In case there are any new members who can't drive stick and do not have access to learn, you can learn for free in a Polaris Slingshot. You can also go test drive one (if you can already operate a clutch) to enter their Summer of Fun contest (trip to Maui).
For you NoVa folks you have two options:

Coleman Power Sports in Falls Church (435 S Washington St) or Woodbridge (14105 Telegraph Road).

Quote:MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Polaris Slingshot, the three-wheeled, open-air roadster which promises to deliver the most fun you can have behind a steering wheel, is reintroducing the lost art and pure fun of driving a manual transmission. In celebration of National Stick Shift Day on July 16, consumers can visit their local Slingshot dealership throughout the month of July for a free stick shift driving lesson. Each lesson will enter the participant in the Summer of Fun sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip to Maui, Hawaii and an opportunity to flex their newly-acquired skills in the ultimate driving experience on the Road to Hana.

My vehicle life has been pretty boring as of late, I sold my motorcycle early this year, I've had the Miata going on 5 years now, the Taurus rallycar and moped are long gone. So I decided it was time to change things up a bit.

My plan was to get something that was more comfortable than the Miata for work and back, with a manual trans and more power.

So this is a 2005 Cadillac CTS-V and is approximately as far away from a Miata as you can get. 

   

   

   

   

It checks all my boxes and is substantially different from anything else I've owned up until now (4 doors, real trunk, reasonable leg room, a few "luxury" features). 

This is a 2005, which means it comes with the naturally aspirated LS6 from the C5 Z06 making 400HP. It's got a fairly low-key Magnaflow cat-back exhaust on it and as far as I know, that is the extent of the modifications. 

I don't have much in the way of plans for it besides maintenance and driving it. Needs engine/trans/diff mounts as the Caddy ones all collapse as they get old and diff mount should help keep rear end from exploding as these are prone to do. Front brake pads, restore headlights, add bluetooth, change clutch fluid, fix falling out fog-light, replace broken splashguard, change oil pressure sensor (at least I don't think the engine is at 130 psi all the time...), and replace whatever garbage tires are on it now.  Basically a bunch of little stuff as I get to it. No rush, for now just planning on enjoying it!

Oh, I took it over the scales at work for giggles:
   

Who's in? This is a "crossover" event between Great Lakes and Mid Atlantic (meaning points earned for TT/racing will reflect in either region, based on where "home" is). 

I will be bringing the purpaderp racecar in GTS2 and towing it behind a Sequoia Limited, courtesy of Toyota. Got a hotel for Friday & Saturday nights and plan on doing dinner in Pittsburgh proper on Friday evening if anyone would like to join.

https://www.motorsportreg.com/events/brr...ent-288224

The pavement at Verona is likely being torn up and turned into athletic fields after this season. I'm on the waitlist for Pitt Race and I think some students are going to this autocross, so I may swing down and do some runs.

I'm looking for some decent wheels to run the e46 on for cruising/taking it to the store/meets. Like the title says, 17's or 18's will do as long as they are decent specs and are still round. 

I'm also looking to buy a few more sets of spares (16's or 17's). As long as they are 5x120 or weak spec 5x114 (adapters), hold air in a tire, are somewhat round, and are cheap; I'm interested.

I picked this car up early May of this year after getting back from school and driving the e46 that I'd sold to a friend before coming down to school. To say the least, I missed the hell out of the car but didn't have the money to meet his asking price. So I found the next best thing: a 2002 325i with a rebuilt title from a rear end collision 4 years ago. After some digging, I found out the car was totaled out in New York from a "low speed parking lot collision". The trunk doesn't line up perfect, there's some Bondo that was obviously done in a hurry, and the quarters don't exactly follow the original body lines, but who cares. 

The previous owner had listed the car on Facebook as a "BMW 1 series", with the details filled out as "4 cylinder" "automatic transmission", and the only description was "Service light for misfire and vacuum leak". He was asking $2500 for the car which was way more than I was willing to spend, but at 10:30PM just 5 minutes from my friends garage we figured we'd go take a look. It started right up... On 5 cylinders. Previous owner had "installed" what looks like an m50 coilpack he'd had laying around which wasn't delivering any spark. He let us know that the front right caliper was seizing at random times, test driving it for a minute it became obvious that the diff bushing was toast, and we found countless other things that I'd replace either way that could help drive the price down. 

I came back the next day with a scanner to verify everything and found the car was running pretty lean, 7% LTFT (I still need to swap the maf to OEM and replace a rear o2 sensor), found a little rust around the rear drain holes, noticed the kidney grilles beat up, windshield cowel rotted, and the rear right window motor broken, all things that were cheap enough to fix, or irrelevant enough to ignore for a while (like the rear window). The sunroof also didn't like to close once you opened it (I'll probably try to fix this eventually). In the end, I got the car for $800 because he was tired of it sitting in his driveway.  

Need one for the family vacation and uHaul and other small local places are failing me.

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Anyone going?  I'm going to take the CB400F over, probably get there around 7.

Edit - Great Falls/Katie's cars n cofeets...

I picked up this little old mini bike for the kids (and probably me, tbh) It had been sitting outside for who knows how many years, but it was $50 and looked like it could be get going again

Plan was to just clean it up, get it going and have some fun, the engine would fire up on car cleaner so it should be pretty easy. Per usual, the internet lead me down some rabbit holes and the plan changed slightly to just junk the 97cc engine for a 212cc harbor freight.

We got the frame stripped down the other day and we'll get it cleaned for paint, which might take them a while. Have a few parts on order but it should be as easy as drilling some new holes for the engine mount and hooking it back up.