian, Sorry to hear about this man. I'll keep her in my thoughts and prayers. Andy

My wife is up there but I'm not telling you leg humpers where! Casey is up there too. I see his trans-am all the time.