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1994 Miata - early 1.8 liter, recent major service (timing belt, belts, hoses; cam, crank and CAS seals, factory water pump, plugs, wires). Runs well, 114k, a/c, stereo. Average cosmetics, decent interior except radio surround. $2,900/obo.
Please call Ted in Charlottesville at (434)978-1811.





I've driven this car, runs great. Rest assured my old man will disclose anything and everything about this car to the best of his ability.

Figured it'd be a good way to break up the week and it's been a while since we were up there. The time is flexible as to when we arrive since I'm sure no-one wants to sit in the rush hour traffic. If the weather's good I'll probably ride up there. Anyone interested in going up to White Flynt Mall?

So a coworker of mine arrives yesterday with a new Magnum Hemi to replace his busted old Escort Wagon. Cool! After lunch, he shows up in a new Sable Wagon. He thought the Magnum was too much car so he took it back and got this instead. Seriously though, how do you go from a car that is pretty fucking sweet to one of the worst cars you could possibly buy?

Argh, it hurts.

Well I have done some research and won some bids and I will be having these on my car in the next few months....



I just won a set for the front. 4-piston fixed brembos with 13" rotors. Still trying to get my hands on some 2-piston fixed rears. The rears will bolt right up to my stock car, but the fronts im going to need 99 galant front knuckles. Then everything bolts right up. I also am picking up a Sparco seat tomorrow with brackets, yes just one for now, I am not incredibly rich.

I got an incredible deal on both, which means cams are on hold for a while as I spend more money to get all this stuff in and with all the supporting requirements. Need a harness for the sparco and need knuckles and rear calipers for the brakes. But once all said and done should be quite sick.

I am excited and I dont want any of this bullshit, why didnt you get two seats or those are close to overkill on the brakes, if you think its cool or interesting, post, if your going to criticize please press the back button and just leave me be in my happy state.

I just wanted to start this thread to help people who are starting to buy their own tools make good decisions and get the most for their money. Any suggestions in general or specific deals or cool products can be posted here. I'll start with a few general thoughts I have and things I have learned so far...

1. Tool Trucks - USE THEM If you know a place where one stops each week get to know the owner. Bobby Taylor is our local Snap-On guy and he sure is great to work with. Most tool trucks offer NO INTEREST financing. This is usually on everything but the boxes. Low weekly payments can get nice tools in your box, even on a college budget.

2. Tool Boxes - CRAFTSMAN ONLY. Those or the like. Snap-On, MAC, and Matco are great boxes, but really overkill for most of us. There are used deals out there though, I almost picked up a used Snap-On for $1100 (regular over 4K) but I talked myself out of it.

3. Hammers.... Snap-On is the way my sons. How can you beat a life time warranty, plastic coated, pressed steel ball-peen hammer? You can't.... even at over $50 a pop they are well worth it.



4. Craftsman Kits - Avoid them. This may be a surprising suggestion but I have learned this one the hard way. So you buy one of those 200 piece mechanic's tool sets. It works great until you start moving up in the game. Then you realize you need the WHOLE SET of deepwells...or all the screw drivers. So then you go buy the sets you should have got in the first place. Now you have doubles. Do yourself a favor and just pick up the Ratchet pack and start buying sockets by the rack.

5. Gear Wrenches - Pick your poison...they are all expensive but well worth it. I like original gearwrench myself. However I would suggest getting the double box type. this saves space in the box and does not duplicate the open end of the wrenches you should already have. After all, you are only buying this set for the geared box right? Every Mechanic should have a set of both SAE and Metric STANDARD COMBINATION wrenches...not only gear wrenches. I recommend just cheap ones, Popular Mechanics brand is the shit!



6. "I might need this one day!" - If it is a tool you only use 1 in 100 jobs...why buy Snap-On? Or even Craftsman? If it is a rarely used piece you want to have on hand (Like line wrenches in my case!) check places like Wal-Mart and Tractor Supply. ThatÔÇÖs where the deals are. 5 piece SAE line wrenches for $10!!! Snap-On was over $100 for 7

7. Knipex Pliers...if you don't know what they are, go buy a set and see. The best Channel Lock pliers I have ever seen/used/owned/swore by.



I'm sure I will think of more, and I will post. I hope others will share ideas here and everyone can benefit!!!

Chan will be visiting ole NOVA this weekend for the first time in a long time (since he moved to GA?) and I figured we could get together, grill out and have some Red Bull & Vodkas to celebrate the occasion (on Saturday).

I just got The World's Fastest Indian on DVD too so maybe we could all watch that too.

Any takers?

The Monday after Hyperfest? NESBA, $175. Who's in?

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hock:

The date was 5/20/06, the day before was preparation and getting my car ready as it was completely in pieces. I had put my car down for fmic, gm maft setup and 1g throttle body. I was lazy and kept putting off getting the work done until that day in which I realized I needed to get it running. So I called up my friend, got an angle grinder and we knocked everything out pretty quickly, turned her on and no problems. I felt releived and *thought* I was ready for the next day.

I woke up at 6:00AM ran out the door and thought I had everything. Met up with a few fellow friends at 7am and headed from Northern Virginia up to Cal Ripken Stadium. I watched my temps and timing as I took the 2 hour drive up to Pennyslvania. Stopped a few times to pick up food/bathroom breaks, and finally got there with no problems.

It was only then that I realized I had forgotten to pick up my friend's helmet that I always use for autocross. So I had to wear the dorky-ass bright yellow loaner helmets, oh well, not like I hadnt done that before. I registered and took my car over to tech. They raised an eyebrow as to me running straight to the turbo, and then let me go. It would be 2 hours before I could take my runs so I took the time to look at the competition and inspect the course. Competition was nowhere as near as competitive as it usually was in Street Modified so I was fairly confident. A few evos, wrxs, vws, and a really nice 240sx. The 240 I knew would probably beat me out easily as he had an sr20 some wide-ass tires and full suspension. I felt I could roll with the rest of them if I was on my game. Then, I took a look at the course, 2 tight low-speed hairpins...shit. My car, the 2g awd has suv turning radius, and this was not going to be fun. 1 of the turns I could trail-brake heavily into the turn and "drift" it to get it around as much as I could. But the third had the timing equipment next to it, and I didnt think the hosts would like me playing around right there.

At around 3-4 pm they called for the fourth heat, which I was in. I jumped in my car, pulled it over to the lanes and got out to get my yellow helmet. I let my car warm up the whole time to the staging line. As I got to the line, I decided not to use my stutterbox and did a small 2-3 grand pussy-launch. The car got off relatively well for not launching and I hit the first slalom, first two turns right, then got out of synch and had to catch the wheel to avioid the last cone in the slalom, a rookie mistake. After that came a long sweeper, came outside and then back in using a 2-point apex turn situation, worked very well and I came in actually way too hot for the next turn, braked hard and understeered into a right 90 degree. Had a short straight so I finally could see how the car would do with the fmic, well, it straight surprised me, I had 1.5 second fuill of acceleration before I realized it was accelerating so fast compared to what I was used to. Slammed on the brakes, went wide into the turn and yet again understeered into the turn. Now was 1 of the hairpins, I came into it trail brakin but not enough, understeer, yet again. The car was feeling really loose, I knew I had forgotten to up the pressure. Then came 2 90 degrees in which I cut the first one perfectly, albeitly slowly but then going so slow I cut too far in for the 2nd 90 in which I had trouble getting around. Then a small slalom I cut through nicely. Then came the last turn, a very tight 90 degree. I had to come in real slow, barely give any acceleration and accelerate as much as I could out of the turn to the timing equipment 3 meters outside the turn.

2nd run. I was determined not to make the same mistakes. I decided this time to use my stutterbox, but did not have time to turn up the psi in my tires. Brought up the stutterbox to 5000rpm and came roaring out of the staging lanes. However, awd could not make up for my shitty tires and I burned all 4 all the way through first. This made for a slow first 20 meters. Got through the slalom perfectly, hit the 2 apex turn and slowed enough down for the 90. Got through that nicely, but again got too much speed on the straights and had to catch it again through the left 90. Hit the hairpin slowly with understeer again. This time I came through the two right 90s perfectly and made it through the slalom again. The last hairpin was still slow, but I went through just a little faster. Came in having the same time as last time....only .6 seconds faster.

Then came our last run of the day. I set my stutterbox even lower at 4750 rpm and launched, a lot of wheelspin halfway through 1st but caught at the end. I started hitting the slaloms with excellent speed and came through most of the course to hit the first hairpin, I did not nearly trailbrake as much as I should and hit mad understeer, I must have lost 2 seconds in that turn I was wAYYYYY to outside. The next 3 turns I executed nicely, not perfectly but then came to the last hairpin. Came in hard and whipped the back around to get enough speed to pass through the timing lights 3 seconds faster than any of my previous runs.

At the end I met up with two of my friends that ran in the same heat, altough different classes. One with a wrx with ant-roll bars and full coilover suspension with falken azenis, he came in 2 seconds slower than I. Then my friend with a 328i, some suspension setup and falken azenis. Intake and exhaust also only. Came in 5 seconds slower than me, so I had beaten my friends, but we all enjoyed the event.

My setup (anything to do with autocross, neglecting many supporting and random power and comfort mods):

Shittty Intrax springs
Stock shocks
stock anti-roll bars
big16g turbo
3000GT SL wheels, 16x8
The original tires that came on that 3000gt from the factory in 1994. Literally peeling if you want pictures. Some random all-seasons.



Here are pictures: (Pictures compliments of TEAMWTF.ORG)