Alright, so I won some more stuff at work that I don't currently have a need for. It came straight from our distributor and I haven't opened up either, so new in box.

First up is a Panasonic ZS-2 - http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-cameras/...33414.html

Highlights for those too lazy to click:
- 20X Optical Zoom
- 14.1 MP
- GPS
- 3D picture taking
- 1080 video recording
- Wide angle 24mm lens

$200 OBO

Next is a wireless speaker. It's designed to fit into a lamp fixture and not be seen. More detailed specs can be found at
http://soundoflights.com/specification.php

I found it on amazon for $116 so.. I was thinking $65 OBO

Thanks for looking.

Hey all-

Up here is a Maserati Granturismo in dire need of correctional work. The 'turismo had numerous defects including overspray, sanding marks, heavy swirls from the "professional" at the dealership, heavy marring and cobwebbing abound.

The client and I both agreed to perform any amount of necessary work to bring this 'turismo back to stellar condition. Being a very successful and accomplished cardiac surgeon, the client has the "eye" for detail

The 'turismo was first pulled outside and given a full decon wash- the entire body was foamed down with a mixture of Dawn/ CG Citrus wash. Wheels were first hit with Sonax FE, then hit again with IronX to fully clean up the wheel faces and barrels. APC/ Tarminator on the tires to strip the built up tire dressing. The body was fully clayed with ONR and a medium grade bar.

Correction was performed with:
Rupes 21
Flex DA
PC 7424- various backing plates
Yellow, orange, green, blue foam
Surbuf R series pads

After being fully dried and pulled in for inspection we can see some of the defects:
Hood:





Passenger side door and various other areas of the car riddled with heavy swirling from improper machine use (80% of the car body)






50/50 on the door






Other side of the hood was pretty hammered






Driver door





Front bumper before and after




More buffer trails on the passenger rear fender


Rear glass:
The rear glass was covered in clear coat overspray thanks to the geniuses at the body shop. The glass was first clayed with an aggressive block which didn't make a dent. So, with the Rupes/ by hand and CarPro's Ceriglass/ Zaino Clearview glass Polish and a yellow/ orange foam pad combo with several passes and well over an hour of work- voilla, overspray gone.

Before: notice the little dots to the left of the light

Love this product


Rear decklid defects:



The entire driver rear fender panel and around the trident logo were also covered in overspray- after trying an aggresive clay with no change, time for gentle wetsanding:

First, 2000 gritt, followed by 2500- M105/ SIP/ Sonax PF finished down perfectly and removed all of the overspray



After nearly 15 hours thoroughly wetsanding and compounding 1-2 steps the 'turismo had collected enough dust that another decon rinse was needed- followed by a thorough wipedown with CarPro Eraser

During this time I took an hour or two to further dial in the wheels with an IronX treatment



After being fully rinsed, dried and wipeddown with Eraser, I took a break to begin treating the trim with Black Wow- love this product


Faded rear trim with burnt in wax- thanks dealership
Before:







Another 10 hours later and a thorough finishing with Sonax Perfect FInish via green/ blue foam it was time for a wipedown with Eraser and 22PLE Pro Coating application


The block is ready:


Applied and waiting the 5 minutes per panel- high spots visible- these were leveled out throughout the 5 minutes


Glass cleaned in and out- tires dressed with Megs HyperDressing- the motor was cleaned with Megs APC, dressed in 303 AP.

The interior was brushed/ wipeddown with Megs APC, Leatherique oil was applied and left to dwell on all the interior leather overnight., interior carpet was vacuumed and extracted.

Pre-coating under the LED:



Decklid











After 5 days of full cure time for the coating here are the afters:













































The hood





Thanks for looking!
- Dan K.

Hey guys! For everyone who doesn't know me by my username I'm Garrett and will be president next year. I'm super stoked and wanted some input from everyone. Things that went good, not so good, or anything else you want to say. I thought there was already a thread for suggestions but I couldn't find it. Current members and Alumni feel free to pitch in. I more or less want to continue on what Dan did this year save a few things. I was thinking of having a few more "social" events, definitely want to get karting for each semester (compared to one), and moar racing (rallycross, drag, and more autocross are going to hopefully be on our schedule). I know some of the current members stated how we needed to get our name out more and to have more autocrosses so I'm working on some things to get our name out and am totally open to suggestions. I was thinking about having someone (mine or DJ or whoever) have their racecar parked out somewhere on or by campus. Shoot away with anything you feel is relevant to helping us officers make this year even better than last!

Well, since all the cool kids have a garage/house thread, figured I'd tag along.

Moved into the house almost a year ago now, and step 1, 2 and 3 was cleaning it out. 10 years worth of crap was hanging out in the garage so we didn't junk up the house.

can't find pics of it fully loaded, but here it is just before winter when i could squeeze scooby in.







Fast forward another 6 months...




"Cleaning" is more of 'consolidate the crap to one corner' TV is in the basement now, (thanks Lincoln) still need to organize a bunch, paint, do something with the floor, . and yes, that's a wheelchair ramp going into the house, previous owner had elderly parents living with them. would like to take it out to regain some usable space, but seem like a lot of work. there's a 6" ledge that runs around the wall so nothing sits flush to the drywall, kind of a pain unless i get into building custom benches.

At this point i'm just happy to see a floor and be able to walk around. check back in another 6 months for an update.

Cleveland police said missing teens Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and a third woman were found in a west side house on Monday.Berry was last seen in 2003 when she was called her sister to say she was getting a ride home from work at the Burger King. She was set to turn 17 the day after her disappearance.
On April 2, 2004, 14-year-old DeJesus went missing while walking home from Wilbur Wright Middle School.


video of the guy that found them. watch for the reflex reaction at ~1:07 dude was cracking me up.
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Getting rid of stuff I don't need...
POST UPDATED
Pair of steel drive-up ramps - $20
Great for just driving up and doing oil change/maintenance instead of jacking up your car. They're not fancy and are well-used, but they're sturdy and get the job done.

Air sand blasting kit - $10
All the stuff you need to do some sand blasting. Never opened, and probably never will; bought as an impulse at a Cummins travelling tool show.


Sold Stuff:
Craftsman creeper - $10
Go to their website to see it. Got it a while back and it's literally just sitting in the corner collecting dust.

Work light with tripod stand - $10
Works great, I just have two of these and barely ever use one.


Craftsman toolbox - $5
Heavy duty plastic, three metal drawers with another section under the top lid. Started as my toolbox in college, then became my junkyard box (cram tools in here and head out to collect parts), but has now been sitting in the corner for years after being replaced with a tool backpack. The sentimental packrat in me doesn't want to just get rid of it, so maybe somebody else can use it...
Sorry, didn't grab a picture of this one. It's yellow and black (MM colors) and has clearly been used, but isn't broken.

Speaking for myself I don't own a Lambo but maybe there may come a day where one of us picks one up (instead of a house) and has to hide it from all other MMers so we don't show up at said person's house and set up camp until they let us drive it. I managed to stumble upon some Lambo owner's blogs/ instagrams that are getting excited about doing this drive through Italy and Europe after shipping their whips across the pond. http://www.lamborghini50.com/en/news.html.It's a pretty cool showcase (while on the high end) of a community of owners and collectors from around the globe. I find it exciting that people from all corners of the world can connect around the freedom of driving and this company's history, which is less than half that of say... Ford.
Speaking of which, I couldn't find any sort of Ford supported cross country or somewhat adventurous drives (please correct if I'm wrong). Do companies in America have to shy away from these type of things nowadays due to liability and just settle for NASCAR, brand exposure through media, and here's a car go test drive it type events? We have debatably the best range of foreign cars to choose from, sure some Japanese cars are shipped in pieces and some Euro options aren't available here, but the American market is more open than any others I can think of as far as allowing imports. This has surely helped Americans push the boundaries of what's possible in the aftermarket. While you can hate Lamborghini all you want it's hard to think of another country aside from Italy that has developed an exotic "mass" produced car and has gained the full support of their country to allow their cliental from around the world to come in and go crazy on their own roads while cops look the other way.
Yet in America, there remain the enthusiasts, despite the threat of the law, that go the extra mile to chase a true high performance type of freedom, whether driving your "streetable" car that has "passed" inspection so that you can drive it to a track or crossing the US in 32hours and 7minutes. We chase that dream despite higher risk.

Intro
=====

Hello, my name is Navin and I'm a Honda fanboi. Figured I'd finally put up a project thread for this POS - Not really a build anymore since I'm pretty happy with where the car is at this point so I'll just be using this to keep track of changes/track weekend recaps. Who am I kidding since I'm sure I'll find more stuff that I want to replace down the road, but no major changes and taking hiatus' from the track.

Mods and Stuff
=============

Engine/Trans
- B18c1 (GSR) engine w/JDM ITR .25 OS pistons
- HAsport Billet Engine Mounts
- S2k Throttle Body
- ITR 3" Intake Arm + Airbox
- Skunk2 Intake manifold
- Toda Header
- Fujitsbo RM-01a Exhaust (bottlenecks removed + longer resonator welded in)
- Mugen Baffled Oil Pan
- Fluidyne Full-Size Integra Radiator
- Mfactory Helical LSD
- MFactory 4.929 Final Drive

Suspension
- Tein RA coilovers
- HardRace Upper A-Arms (flipped Left to Right)
- Orijin Spherical Lower LCA bushings
- ITR Rear LCA's
- HardRacer Spherical Rear Trailing Arm Bushings
- Hardrace Rear Camber Kit
- HardRace Rear Toe Adjuster
- HardRace Front Endlinks
- 24mm ITR front swaybar + HardRace Bushings
- 22mm ITR rear swaybar + Beaks Reinforcement Kit

Brakes/Wheels
- 11" Mini Cooper (Base model) rotors
- ITR front calipers
- GSR rear disc brakes
- SS Brake Lines
- Integra RS 15/16th Brake Master Cylinder
- Cobalt XR2 Front Brake Pads
- Cobalt GT-Sport Rear Brake Pads
- 15*7 Rota Slipstreams + 225/45/15 Hankook RS3
- 15*8 949Racing 6uls (just sitting around)

Exterior
- 'Spoon' replica poly front lip
- Spoon duckbill wing
- 'Spoon' replica mirrors

Interior
- Autopower Race Rollbar
- Momo Mod08 350mm Suede Dished wheel
- Sparco 5pt harness
- Sparco EVO Seats (driver/passenger)
- Fastline Shifter
- HOP AC Delete

Pix and Stuff
===========


First Civic -- Type-R 5lug, b18c, rusted quarters, etc...
.
.

What happens when someone decides turning right on red is a good idea and you are already through the intersection
.
.

Ended up selling the 5-lug, and buying back the red civic from insurance. Found this gem (no bone stock pictures) from Al (some might know him on here). Car was technically one owner, his father and then given to him. It had something like 80k orignal miles, and no rust -- oh yeah, and cheap.

Picture is the car at the first autocross I took it to, CDC @ Osbourne Park
.
.

Then decided to track it, probably one of my first events. Way back, when .RJ had his racekaa and Andy Lee and b00bies were stil tracking. I spy Pete's car in the picture as well.
.
.

Shenadoah in 2006 I believe -- Can't wait to go back .
.
.

Took over Maeng's job of "locking dem shitz up"
.
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Moved into a house with some buddies that actually had a garage, did more stupid things to the car...
.
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The engine bay at that time.
.
.

Went back to Shenandoah....drank too many beers. This was the result of an alignment being all out of whack and making the car super loose the whole day. Scurry stuff especially with how close the walls were. Track-day fail
.
.

HyperHizzyFest 2009 -- blue K1's. Somehow missing a corner light, and not pictured is the hole in the driver side skirt when I ran over a jackstand in the paddock. Still not fixed..
.
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My own garage.. Should have just power washed the bay to clean off all the crap from HyperFest but...I got carried away.
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Adios motor -- at this time the 4.9 FD + LSD was installed.
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Painted the engine-bay 'battle-ship' grey, or... New Ford Gray from Duplicolor... Less learned, paint work needs more prep work than you think.
.
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How the hooptie sits as of right now (actually my buddy driving, his first track event at VIR Feb 2013)
.
.

Moving Forward
============

Keep driving it at events this year, my hope is to do the following events:

HyperFest
July VIR
August Summit
Mid-Ohio for ITRExpo
October VIR + The days after for NSXPO

Some short-term mods I'd like to find are some weight saving goods such as a CF Hood, possibly switch to a lightweight battery (donate old one to ITR).

Long term: Sell jdm bling suspension and switch over to Koni Race + custom rate Ground Controls. Possibly sell the AP rollbar and get a welded in 4pt.

5Zigen 18x8 - new tires (hancook); 5x114.3; unsure of offset, but they fit over wilwood brakes on an eclipse
aeromotive FPR w/lines to fit a 2g eclipse (4g63)

see links for details and pictures.....contact me or DJ for special MM pricing!

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washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/pts/3780807551.html

H'okay. As a good bunch of you know, my gf Lauren rocks a 2000 Orient Blau/Dove Gray BMW 540i Sport because it takes no less than 320tqs to get her to her office 1.2 miles down the street. As you would expect with a 136k mile, 13 year old, $65k MSRP German sport sedan, some shit is broken on it. After diagnosing all the current issues and tallying up the damage I issued an ultimatum. Either we sell it as it sits and buy something newer with a bit of warranty left on it and lower operating costs, or we go full commitment and bring back all its former glory. She poked around and cannot find a car under $15k that she likes half as much this old money pit, so full commitment we go.

I don't have many pictures of the old girl but this will do for now. I'll add plenty once we start accomplishing things on it.



The Backstory:

In college she was driving a rental car special Altima, beige paint over beige cloth seats and she absolutely hated it. It has 110k miles and was starting to have intermittent electrical issues. She has also rear ended a pickup truck and been in a few other altercations, so it really wasn't much to look at. She decided she wanted to replace it all together and we spent 6 months test driving everything under the sun. We looked at RX-8s, new Scion TCs, an MKV GTI, E46 3-series and a bunch of other stuff.

We just happened to see this car lurking in the sales lot at Mid-Atlantic with 110k miles on it for a smidge under $11k. Turns out it was a single owner car and the guy had been anal retentive about maintenance, and aside from a power steering line, needed nothing. We test drove it (with Jake I think) and she kinda-sorta liked it but wasn't sure if she wanted a Blue car. She spent the entire next week stressing about whether it had been sold, so we went back the next Saturday and took it on an extended test drive and this time she was hooked on it. We sat down with Greg to talk bidness and he said "Ok, I'm going to give you a no bullshit, bottom dollar price, I can sell you the car for $9400." I said "ok." and we did the paperwork on the spot.

In the past two years she's put ~26k on the car and for all intents and purposes its been really good to us. I'm not sure if I can remember all the issues off the top of my head, but I think it was something like:

-New PS lines installed by Mid-Atlantic for ~$400
-ABS Module failed (common on these cars because they put the delicate electronics 6" above the right headers) so I had it rebuilt with a lifetime warranty for ~$170
-Driver's side headlight balast failed (pretty weird thing to break) ~$100
-Both front window regulators snapped because its an E39 ~$150?
-Coolant Expansion tank busted ~$80
-Valve Cover Gaskets + Serpentine Belts ~$100

Considering the rap sheet most owners of high mileage 540is rack up in two years, this has been a pretty solid car, thank Jeebus for PO's that fix things when they break. Still, short of doing a Rotisserie style restoration at 100k, you're just not going to get away with owning a high mileage 540i and not having to do anything to it, and this one is no exception.

The Situation:
-The Valley Pan Gasket and Intake Manifold gaskets are all but non-existent at this point. The car is hemorrhaging coolant from the right rear corner of the valley pan, and the intake manifold gaskets are causing some knarly vacuum leaks, it idles like its got some crazy ass cams in it right now. The repair requires removing the intake manifold and valley pan and basically replacing every gasket as you put it back together.

-The front suspension needs refreshing. Again, thanks to our Good Guy PO, the tie rods and sway bar end links are tighter than a nun's knees. Unfortunately the front shocks, control arms AND thrust arms are all starting to go. None of them are shredded, but with all of them a bit worn out and the weight of that M62 on top of them is causing a lot of wandering and shimmying at highway speeds, especially under braking when the weight transfers to the front of the car.

-Here's the fun one. The car likely has several oil leaks. The Valve Cover Gaskets were the worst ones, but I think something in the bay is also leaking. Could be from the oil filter housing or maybe I'm just seeing residual from the VCG. Unfortunately, I'm 99% sure the rear main seal is leaking. Quite badly. Its a $30 part and at least an entire weekend's worth of work to drop the trans, if not more.

-The entire car needs a cosmetic refurb. Headlights are cloudy, paint is starting to fade and oxidize, especially on the plastic parts like the door handles. The interior is in pretty good condition but the light gray seats are brown from grit and grime and the entire interior needs a very deep cleaning. I also need to re-wrap the trim to clean up the rough spots from where I did it 2 years ago.


The Plan:

We're going to chunk this shit out into a few major battles to spread out the cost and work.

Step 1: Valley pan/Intake Manifold gaskets/other stuff that looks brittle and leaky in the general vicinity. We're also going to give the entire engine bay and under carriage an extremely thorough cleaning so that we can identify everything that's still leaking. Should cost no more than $250-275, planning to knock it out the weekend after Mother's day. If the project goes well we might start on some of the cosmetic stuff.

Step 2: Suspension. Luckily all the parts can be replaced without jacking up the alignment, and it actually looks like a fairly simple project all things considered. The prices I have worked up now come to about $700, but I'm going to see if I can find some used or bought-but-not-installed shocks or something to soften the blow. We'll hopefully get that knocked out a month or so after the first attack.

Step 3: Oil leaks and rear main seal. The parts for this are going to be dirt cheap, but I'm going to have to crowd source a lot of help to drop that big ass automatic out of there in a reasonable amount of time without crushing myself.

Step 4: Finish up the rest of the cosmetic work and any of the small stuff I'm not thinking about. She's always wanted it to be louder, so we might drop it off at my shop and have them chop out the resonator or rear can to give it a more noticeable V8 growl. I could also stick a cone filter on the end of the Maf and cobble together a heat shield for that wooshy intake sound.

Step 5: Let her flaunt her stuff at Bimmerfest East this year instead of taking the E36. Because my girlfriend's car has more displacement than your girlfriend's car.

If anyone is willing and able to come help turn wrenches and wrestle parts into place during the suspension and rear main seal projects, they would be rewarded handsomely with copious amounts of food and beer, and have our eternal gratitude.