Might as well start this thread. I'll post some better pictures later, but you can see the first few I took with my cell phone in the "Want a new daily" thread.

Car:
2013 Cadillac ATS 2.0t/6MT in Premium trim package
"Caramel" interior..but i prefer to say saddle
Bought it used with 11,xxx miles on it.

Some first impressions:
Had to drive a lot of interestate driving back from CT to get it home. Adequate on the highway, pulls hard in 4th getting up on the ramps and such.

I havent had a chance to really thrash it around on any back roads or anything. I am actually surprised though that cruising 75-80 on the interstate last night, and then DMV trip + work today, I am averaging 25.2 or so. I have heard that its pretty easy with a tune to get more oomph and mileage.

Upcoming:
-Some wheel curb rash repair or seeking a replacement (has anyone done this to aluminum wheels in MM?)
-Replace a rear plastic piece that is scuffed up that surrounds the exhaust tips
-Investigate tune further
-Perhaps autocross? Isnt that what people with RWD manuals do?

Sadly on the day of October 25, My 98 Legacy GT was lost. A JMU girl rear ended me. I was at a stop light like any other person, I look up in the rear view mirror, and think "Well she's not going to sto-" and thats when I was hit from behind at ~45mph. The force pushed me into the car in front of me. And yes this was on Reservoir Street, with a speed limit of 25mph. The wreck totaled my car. Both my parents were also in the car and were hurt, Nothing life threatening, my dad seems to be recovering fine,and my mom is in a bit of pain but has been back and forth from the doctor and the physical therapist. Hopefully she will be fine.





My Legacy had bunch of frame damage, but the body held up amazingly well for the hit it suffered. Subaru's are damn safe cars. But now into the good stuff. Since the wreck I've had a rental car. I HATE it. Its a Chrysler 200. 18mpg, terrible blind spots and overall just a crap car. But! I have since purchased a 2009 Subaru Outback. Has 95k miles on it. Only outback I could find in the price range of what insurance gave me. Only thing I hate about it is that it's an Automatic Transmission. Every time I get in the car I still reach for the clutch and the stick to put it in neutral. Lol. But I'll be strong and get over it.

Got the car in Lynchburg, so It had about a 200 mile trip. Not a single thing wrong. Over the mountains and the interstate was a blast. So smooth.



And why not try to flex it? Lol

What happened?





http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default....ryId=28840

:vomit:

So... I put a playstation 2 in my truck.

Not sure what else to say.

Here it is.



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Cool.

1990 Miata (early build 1/90) b-package (ac/pw, LSD).

-NO RUST, has all the original panels (matching VIN plates)
-206k on the chassis and 70k on the long nose crank replacment motor (replaced in 2012 with new timing belt, water pump and hoses).
-Factory hard top (soft top is there, ugly, but keeps the interior dry).
-Repaint in 2012
-Red and black Katzkins "leather" seats
-CX racing coilovers (under 6 months old)
-Racing Beat Power pulse intake
-Racing Beat front and rear sway bars w/ adjustable end links
-R-package front lip
-15in Konig wheels
-Boss Frog roll bar


$4000

I think somebody brought this up/posted elsewhere but looks like it's actually a full blown production item.

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I don't know about you guys but riding for me has always been about getting away from the distractions and just riding..

This just seems like too much going on when you should be focused on the ride.. :dunno:

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I found this story to be fucking hilarious. Top fuel dragster horsepower for the same price as a Veyron. Even if they were able to construct an engine making half of that horsepower I have to think that car would end up being a bomb on wheels appropriate only for burning rich people to a crisp. It's like that Mysterio concept that Chan and I had...

MM,

I destroyed a wheel this past weekend at Summit, and it turns out it's a discontinued wheel in a strange offset. Will you please help me out by keeping an eye open on your various forums and searches? I've done a nationwide craigslist search and have an eBay search notifier set up.

Brand: 5Zigen
Model: FN01R-C
Color: Silver. Not "Hot version"
Size: 17x8
Offset: +25
Bolt Pattern: 5x114.3 (240, mustang, and lots of others)

Thanks in advance everyone!

So yesterday I made the trip over to Murr-lin' Int'l Raceway for the 18th running of the Haltech World Cup Finals. Basically, its a 3-day drag racing fest that pits the top racers from various sanctioning bodies against each other - roughly 500 racers in 11 classes in all. People and cars come from all over the US, Caribbean/SA, Europe, Australia/NZ, Middle East, etc. Sunday was the finale and it was jam-packed, but I managed to snap a few decent pics through the crowds. Of particular note are the insane, tiny, drag-Corollas - predominantly from Puerto Rico - that were always a trip to see slide and jitter down the track towards 7-second passes.

Yeah, kinda 2JZ-biased, but enjoy











The Titan Motorsports team out of Orlando, FL. and their 6-second Solara. I was hoping to see the 6-sec "Copper car", their famous drag Supra that they've campaigned in some fashion since about 2000. However, that cars' team and driver were in Bahrain to support a tube-frame Supra they built for Ebrahim Kanoo, the president of Toyota Bahrain. Just the other day, it became the quickest/fastest import ever, running a 6.15 @ 230.2.

Video of the pass

The incredible build can be seen here:

http://www.speedhunters.com/?s=titan+supra


















There were a lot of breakages throughout the day, leading to dropped fluids here and there. The clean-up crew was always running around, speeding up and down the track on their ATV's to check on conditions, and bringing their tractor out to sweep the surface and apply traction compound. I always had my finger on the trigger for the next pass after their work, b/c I knew this could result:







By the end of this pass, the Swift Racing IS300 had passed this Camaro on its way to a low 7 second pass.









Best I could do getting a 230mph car in frame at the far end of the track:



Awesome color on this car shone well in the evening light - the temps dropped precipitously after this shot, so I packed it up and headed home. All of my pics can be seen here.

Thought I'd post up a "lessons learned" thread from an experience I had this weekend at Summit.

Usually before every event, I go through and "touch my nuts" on about everything that either moves, is a critical component, or has a tendency to loosen (usually high heat or vibration areas). This includes things like suspension pivots, driveshaft bolts, brake calipers, turbo/exhast parts, etc. If it's an area that is really prone to loosening, I implement further safeguards such as wiring them, using various locknuts, etc.

Well, life is busy right now, and I barely had time to get the car together, yet alone "touch my nuts." I figured it'd be ok. Guess who was wrong?

Going into T1 at about 125, I hit the brake zone pretty hard. For about 0.5 seconds, I feel a big vibration from the front wheels. That turned into a good "clunk", a lack of control, a 30 degree angle slide at about 100mph, and finally a last minute bail at the paved runout to the left of T1.

Turns out that the bottom bolt of my brake caliper/spindle connection came loose and ejected itself. Under hard braking, the caliper flipped up, jammed into the rim, sliced the rim in half, and then jammed so hard it stopped the wheel compleetly while bending and wrecking a bunch of other stuff under there. Weekend was over :-(. Had I touched my nuts, weekend would have been awesome!

This could have ended a LOT worse. I feel so fortunate that all I did was bend some stuff and slide straight off the track. Much worse things have happened at T1 when brakes go wrong. Fortunately, mine failed in a way that locked the wheel versus failing "open."

Pics:










(that's a 3/8 stainless steal bracket that should be straight)