greg1647545532

Found one, lock it up.

Like this: http://www.amazon.com/Momo-RETRING-Button-Retainer-Plate/dp/B00PKM35L4/ref=pd_sim_sbs_263_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=04799MQQR70MSSP18WK0 Figured I'd check to see if anyone has one lying around that they're not using because my wheel is in my car now and I'm super impatient.

Sadly I was unable to crack 2 minutes. I did get signed off to be an instructor, though, and I didn't die.

Nobody's ever had a C43 AMG as their desktop background (the modern equivalent of that Countach poster you had as a kid). I don't see them appreciating like a muscle car, unless yours was prepped for DTM. Take the deal IMHO.

I worked at KI for a number of years, Tuesday was always our slowest day. We'd be open weekends only for a bit in the spring and fall, as soon as we opened up for weekdays and right before we shut that down was the best time. Tuesdays though. Tuesday - Monday - Wednesday - Thursday in that order.

Anyone coming to the AutoInterests event on Monday, come over and say hi to the idiot trying to break 2 minutes in a minivan. I'm not sure I'll recognize any of you, but I know a few of you are coming. I'll be the only one there in a van.

Time trial? It's people farting around on an indoor go-kart track, nobody was competing for anything. If my friend and I hadn't been out there, then this guy would have been driving around the track by himself. I dunno, maybe that's what he wanted to do, but I figured a real racer would want the guy in front to actually put up something of a fight. Maybe I'm wrong. I like passing people and getting passed. Karting by yourself is dull. YMMV. FWIW, his lap times were around a second faster than mine; a big difference on the one hand, but it's not like I was a rolling road block. I have. I enjoy a little inconsistency, but it's concession karting, you know? I don't want to have to memorize the track surface down to the square foot. "Oh, right, grid K12C is a little slick, try and keep your tires on grid K12D." Is it a minor gripe? Sure. But I'm allowed minor gripes, it's my money Well that's good. None of them were working that day in any case. Doesn't bother me, really, I just mention it because the guy asked for feedback about the track layout and was happy that I liked it; he explained that they'd tried a few different layouts to get to where they are. By contrast, I feel like GPK started out strong. But I never drove any of those earlier iterations, obviously, so maybe they're just being hard on themselves.

Bump because I finally got a chance to check this place out last week. Went to GPK last Monday and they were closed, zipped on over to the west side and BR was open for business. It was dead, though. Random thoughts -- - Electric karts are the future. I think I've had one unforced spin at GPK, and that was the first time I hit the unsanded back section. At BR, my friend and I both spun multiple times trying to make sense of the power delivery. With instant torque you really need good throttle control. GPK will hide a lot of foot stomping, BR won't. You might think spinning is annoying, but by our 3rd session when we'd finally gotten the hang of it, there's a real feeling of satisfaction in taming the throttle-on oversteer. The downside of the electric karts is that they have no top end, so the tracks can't ever have really long straights. But it's a worthwhile trade-off, IMO. - The karts are consistent. I don't know if this is just an age thing (BR's karts are all brand new) or if the electric karts help in this matter, but at GPK part of the challenge is re-learning how to drive every kart you get in. We did 3 sessions at BR and I feel like each kart felt exactly the same. - The track layout was good. One of the track workers said it was their 3rd layout. They're basically just messing around with trial and error. He said he was brought in to do some construction on the place and ended up getting a job. He has no racing experience. None of the guys had any racing experience, and it seems like the owners leaves the track configuration up to them. So they've sort of stumbled on a decent layout, but they're expanding as they go (they're up to around a 35 second lap for a good driver, and they said it will get longer soon) so the quality may change. He also said they plan on changing it every few months just to keep it interesting, which I don't really like. - The workers were sorta clueless about racing. Like I said, it was dead, but there was one other guy there, some salty old guy who apparently is a sprint car racer. They were like, "He's going to be way faster than you guys, so be prepared to get out of the way." Sure, he was faster, but I'm not going to give him the pass. He's got to earn it, right? Otherwise it's not even fun for him. But after half a lap of me doing a good job of covering my lines, they killed power to my kart remotely so he could go by. Booooooo. - The track surface blows. And not because it's too slick. I'm 100% ok with an indoor kart track being slick, that's part of the charm. I also think figuring out track surface is a fun part of racing. But it's inconsistent, and it's obnoxiously inconsistent. Like, you go 6" wider into a corner and instead of solid grip you get 0 grip and understeer into the wall. Inches matter on this surface. After a while it gets annoying. "Oh no, I went a hair too deep, now I need to slide for 5 feet and do a power drift for 4 seconds to get the kart pointing the right way again while the guy behind me takes off and I'll never see him again." This happened a lot, and my friend and I basically took turns stopping on the track to let the other one catch up. I'm sure this will get better with time, but I wouldn't want to do league racing there yet. Too unforgiving of mistakes. Overall, I give it a thumbs up. It's about the same price, the racing is good, the karts are good, the staff is nice. I think if you and your buddies are all into racing, you can go to either one and have a good time. If you and your buddies are all clueless and just want to drift around and giggle, BR might be slightly better. If you and your buddies represent a wide range of talent, you might want to stick with GPK. eta: One of the nice things about electric karts is that they have a "junior mode" setting that they can turn on, so it's the same karts for kids. Also, these karts have adjustable steering wheels, along with the pedals and seats, so it was easier to get comfortable. They're easier to adjust too, and unlike GPK they don't try to prohibit you from adjusting them yourself. Minimum age is 8, minimum height is 48 inches, same as GPK. GPK has the 4-and-up kiddie karts, so they've got that going for them. BR also has a party room you can rent for birthday parties and some arcade games, again, same as GPK.

Where?

Mad Max is and has always been about style. Unless you think it's plausible that people struggling to survive spend effort crafting elaborate costumes out of feathers and football padding.

It's *probably* a really stupid idea, but... http://steronz.com/random/xjs_small.jpg

Most of the sill plates on my garage have rotted out, the garage is going to have be lifted and... something, not really sure what. Might need to be set up on blocks, as the actual foundation seems like shit. Can anyone recommend a good company that I could get a quote from?

This thread is fantastic. Love to see a good reconditioning.

:nod:

double post

Minor update to pass the time while I'm waiting for parts to come in. First up, replacing the long gangly antenna with something "sportier." http://i.imgur.com/XfpIVMAh.jpg This ended up being a pain. The stock antenna had a threaded section about an inch and a quarter long, and this $8 universal Chinese replacement antenna had maybe half an inch. I had to "machine" a threaded insert to press in to accept the shorter antenna. My goal is not to make any irreversible mods, no matter how dumb, so I had to do it this way so I can still screw in the stock antenna if I want. But my sleeve isn't quite tight enough. It's in there well enough for driving, but if you came up and yanked on the antenna it might come out. So don't do that. Radio works, though. In a related vein, old school late 90s/early 00s radio hacking! http://i.imgur.com/Zo1C4edh.jpg Aux input in the arm rest (the switch is to flip on the "CD changer") with a marine 12V USB socket, so I can charge and/or listen to music without cables snaking around the already tight cabin. This may interfere with the shitty cupholders, but I've got a plan for that later. And lastly, I mounted this fire extinguisher (on top of my new Lloyd floor mats, tres chic): http://i.imgur.com/3YDXtLQh.jpg A couple notes about fire extinguishers. I own this because ChumpCar required one in 2013. They now require a hard mounted, handle operated fire suppression system. From a safety perspective, manually operated fire extinguishers are dumb. The safest thing to do is to get out of the car, and fire suppression systems can provide valuable seconds to do unhook a harness/window net and survive. About the only thing this extinguisher can do is save the car, and even then, it's a tiny extinguisher. Any sort of oil fire is probably going to overwhelm it. There's a very narrow window of calamities where this thing might save the car, made narrower by the fact that this is essentially a stock 140hp street car. Furthermore, there's a chance that it might become a projectile in an accident. Some people won't mount these sorts of extinguishers for that reason. Personally, I feel that it's in there pretty good, and if I didn't put it in this car then it'd essentially be a paperweight in my garage. Also, I watched my cousin's car burn to a totalled state because nobody was close enough with an extinguisher to stop the fire when it was small. Also, I'm a ricer and I had fun making this bracket. My requirement was that it bolt to the floor (via the front seat holes) rather than the seat because I want it to stay in there with my race seats as well, but still allow the seat to slide forward for when my kids ride with me. So it sits a bit forward but it doesn't get in the way. I like it. Now I'm waiting on my steering hub adapter from Japan and my new roll bar from Cali. I'm not sure I'm going to get everything in by June 1st, since I'm busy the next few weekends even if stuff shows up. There's no way I'm passing a broomstick test with the stock seats, so I may be doing the first track day of the year in my Mazda5 instead of this. C'est la vei.

I also have the QStarz GPS thing and it works great, I consider it extremely accurate for road courses, I haven't used it for anything else. Whereas the VBOX is a standalone logger, the QStarz is just a GPS module; it needs a phone and an app that supports it. I use TrackMaster, which specifically supports the qstarz thing. The app you linked to says it supports external GPS modules, but there's a million phones and a few different bluetooth GPS modules, so nothing's guaranteed.

Spade = shovel. FWIW, I want to radio shack and they had exactly what I was looking for. First time in years! http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads/post-13139-1422231600.jpg

I want to do this without tapping into the harness or directly soldering onto the lighter. It's got the standard cigarette lighter spade connectors, looks like this. I figure I can make a little adapter out of a couple of pairs of spade connectors and some short wires, but I was wondering if there was something a little cleaner that anyone knows about.

Wait, one vehicle for everyone? Gonna have to be whatever the modern equivalent of the Lada Niva is. Maybe just a Lada Niva with a 2.0 Ecotec and updated electronics.

I'm going to pile on here with the Altima rental car hate. This was my experience exactly, and I know I've had the S before. I've actually hated every Nissan rental car I've ever had, they've completely turned me off from modern Nissans.

Car-Part lists a local transmission with 112k for $800. $1700 seems steep, and if you're just going to fix it and sell it then you just need a transmission that works, not necessarily one with low miles. With 200k miles it looks to be a $3500 car. Paying someone to replace the transmission is pretty close to a wash vs scrapping it for a grand. Installing a $1000 transmission yourself and then selling it seems like the way to go if you have the time.