williamwashere

I’m constantly vexed by the fact that I won’t touch Meta with a ten foot pole, and now it’s absorbed even the Craig’s List section of the internet. I can’t easily shop for a used one nearby. I’m a menace to my HOA because I demanded a non-Facebook group for the neighborhood. (I promise I’m not as much of a pain in the ass as that paragraph makes me sound like!) New one at Harbor Freight is $370. Maybe I could rent mine out for $50 a month to local builders when I’m done… I just don’t know if I have a long enough stretch of time to get it in over a weekend, and then believing I wouldn’t need it again.

@hahuang65 did you rent one from someone nearby? I’m debating buying one vs renting one. None of my friends are cool enough to have one.

Okay, not the Lambda probe, but @jmaz this looks like it would be helpful for you!

Eh, it doesn't have nearly enough wires. At least compared to the figure in the build manual, so seems unlikely. Sorry!

I'm just thumbing through the build guide instead of doing my actual job, and I haven't built mine yet so this is a shot in the dark, but is that the connector that goes under the car towards the Lambda Probe in the exhaust?

The painted 7 grill was a good choice. And I'm a sucker for two-tone wheels. Now that I see one with a complete headlight delete, it really goes from "face" to "machine" and the character really changes. Not saying I won't do it at some point, but it's a drastic change. I think it needs low beams and high beams as separate mini lights if you were going to do road-use, plus indicators somewhere, which are missing from the one I shared earlier. Then it might look more like a Dungeons & Dragons Beholder with so many little pods?

I haven't done the math comparing what I paid vs today's pricing, but that is a nice checklist of things I did pay extra for when I ordered mine.

If I'm replacing my headlight bowls, I'm going whole hog into micro headlights and removing them entirely. https://kosonorthamerica.com/product/mini-led-headlight-series/ This is a new CSR I saw that did this (https://www.beachmanracing.com/inventory): Would just have to figure out indicators...

"7 wonders of the world" on Blatchat is organizing the buy on the UK forum. He's given me permission to give out his contact info here so anybody who's interested can join, I'll send you instructions and his contact info privately. He's collecting the funds now so I wouldn't sit on it too long. Total USD was $131.61 USD after currency conversion and PayPal fee for 1x, shipping to Texas. Tariffs are a mystery, so that will just be a surprise.

The group buy is happening now, but I don't have a USA price yet. Price is £75 (not £77, typo on my part) per unit incl UK delivery, and I've asked for a USA shipping price but I haven't received it yet.

Message me your address, I can add you if you’re serious. I don’t have a total US price yet though, will be over 77 GBP, that’s what he’s charging UK folks.

Any recommendations @Vovchandr on 3rd party pods?

Wow, nice choice on color!! I really like the graphics package that came with the Encore builds. That's going to be fun!!

I have a Onewheel, and I needed to torque a bolt on it when I swapped out a hub. I asked AI instead of finding the spec sheet, I was being lazy. It gave me a torque spec that was double the actual, recommended torque, and I sheered the bolt off. After the bolt sheered, some significant cursing, and my kids discovering I DID know all the four letter words I said I didn't use, I asked it, "Are you sure that was the right torque setting?" It responded, "Oh, good thing you asked! I checked again and the torque setting should be half the number I previously stated." All this to say, as somebody that lives and breathes IT (in-fact I host a lot of Anthropic, Groq, and Meta's infrastructure) when it is a mission-critical use or references a specific spec, for general purpose LLMs (large language models) you need to treat them like they're college interns. They're great at compiling a lot of data for YOU to check and determine if its real, but all references and specifics need to be double checked. Few LLMs have your intuition, and many just want to "please" you and won't come back with "I don't know." Some tips though: In all my prompts for research I add the line, "Be skeptical. If sources conflict, say so. Don't paper over uncertainty." And in my personal settings with the models (usually in their settings) I add to every prompt to have it ask me more qualifying questions if that would improve the results.

You’re making me feel worse if all that took was some compressed air to clean!!

I have the kids trying to figure out the plate! No leading candidates yet, I’m a tough judge of lame license plate puns.

Had Claude check this, so standard AI info grains of salt apply: ”TxDMV form (VTR-852) is clear on this: once a vehicle is approved for Custom Vehicle or Street Rod license plates, the vehicle is exempt from the Texas vehicle emissions inspection. So even though Montgomery County is one of the 17 counties that require annual emissions inspections for registration, that requirement doesn’t apply to properly titled and plated Custom Vehicles. The key is making sure the vehicle is correctly registered as a “Custom Vehicle” with the specialty plates, not just titled as an ASVE with standard plates. A Texas Cobra Club thread highlights that some owners in emissions counties ran into trouble because their ASVE was titled with a model year but didn’t have the Custom Vehicle specialty plate — the county then treated it as a standard gasoline vehicle of that model year and required emissions testing.”

I am so surprised that they still haven’t fixed the fuel gauge without some weird aftermarket man in the middle. Seems like an obvious problem with a customer need Caterham should address themselves!

Man, I’m glad they didn’t make you start over or something for having the title initially rejected. Are there any circuits near Dallas you frequent?

I think it’s that Walt Grace, where that demo unit lives, is in Miami.

Oh man that looks satisfying!!! Congratulations! It is a British sports car so the electrics will always be a little off!

I'm so glad that's it! Hopefully you'll film it firing up!

For those that don’t have access, this was the explanation on the UK forum: For gentle road use, the original rubber bush and washers are fine. With sticky tyres for aggressive road driving and/or track use the rubber bush can tear, especially if the nylon washers become too worn and the sideways movement of the bush becomes aggressive. With track use, the nylon washers can be destroyed after a few track days due to the high lateral loads continually hammering the deDion mount into the A-frame and putting high pressure on the nylon washers as the rubber bush flexes. As the rubber bushes for the A-frame and radius arms / Watts linkage for the deDion isolate the mounting points from the chassis, the deDion to A-frame bush doesn’t cause any noticeable deterioration in NVH when it is a solid spherical bearing, but the handling can be more precise when the car is under high lateral loads, besides the longevity issue of the standard bush and washers.

I’m on the UK forum thread, it seems like the explanation is it removes a wear item when you track a lot. It doesn’t seem to have an impact on handling in their explanation, but I can see where having some flex would be beneficial and a more fixed point would just move that stress elsewhere.

My company has to import/export a lot of equipment. Everything I've heard from the procurement folks is that right now, if you're in a hurry, you're going to just have to accept whatever the customs agent at whatever shipper currently thinks is the safest, most legal way for them to do it right now. If you want to dispute it and get the "right" rate, you can do that, but be prepared for it to take a lot of extra time. It's fairly painful with all the uncertainty and the rush of goods coming in and out with little system support, depending on the shift you get and who's at the terminal you can get different rates right now. As a company we have lawyers and staff that can handle the corrections, there is a formal process for doing these things, but as an individual I'd really have to figure out if it's worth the time/effort. What a world we live in right now.