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USA - England tomorrow at 2:30. Good first match today between Mexico and South Africa. Gonna be a fun next month or so

If you're located in the Blacksburg'ish southern part of the valley, or are bored out your mind and want to drive a long distance to race around a parkinglot full of cones there's an autocross this sunday on one of the Virginia Tech lots. If you go, park near the other 3 MM miata's there (black, blue, red, collect the whole set!)

Hey everyone...

Its been quite a while since I've posted on here and I'm sure people have came/gone, so I will reintroduce myself.

I am Brian, JMU Business Alum.

I'm sure a lot of you know me or at least have seen my car around.

My now garage queen... 99 M3 (for sale btw, but not aggressively pushing the sale, trying to hold off for Jake's sake, lol)

http://www.vimeo.com/11932030

13 minutes - Watch full screen in HD. Absolutely amazing.

Never been read, so the pages and binding are pretty much perfect. $20/obo shipped.

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I only have class T/Th this Fall and was wondering how plausible it would be to obtain a job at one of the dealerships in town. I don't mean washing cars though, maybe something with a little higher pay grade. This pending the training course or whatever is required of course. Is this idea completely crazy?

So I left a note on a car two years ago at Texas Roadhouse in Harrisonburg. It was a red 1991 Spirit R/T...one of 1,208 cars built with the 225hp 2.2L DOHC turbo engine. The owner called me this past week and offered to sell me the car for about half of what I have been told by those in the know it should sell for. Even that being the case I need to decide, its either the Spirit or the Jeep. Even with fixing the few things the Spirit needs, paintjob and some little things, I will have money left over after selling the Jeep.

It was the fastest 4dr sedan sold in America in 1991. 5.6 seconds to 60. This car has 120,000 miles on it. The owner bought it as a dealership demo with 15,000 miles on it.

I think I am at the point with the Jeep that moving forward and doing anything else to it will start to cost larger sums of money. I will get close to having more in it then it is worth. All that to wheel the two public trails that exist locally. While I like it and have fun with it, as a project it is near its end.

So, do I keep the Jeep or sell it to fund saving this rare piece of Mopar history?

Trying to unload some stuff I just don't need anymore/need $$$

Guess I'm too lazy to post the crap in here so here are the links for the stuff off CL..

Bike Stuff
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Bass
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Music Janx
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David and David have been to Greenwich numerous times in years past - and they invited me to come along this year. It was my first time at the Concours and I really had a great time. The weekend was VERY fast-paced... I drove from JMU to Northern VA on Friday afternoon, had dinner with mom & dad, and swapped cars with Dad so we could have something reasonably cushy and lux-o to pimp hard up to CT.

This sums up the entire trip. And if you want any high-rez - some make cool desktop wallpaper - PM me.



Lots of this happened throughout our two days in cool-town:



We all piled in the car on Saturday and departed from Oakton around 8:45. The drive up to Greenwich was easy with no real delays. We did have to drive through New Jersey on the turnpike. It was odd having someone else pump gas for you. All three of us took turns driving, and even with the occasional spurring of all 255 pwnies from under the hood, had a pretty good MPG average goin' on for a big-ish sedan.



Anyway. We slogged our way through New York traffic for a few minutes, but otherwise the drive was easy. Made it into town about 2 in the afternoon and started wandering around, near Greenwich Ave. Think Reston Town Center, but with significantly more money floating around.

Tesla had a Roadster parked for display demo...







This stuff was also in the parking lot with the Tesla - it's a place called Richards, a high-lux department store apparently. There were LOTS of Panameras in town. And 911s. And I still don't find the Panamera all that attractive, even after seeing 17 of them in a square mile.



We also hit up the dealerships in town, after parking nearby:



They all know the Concours is taking place during the weekend and had no problem with three punk kids from Virginia poking and prodding at their high-dollar cars.















So after looking at cars in dealerships that we couldn't afford, we drove over to where Day 1 of the Concours was happening. The "visitor parking lot" where us plebeians could park also had some neat stuff:







...and it had this:



We weren't planning on walking around Day 1 of the show. It's $25 per day to enter, or $40 for both days, and we wanted to save some money. So we wandered over to the side parking lot, where Mercedes and Cadillac were both set up with "test drive tents" - and we asked how to test drive the Mercedes AMGs they had... "oh, just get a wristband from inside the tent" - so we walked into their tent, and were in the show. :thumbup:

Here's some Day 1 action - all American stuff:

















Mini had a tent set up both days... the original Minis were pretty small:



This was also there both days... the Tupolev 007. Here's Autoblog's info about it.



So then we went back to the AMG tent. Mercedes had three AMG models available for test-drive if you were 21 or older. As your humble MM P-Rez is a mere 20 until September, I was able to ride along as David and David beat on the C63 AMG and E63 AMG. There was a Merc rep in the passenger seat of each car, and they provided a route for us - which included ample highway on-ramp womping opportunities. The reps encouraged spirited driving which was great.


David being coddled by the active bolsters, massagers and seat coolers in the E63 AMG


Notice where the tach needle is pointing. This is getting on I-95... we actually had to slow down to merge at the end of the ramp

After moderate hoonage, we drove around Greenwich admiring the massive houses and nice properties, whilst looking for exotic cars (i.e. no Panameras). Had pizza on Greenwich Ave for dinner, and went to our hotel in Stamford later that night.

Or Miatabike, I can't pick a name. (Sorry Jake, it'll still beat you).

So I bought something that started life as a 1993 Suzuki GS500 today. I found it near Greensboro. It has two new tires, a new chain kit, a powdercoated frame, a Katana front end, a custom built rear subframe, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

For further reading into the background of the bike and my debate over whether or not to buy it, check these babies out.

For sale Ad:
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=52584.0

Discussion:
http://www.mmsports.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9214
http://www.mmsports.org/forum/viewtopic....78#p190678

When I went down today the bike looked exactly as promised, tons of new stuff, a little dirty and a little rough around the edges, but its getting close to 20 years old, and its a $1000 bike, none of it worried me. However, the bike refused to start, it gave one little cough and then just cranked miserably for as long as we tried.

I was about to walk away from it, i really was. I knew the motor might need work, but I had been under the persuasion it would start and run, and im too skittish to buy something I couldn't at least see run or make sure it rides straight. After trying to jump it, bleeding the carbs out, fiddling with the petcock and cranking the hell out of it, it still wouldn't turn. The guy swore it was the carbs holding it back, but I had my doubts they had managed to gum up since the last time it was ridden.

He asked us to give him sometime to clean the carbs up and then check it out again, since I was already in North Carolina I figured what the hell, and said okay. So Channing and I went to get lunch and debated the situation. Halfway through my sandwich he sends me a picture of a carb that can obly be described as full of jello. "Well I'll be damned" Again, he is having trouble getting to start, again I'm about to walk away from it, and as I call him, I hear the bike chugging in the background.

Mkay, what the hell, I go back and look at it again, after cleaning the jello out off the bowls and putting clean (but too small) jets in them. And after it chugs and complains for a second it settles into a beautiful purr. Well now we obviously have to ride it. Channing and I cruise around the apartment complex, it won't take much throttle because of the too small jets, but it starts off and rides beautifully.

The idea that I can just rejet the carbs and rebuild them and have it run perfectly gets into my head. So the paperwork comes out. $1000 got me the bike, a blown bottom end with a good clutch and transmission on it, some spare case guards, a spare ported and polished head, spare cams, spare valve cover, original tachometer, a spare front tire and some other odds and ends.

We loaded it up and when I dropped Channing off he gave me a new valve cover gasket and some shiny new spark plugs. I took it home and delicately unloaded it, putted around the yard, then took it in the garage and disassembled it. I need to rebuild and rejet the carbs, replace the rear brake line, put the kickstand switch on, and install or make a license plate bracket, shim the seat to my preference, and set the rear shock to my weight, then it *should* be just fine to ride out on public roads.

After that stuff is done I have a fairly long list of hopes and desires. Some of which include:

- Moving the totally bitchin data recording thing under the tank and putting a stock speedo and tach back on it.
-Replacing the petcock with one from a post 2001 bike
-Replace the tank bolts with good hardware
-Repaint the tank, same cream color (I love it) but it has a big bubble in it
-Do a lot of general cleaning and tidying
-Do a dual headlight swap with a little fairing
-Possibly switch to a ducati monster seat with a cover to go over the rear

This list will probably grow exponentially, but most of them won't require much money, just some elbow grease, which is just fine with me.

Anyway, I got it home, puttered around the yard for a minute and then took it into the garage and took it apart. I took the carbs out and found the right jets in the bag he gave me. I'll get an o-ring kit, a brake line and some other stuff this week.

Oh, I should probably also register it and get it insured, and maybe buy a jacket or something.


**The Skinny: for you non-readers**

I took these things:


And turned them into this: