jimrankin

I'm going to do a change out of my stock Honda ECU, or at least trick the O2 sensors with the aftermarket "dummy" plugs and do a whole new mufflet set up. I'll gain some room when the "Cat" is gone.Just haven't taken the time to research all the options yet. I'm just about retired, finish a few more projects at work and I'm out of here and into serious time for my own projects (boats, cars and drinking) instead of everyone elses emergencies. I do have to say that the test ride I did with the new "monterey box" was suprisingly pleasant. Even with the exhaust pointed under the car the real blast of sound was really deminished on my side and I'm sure any passenger I might have ride with me will be crying with relief. I've only ridden in the passenger seat a few times and it can be a bit like standing in front of the speaker tower at an old Dead show, not that I remember much of those times now. LOL.

It weighs about as much as a really small Danforth Anchor (maybe 10 lbs)and helps the performance about as much. As for being an honorary "redneck", I already qualify. I lived in Virginia for a while, back in my early MGA days and still have family on the islands outside Charleston S.C. Do my best work under a shade tree. LOL.

Heres hoping.

(Part of trying to get my car from 100+ DB down to 92DB for Monterey)Stupid me, I didn't get around to ordering some mandrel bent exhaust/header tube pieces "on line" and was forced to buy last minute Saturday morning at a muffler shop. When I had him bend off a couple of 90 and 180 bends the pipe was crushed and misshaped so badly I had to abandon my first idea of just routing the pipe back under the car to a small muffler I was going to hang in the back. I picked up a few feet of extra 3" and some 2" straight pipe and went home. After a few minutes of not very clear or careful thought and planning I decided to abandon routing the exhaust through a few tricky turns back under the car and thought "I'll build a muffler". Using "thought" in this instance now seems like an oxymoron. Anyway, I've learned a valuable lesson about not following the process of "critical path management" I use at work. On the plus side, I do think I'm now below 92DB (and probably down about one HP for each DB) On the minus side I spent a good part of the weekend on this and I'll probably get laughed out of the paddock. This is just for one single use as I procrastinated for months about a whole new muffler and an ECU that didn't require my "cat" and still plan on doing that "eventually". As usual, I'm having a hard time getting more than one picture to load but this give you an idea of "The Monterey Box from hell". LOL

Please post the phone number for that Urologist office...PLEASE!

Funny that there were MGA's in the lead photo. I have a friend who claims I singlehandedly made them so expensive by crashing so many of them when they were still cheap. Best deal I ever got was a rust free 1600, not a dent in it and good paint, that had been sitting out in the weather with no top for quite some time and the current owner did not even know if it would run or what it might need.$400.00!! Towed it home, changed the oil, replaced the dried out O rings in the brakes, installed two batteries and it started and ran fine from then on. Made new door panels, painted the dash (instruments all still worked, like four gauges total) reupholstered the cockpit surround, got two seat covers and carpets by mail and the thing looked like new. Didn't have to crash that one myself, my room mate borrowed it for a date and put in under a giant 70's Thunderturd. It was #4 and my last MGA. Anyone who ever had one will tell you that they are some of the easiest, most forgiving cars to drive hard ever made. Well, as hard as you can drive a car with about a hundred HP. LOL.

Probably recycled but got this from a friend this AM: The question is "how many dependents do you have"? The IRS sent my tax return back AGAIN! I guess it was because of my answer to the question "list all dependents". I replied with what I thought was a truthful answer.... 12 million illegal immigrants; 1 milllion crack heads in publicly funded rehab; 42 million able people on welfare and food stamps; 2 million people in 243 prisons; 535 fools in the U.S. House and Senate. (I didn't list the millions under 65 getting Social Security who never paid in a dime because at least a few of them might really need it). Apparently, this was NOT an acceptable answer. Never try to use the truth when dealing with the IRS.

GoPro strikes again. As I've noted before that are really experts at shooting themselves in the foot. Why they would leave the camera mike active "for stereo" is somewhat lame, since the microphone plug-in IS Stereo! Oh well, just got a pair of stereo mics, did not get time to play with them this weekend, too busy adding an "add on" muffler so I can hopefully get down to 92BD for Montery. Car was almost pleasant sounding but I am afraid it may have cost me quite a few HP. Will report on any progress as it happens.

Used it in my previous Silverado and was easy to wire in (GM has the wires there, just had to "unwrap" them) It was easy to control by doing their "test". If I remenber correctly, just drive 30MPH and bring it up till a tire locks, note the reading and back it off and your set. Only problem i had was it used to stay "on" so you alway saw there little gremlin eyes under th dash when you walked by at night. I think it was supposed to go "off" by itself but that might have been something I did or set wrong and never bothered me enough to check it out. If I remember was about $100 and was recommended by the truck accessories place that sold more expensive units also.

To a point size does, but it's mostly the frontal area that causes the milage reduction, not the weight unless your climbing a mountain. Since most trailers over 16-18' are about the same frontal area as a 24-30' it's really not a big difference in what you see for milage. As for size, just think about your garage. No matter how much space you have it always seems like not enough. I do agree that a 16' trailer, properly set up, is probably all you "need" for a "7". I also know that I wasn't looking for a 24' trailer when I got mine but glad I have it now. As for towing: I never had a problem with towing it with my 1500 Silverado, maybe because it had a long wheel base extra cab and 8' bed, electric brakes on both axles and set the tongue weight to where it felt the best by experimenting a bit. Even pretty good cross winds and going through the mountains on two laners wasn't a big deal. Modern vehicles really are much better every year at braking and control. My 2500HD Silverado doesn't seem to know it's back there till we get to a gap pump. I try to keep the tow speeds down to about 65 (Ca. limits trailers to 55 but the car traffic is usually moving at about 75 on the open roads so I feel like I'm a problem if I go 55). Drops about 6-8 MPG with the trailer but I just had a Lear Model #122 camper shell installed and I think it will gain me back about 2 MPG. It's an exact match to my last camper shell (really high at the back of the shell) and it gained me about that on the last truck. In short, 16' will work but you may end up with "trailer envy" when someone parks a 20' next to you, just rolls the car out and everything is "set up" by just hanging the tie down straps in the closet. LOL.

I try to buy from "brick" stores but with some of the stuff we need it's the internet or you just aren't going to find it. I feel for you on the "clog" of misinformation you get, especially from E-bay, my last resort search. What my real gripe is has nothing to do with clogged up information, but with the fact that there seems to be no type of regulation of any sort on what a site can say about themselves. Early this year I bought several items for a 2011 Silverado I had just ordered. The site claimed something like 28 Kazillion parts "in stock". I ordered a set of floor mats, window rain shields, a front hood shield and a custom two sided front window screen. Stuff started showing up a week or two later and each of them came from another vendor, not who I ordered from. Three parts were the parts I ordered but the "window sun screen" actually showed up as a plastic wind guard for a BMW sun roof. Since all of these items were on a "click on it to buy it" with pictures and everything shown was for a Silverado it wasn't a question of my entering a wrong part number. It took several calls and emails before I got through to someone and it actually did seem to be some lady in a house with her kids runing around. she seemed to have no idea what to do but said she would check with someone and email me a "return code", which never came. went through this a couple of times with no results and the company that actually sent it to me was more helpful but said just what i thought, they sell it to someone at a discount who then just passes the order to them. So the store with "28 Kazillion" parts in stock actually has exactly "0" parts in stock. I may have to go out and buy another BMW now, so i can use the sunroof wind sheild.

Over the last 50 years of having owned cars I can say two things with confidence: (1) it's not the HP of the car that makes it fun, it's the car being what you want and doing what it was designed for to a great degree of sucess which in turn feeds back to the driver a love for that particular car. (2) I've owned cars with well under 100HP and cars with way over 400HP, and no matter how many you have you will always push the pedal to the metal one day and say "I wish I had more". It just comes down in the end to the satisfaction of knowing you are getting the best out of the car/motor you have. If being the fastest in a straight line, or down the straight, is the most important thing to you, well, your always going to be unhappy with anything you buy because someone else is always going to have "more", and they are probably already unhappy with it! Your statement about driving the different cars and buying the one you like best is the "right way" to go, no matter the motor. This holds true for a "7" more than just about any other car on the road. We each love our own spacific type (even if we do lust after someone elses occasionally) because "7's" aren't really "cars", they are 'experiences".

Pull off your windshield, your lights, your fenders and wax your helmet, it will make you feel better but won't gain a whole lot. Just our "7" lot in life. LOL. Even when adding, or starting with more horsepower a "7" is going to start losing after about 100-110 MPH to anything with a low CD. That means we are going to be seriously losing top end to just about every other car at the track. Be Happy! Think of the shorter tighter tracks where you are going to kill everything except full on race cars! And on the longer tracks think about carrying speed late into the brake zone as if your set up properly not much but a mid or rear engined race prepped car is going to out stop you. The heavier high powered cars can't put all that power down till they are "straight" enough so it's all about you keeping the right line and powering on quicker where it's the "slow" part of the track to everyone else . Nothing pisses off someone who passes you down the straight at 140+ in a Big $ car like getting a blue checked flag or seeing you stuck to his bumper four corners later. It's even better when someone like RNR does it because (no offence RNR) I don't think he's washed it since he bought it. I'll bet he's caused more than a few driver of "polished $$" cars to delete that corner sequence off their GoPros. "you got passed by THAT" !LOL.

I get to my office (25Miles) at about 6AM so my morning commute is about 25 minutes (75MPH "or a bit more LOL" most of the way). If I work my usual day I leave around 4-5PM and it's usually over an hour home, and most of that time is the last 1/3 of the trip as I'm "anti-commute" direction till I hit 101 north. Some nights the 101 part of the ride will never even see 3rd gear. Thank God for XM radio. LOL. I'm only weeks away from quitting full time employment and as my "work" projects wind down I'll probably be totally "retired" before spring gets into the longer lighter days of summer. New plan coming... get up late, wait for the rat racers to get to their salt mines, venture out when the sun is warm, buy parts for whatever I'm puttering at, home before the rat racers clog the streets. When not puttering, go to boat, go to race tracks, go see other retired friends.

Look at what gets parked in the "center of attention" spot. LOL.

I'm not sure it wes correct but I did see it stated once that there were quite a few more registered motor vehicles in America than there were people. China may be "caring up" but I bet it's still something like one car for every one hunderd people. One of the things we don't think about in the US is the taxes some other people pay yearly for keeping a car. California jumped the "re-registration fees" way up over the last decade or two but I can still remember paying $5 a year on some of my "old" cars like my MGA's, the Jag and my trusty '66 GMC "Hippy Van". Now, I let my wife pay everything, because I just don't want to know. LOL.

Haven't you heard of tow vehicles. LOL.

She's right... at least in most cases. Most modern cars that have a temperature setting read the air temp at the return and put out about the same supply heat till it gets the return temp it wants. If your not on the "automatic" setting then fan speed on max will bring up the temp quicker. I have the opposite problem you do, my wife gets in and cranks my car to 85 from my constant of 68 because she thinks it's "warm faster" that way, and then doesn't remember to turn it down till we are baked.

You know what they say about boats, just a hole in the water in which to throw money. When you get to this scale you need to deliver the money to the hole in a dump truck. LOL.

I think you missed it. Ethanol is NOT important to me. In fact, right now, the way ethanol is being made, and pushed on us, I neither agree with or makes any sense to me. The point from the beginning has been that we, as a people in this country, are not going to give up our "automotive" lifestile and that barring some really fantastic technological breakthrough, combustible fuel is going to be the basic power source. We do not have the choice to "use it or not", we live in an industrialized suburbanized nation and it's pretty much drive or starve. As for "sacrifices", I don't think that deciding that commuting in a fully tricked out MINI Cooper S instead of a full sized pick up was a "sacrifice". Driving a Smart Car or hybrid might have been, for me anyway, a "sacrifice" of some kind, but one you notice I did not make. Thinking a bit ahead when planning my day or week, driving a fun car that gets twice the MPG of my pick up and trying to help my employees ride together really hasn't impacted my "lifestyle" at all. We are going to burn fuel, period. The point is, how much do you need to? This forum is about fun cars so any other questions to me about anything but them, fun cars, should be private messaged.

The report about ours and Canada's reserves is no secret... seen it on a bunch of other sites and watched the discussions go round and round. What I have gained from digesting most of this is that the reports are "true", the Dakotas oil is there, just like the Canadian Oil Sands reserveds are there and way bigger than all the middle east reserves combined. The problem comes from the "technically" available nature of the recovery. You will note that most of the oil recovered so far is from a few of the many wells already drilled. It's there, we can get at it, it's just not as cheap and easy as it sounds. Kind of like Gold, we have recovered "almost no measurable percentage" of the gold underground in California alone, but that doesn't mean it's profitable to go after the 99.9% we haven't dug up yet, even at the crazy price it's at right now. Oil recovery technology is improving and oil prices have risen (even considering to overall fluctuations) so oil locked in shale or coating grains of sand is becoming more profitable to go after. The real truth about oil is it's only about the money. Right now middle east oil is easy to get at, still highly profitable for the big players, and affordable to the point that we, the end user, will buy it without much more than a whimper about the cost. As for the "environmentalist" being the problem, get real. If it were a football game and the "Enviro's" were playing the "Big Oils's" it would be the BO's up by a few hundred points in the first quarter.

No external mic port on a GPHD1. No way to modify it according to GoPro. I was told that you can send away for a product sample of "Sonex" foam (or any competative product)and the piece you get is big enough to glue to the back of the "open" door your GP1 motorsports kit came with. It cuts down all sound but mostly wind noise if you trim it carefully.You then turn the volume up to compensate. Anything has to be better than what you get now.

Way back (OK way-way-way back) when I was driving/racing MGA's I met a guy who owned a plastics company in SF. He had modified an older school bus by taking out all of the rivets where the flat side and roof panels were joined to the tight curves that attached the "back of the bus" and built reinforcing hoops to keep it's shape and strength. The whole back lowered on cables and with a couple of short ramps he could winch his fixed head MGA in and out. He had room for two rows of seats on one side and tire/tool/spares stored behind the drivers side. Wives, kids and work got in the way for the next few decades so lost track of him. I did like his attitude at the time though, since his answer about how he was placing was " if winning was important to me, do you think I'd be driving an MGA?

That thing is sooo coooool, even for a Jay Leno toy. It does prove though that some people in Oregon have way too much time and way too much pot available. LOL.

Got a return email from GoPro about the microphone questions I had sent in. The power out of the GoPro is about 3V which is OK for powered microphones in "nornmal" situations. They did not know what microphones had been used for testing and gave no product suggestions. I did a little research and it turns out that powered microphones are usually optimized for 9V but do "work" down to about 1.5-2V. I love the GoPro video but as I posted before they always seem to find a way to shoot themselved in the foot with their audio. People who buy GoPro's are most likely not going to use them in "normal" conditions. What I found out about the "voltage/power" was that at 3V the microphone can not capture loud sounds without distortion. With a 9V input the microphone can reach it's full rated frequency and SPL ratings. So, in short, you are going to need to add an outside battery power source to use it for most anything but recording the family at Christmas dinner, and even that might be a problem if deaf old uncle X talks too loud. Been tweaking on the car so haven't gotten around to playing with the new GP2 but will post results when I do get a set of microphones.