I read this article today from Car and Driver on the elusive Mercedes 500K. Oh you have never heard of the 500K before? That's probably because there was only 1 ever made. It changed hands quite a few times and survived through war. It was finally bought by a man that owned a salvage yard full of rare and exotic cars. He put it into storage and that is where it has been for years. If you have the time, I recommend the article. It is full of the history of the car, racing history, and the mysterious case to bring the car back to the public's eye.




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Of the MMer's who own 2 wheel transportation how many of you commute a decent percentage of the year and what are your experiences regarding convenience, work attire issues, or other thoughts... ? (I expect Kaan to dominate this one..)

Don't really need any of this stuff anymore.. Just don't play much and as I'll be eventually moving after graduation If I can eliminate items that don't need to go so be it.. Not sure how much MM interest but everyone has friends right??

Ibanez SRX 300 Bass - $300 OBO


Fender Rumble 100 Amp $250 OBO


Jim Dunlop Crybaby Bass Wah w/ power supply -$75 OBO

I'm thinking about having windows in the Legacy and WRX tinted, and wanted to get thoughts from others on the board. Here's what I'm aiming for:
1) Not some shitty plastic film with bubbles in it.
2) Not some shitty film that looks great today and purple in a couple years.
3) I'd probably pay a shop, but will do it myself if it isn't too much challenge and saves me significant $.
4) Not planning to go beyond legal limits.

I loved the tint in my old 5-series, but I'm not 100% sure it wasn't factory (though there were a couple scratches in it).
If you've done it yourself, what product did you use / how is it aging / tell me your story.
If you know of reputable shops, who?

Name: Brock
Location: Blacksburg
Means of contact: btothefnrock@gmail.com or 540.392.8474
Price: $500 OBO

Description:
Up for sale are my 18" Motegi M116 wheels 5x114.3 and 5x120 Pattern

Asking $500 + Shipping, or meet near Blacksburg, VA

Tires are Hankook Ventus V12 Evo (225/245), but are all near death.

Fronts 18x8 +35

Rears 18x9 +37

One of the fronts has a bend in it (you can see in the picture) Not terrible, holds air fine, never really notice a vibration until around 90mph (I'm pretty sure that was caused by the spacers not being hub centric though)

Some slight curbage on two of them, but you can not see it from more than 2 feet from the wheel (black lips!)

I also have a set of spacers I could sell as well that make them set pretty good on a 350z (not sure exact thickness, but around 25mm and 30mm) they also have ARP Studs installed. I'll have to measure them, but they are still on the car currently.

What they looked like on my car


And off the car as of this weekend-

(bent wheel on top to show lip)


Wheel 1 (front)


Wheel 2 (front) (this is the one with the bend- its at the bottom in the pic)


Wheel 3 (rear)


Wheel 4 (rear)


and here is a pic of one rear cleaned up a bit better


If you need some clearer pics, I can go take some with something better than my phone. Sorry for the water/dirt on the pics!

Please email me at btothefnrock@gmail.com for fastest response.

91 Miata 1.6L (Short nose, good keyway)

Will not keep a steady rev under constant load. In the Video, the throttle is being held at around 10%, and you can see the cable is not moving- but the engine dips and revs by itself. Does this cold or hot.

- Idles fine
- Runs to Redline fine
- Not down on power
- No engine codes


What we have done-
-New Coil Pack (tested good)
-New Timing belt +pulleys (double checked)
-New AFM (MAF) (Tried 2 others from running cars as well)
-New Plugs/wires
-Checked for Vacuum leaks (cant find anything)
-New Fuel Pressure Regulator
-New Fuel Filter
-Ran Injector cleaner

What could it be?

Ecu? CAS? Something else?

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G27. Top of the line video game wheel. paid $300, sell for $200 OBO
real shifter and clutch, real leather,full wheel rotation, great force feedback. I bought it for GT5 but literally used it twice and havent played GT5 since.
PC and PS3 compatible
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Momo Force
$50, in perfect shape, only used a few times playing GTR. for PC, and works with many PS3 games too.
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Now don't get me wrong, I'd love for there to be a real road course near Vegas. But I think copying the Ring would be a stupid ass idea. Come up with your configuration and make it even better than the Ring. I don't think there is anyone who'd turn their nose up at a racetrack outside of Vegas because it doesn't have the same configuration as the Nurburgring.

I guess this irks me because Summit copied the bowl from Nurburgring on Shenandoah circuit. Yes, let's copy the worst turn from a famous racetrack because...I actually can't think of a good reason to do that :dunno:

So no this is not for me. This is for my mom's boyfriend. He is looking for a fun little runabout and he mentioned himself without me suggesting a miata. He isnt looking for (OMG THIS IS BEST YEAR FOR SPEC MIATAR) or some fixer upper. He is looking for something he doesnt need to touch and just can have fun. Whats the best year for comfort? He is also as tall as me at 6'2 but wears about 30lbs more.

Price limit is probably 5-10k I think at this moment. Heck he is happy with his 95 biege camry so no need for turbo/v8 etc.

Seems like there are tons of e36 threads on here, so bam! It's an e46, so same shit + slightly better interior and general reputation of G35 owners. I know, I know, tl;dr. But it's like 1.5 years of ownership in this first post, so bear with me.

So hello again, fellas - long time no post. But I work from home, so I still lurk quite a bit. For those who don't know, I'm an '04 grad, and I didn't join the club until my senior year despite seeing people at an autocross or two.

Anyway, after 2.5 years of living in DC without a car (Zipcar rocks, btw), I relocated to Norfolk, which doesn't accommodate the carless lifestyle quite as well as the district - not that I needed much of an excuse to get back in the game after not having a car for so long. I looked forever for 6 months, strictly at 3-pedaled e46 (specifically 2003.5+) M3's, and I was very particular about mileage (<50k), options (sunroof, nav, seats with lumbar/width, HIDs), condition (no signs of mods), and color combination (please please please white on Cinnamon or Imola). Furthering my increasing disappointment in humanity, I had a couple sold out from under me, and was just having a difficult time finding what I was looking for. After moving to downtown Norfolk in September of '10, I was up the creek a bit and had to scratch out some of my rules in order to be able to get around to buy things to live - the first one being color combo.

So I wound up with yet ANOTHER silver/black car, this one an '05 with 44k miles. Summing up nicely what I learned about public transportation while being carless, I walked to a bus station, took the bus to the train station, took the train to the Metro station, took the Metro to the airport, hopped on a plane, and was picked up by a stranger in an e30 M3 (2.5l with CF air box, drool) in Cincinnati to go pick up my new car, whose cherry I would re-pop with a 10 hour drive back through glorious, glorious roads. Though overpriced, I found Enthusiast Auto Group to be an ethical and straightforward company to buy a used car from. Plus they had two e30 tourings (!) on the lot. What's funny is that one M3 I had gotten handshake/loan (in front of the guy) to buy in Rockville (at a steal, and then the guy called me back to raise the price, at which point he was directed to fuck himself) in MD was on the lot, too. Small world.

Condition-wise, it was damn good. EAG had replaced the windshield (since replaced again), put urethane RTAB's in, and done an alignment. Front bumper had a small crease, and the rear had/has a scrape in the paint. Nothing else at all worth complaining about - it was clean. Still had 6 months of CPO too, good for a free Inspection 2 (BMW talk for expensive fluids and pretending to do a valve adjustment) - I also got a free set of brakes out of that, which ain't cheap.

Day 0:


First impressions were:
- People say this motor doesn't have enough torque?
- Holy shit, it's nice to own a car again; I'm going to Target.
- Heel-toeing sticks with you, which is nice.
- I always knew e46 M3's sounded weird (angry chainsaw!) from outside, but it's quite pleasant inside. Still BMW inline-6-ish.
- Granted it's been a few years, but this is way more fun than my e30's - yeah e46's are way heavier, but BMW did it well. Absolutely a blast to drive. I've used it before and it's still corny, but I feel more like I'm wearing the car moreso than driving it.
- Suspension was stiffer than I expected. Not bad at all, just (pleasantly?) surprised - expected more luxury from BMW.

Second impressions were:
- Motor could use more torque.
- Please just give me the smallest reason to go to Target, <3 driving.
- I love walking away from /towards the thing. It's really just a pretty automobile that somehow is both elegant and masculine.

A good friend of mine had recently picked up an '05 JB/Cinnamon SMG 'vert around the same time. Very different cars, and I'm glad I have neither the transmission nor the toplessness:


So when I bought it, I didn't have much in the way of plans. Didn't even think of getting back into motorsports (just an autocrosser historically), to be honest. And after having had it awhile, I didn't think it needed much in the way of improvement. But I met up with an old friend I hadn't talked to in years (who, coincidentally had purchased a Z4M Coupe) and realized my shifter sucked. Homework time later, I figured that like $180 on a 330d lever/ZHP knob for 90% of what $400 on a "true" SSK would do (along with a much bigger pain of taking the exhaust/driveshaft down), I was happy with the first "mod". I've since forgotten what the old shifter was like and it's like it never happened.

Chilled for awhile. Used it as a car, curbed some wheels, carried some trees:


Shit 225/255 tires on it cupped, got 245/275 Hankook v12's, meh. They feel better now (10k or so miles in) than they did new, but they're clearly not competitive or meant to be. After proving how terrible they are in snow in WV, I hit up trusty ol' 33 on the way back and passed through Harrisonburg.

I've only been here with a few hundred fewer horsepower, so that was fun:


Also, I can barely recognize Harrisonburg anymore. I mean holy shit.

Then I went to an autocross for the first time in god knows how long. Didn't realize how much I missed it. Ended up waffling for a bit before deciding on AST 4100's (550/650 springs) for a suspension - way more than I'd ever imagined spending on a suspension (and it's their entry level shit)but I'm digging it so far. Compared to stock, it's stiffer but better controlled. And honestly, until you get into bumpstop territory, rides better than OEM...but bumpstop territory does rear its head more often than before. I'm pretty impressed with it, and I like it better than GC/Bilstein and GC/Koni setups I'd tried on my e30's in the past. I also did enough forum research (before and since) to know that DJ will jump in here with some hate. Sup?

Das hardware:


Install day and a Z4M Coupe.


Silver is boring, and with the factory clear lights, I thought the car looked like a single color blob, so I back-modded or whatever with amber lights front and rear. Tamed the appearance of it down a bit, but I liked it enough for it to stick.

This was my "home" spot for a year :?




So I've autocrossed a bunch, and it's been great. It's cheap, stress-free, you can convince yourself it's competitive, and not abusive to the car - though I'll never get over standing around for 6 hours to drive for 5 minutes. But another local event popped up at NCCAR, that was a solo style one lap at a time thing...my first time on a real track. I loved it enough for it to be a Big Problem.





Splitting the Nobles during a warmup/parade lap.


I think HPDE's are a better idea. I knew I was being timed, and because of that, I wanted to beat my last time (thankfully I had no idea what other people's times were during the event). Despite an intended "be cool" approach, I found it hard to tame the red mist and wound up putting two wheels off coming onto the front straight at ~90, which was a new thing for me. Both I and the car survived, and I ended up being 7th of 40-something cars. The two Noble M400's took 1-2, and I wonder what difference a set of Star Specs or RS-3's would've made. But the thought of losing that much money in car...I'll rethink it before going back in something I'm not okay with just writing off.

At this point, I love the car, and I'm done with it. The only thing I'd possibly consider next would be a square setup with stickier tires or something.

After having not been on it for yearsfucking ebay.

This was actually a muffler (Scorza - real deal, not some ebay special) I'd been keeping an eye on for awhile. They/ALL e46 M3 mufflers are like $1200-1600 brand new, which is egregious and an affront to all that is good and holy. A boring Sunday resulted in picking this thing up a couple days later for an easily recoverable price. I love it 90% of the time, which is more than I expected for any e46 s54 muffler, because they generally sound like dammit - I don't know why the s54 sounds so different than your typical BMW I6. The black tips don't jive with my "more OEM than OEM" look, but either I'll switch or get used to it like the short shifter.



Why on earth BMW decided to make a muffler that barely fits on my kitchen table - I'd much prefer a spare tire - is beside me, but the new one, aside from being blingier, saves like 30lbs I'm sure I'll never notice are gone.

So I'm not sure what's next. Working from home and still managing to put 20k on it in a year...I really enjoy the thing. I'd love to get a set of ARC-8 wheels/ST-classed tires and pretend I'm locally competitive, but I still live in an apartment and I'm not gonna lug an extra set of wheels around. But I never thought I'd touch this car with anything but a sponge in the first place, either.

More run-on sentences and cell phone pictures to come, I hope.